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Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future
by David GrinspoonFor the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made--up until this point, inadvertently--to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence. Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon suggests that our present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential, especially when viewed from a 10,000-year perspective. Our species has surmounted the threat of extinction before, thanks to our innate ingenuity and ability to adapt, and there's every reason to believe we can do so again. Our challenge now is to awaken to our role as a force of planetary change, and to grow into this task. We must become graceful planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth's biosphere. This is a perspective that begs us to ask not just what future do we want to avoid, but what do we seek to build? What kind of world do we want? Are humans the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to our planet? Today we stand at a pivotal juncture, and the answer will depend on the choices we make.
Earth in Space (Student Guide and Source Book)
by Carol O'DonnellWith an appropriate curriculum and adequate instruction, middle school students can develop the skills of investigation and the understanding that scientific inquiry is guided by knowledge, observations, ideas, and questions.
Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years (Our Universe #1)
by Stacy McAnultyA lighthearted nonfiction picture book about the formation and history of the Earth--told from the perspective of the Earth itself!"Hi, I’m Earth! But you can call me Planet Awesome." Prepare to learn all about Earth from the point-of-view of Earth herself! In this funny yet informative book, filled to the brim with kid-friendly facts, readers will discover key moments in Earth’s life, from her childhood more than four billion years ago all the way up to present day. Beloved children's book author Stacy McAnulty helps Earth tell her story, and award-winning illustrator David Litchfield brings the words to life. The book includes back matter with even more interesting tidbits.This title has Common Core connections.
Earth's Core and Lower Mantle (The Fluid Mechanics of Astrophysics and Geophysics)
by Christopher A. Jones Keke Zhang Andrew M. SowardScientists have made new inroads in the study of the Earth's deep interior. They have forged developments in this fascinating arena using experimental and observational techniques,. including seismology, monitoring of the Earth's rotation, geomagnetism, and accurate measurements of Earth's gravity fields. These techniques along with more theoretica
Earth's Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters
by Martin J. RudwickEarth has been witness to mammoths and dinosaurs, global ice ages, continents colliding or splitting apart, comets and asteroids crashing catastrophically to the surface, as well as the birth of humans who are curious to understand it all. But how was it discovered? How was the evidence for it collected and interpreted? And what kinds of people have sought to reconstruct this past that no human witnessed or recorded? In this sweeping and magisterial book, Martin J. S. Rudwick, the premier historian of the earth sciences, tells the gripping human story of the gradual realization that the Earth's history has not only been unimaginably long but also astonishingly eventful. Rudwick begins in the seventeenth century with Archbishop James Ussher, who famously dated the creation of the cosmos to 4004 BC. His narrative then turns to the crucial period of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when inquisitive intellectuals, who came to call themselves "geologists," began to interpret rocks and fossils, mountains and volcanoes, as natural archives of Earth's history. He then shows how this geological evidence was used--and is still being used--to reconstruct a history of the Earth that is as varied and unpredictable as human history itself. Along the way, Rudwick defies the popular view of this story as a conflict between science and religion and reveals that the modern scientific account of the Earth's deep history retains strong roots in Judaeo-Christian ideas. Extensively illustrated, Earth's Deep History is an engaging and impressive capstone to Rudwick's distinguished career. Though the story of the Earth is inconceivable in length, Rudwick moves with grace from the earliest imaginings of our planet's deep past to today's scientific discoveries, proving that this is a tale at once timeless and timely.
Earth's Early Atmosphere and Oceans, and The Origin of Life
by George H. ShawThis book provides a comprehensive treatment of the chemical nature of the Earth's early surface environment and how that led to the origin of life. This includes a detailed discussion of the likely process by which life emerged using as much quantitative information as possible. The emergence of life and the prior surface conditions of the Earth have implications for the evolution of Earth's surface environment over the following 2-2. 5 billion years. The last part of the book discusses how these changes took place and the evidence from the geologic record that supports this particular version of early and evolving conditions.
Earth's Incredible Oceans (The Magic and Mystery of the Natural World)
by Jess FrenchEnter the world of oceans and discover all the interesting animals that live in them!Swim with jellyfish, wonder at the busy life of a seagrass meadow, and fence with narwhals in this lovingly illustrated children&’s book. Take kids on a fascinating underwater journey, showing them just how amazing oceans are, what plants and animals live in them, and how we can help themInside the pages of this kids ocean book, you&’ll discover: • Interesting information about oceans that supports and goes beyond the curriculum • Fun and unusual facts to convey the amazing world of ocean life • Detailed illustrations and photographs of fish, shellfish, mammals such as dolphins, waves, and more Explore a world hidden below the wavesLet's go on an underwater adventure! From glowing jellyfish to deep-sea dwellers, children will discover the incredible secret world of life under the sea. This ocean book is filled with a combination of gorgeous photographs and colorful illustrations that will delight and inspire kids - teaching them the importance of the ocean and how to help take care of it themselves.Little ones will be intrigued by sea life like sharks, narwhals, sea birds, ocean reptiles, and so much more. They will learn interesting facts, and explanations about how the ocean functions, like how underwater plants and species rely on each other, and how ocean animals have fun and look after their young. This beautiful book is the perfect gift for young animal and conservation enthusiasts.More children&’s nature titles to discover DK's Kid&’s Nature series is a series of educational books for kids that teach them about the magical natural world. Other books in this series include The Magic and Mystery of Trees and The Book of Brilliant Bugs.
Earth's Interactive Systems (Inspire Science, Grade 5 #Unit 3)
by McGraw-Hill EducationNIMAC-sourced textbook
Earth's Natural Hazards: Understanding Natural Disasters And Catastrophes
by David M. Best David B. HackerChances are that students remember at least one major geologic disatter that has happened in their lifetime. This textbook will help them understand the background of these life-changing events.
Earth's Resources (Inspire Science, Grade 7 Integrated #Unit 3)
by Douglas Fisher Ralph M. Feather Jr. Alton L. BiggsNIMAC-sourced textbook
Earth's Surface: Interactive Science
by Don Buckley Zipporah Miller Kathryn Thornton Michael J Padilla Michael E WysessionEarth Science textbook
Earth's Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World
by Kathleen Dean MooreAt once joyous and somber, this thoughtful gathering of new and selected essays spans Kathleen Dean Moore's distinguished career as a tireless advocate for environmental activism in the face of climate change. In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of wolves, bellow of whales, laughter of children, and shriek of frogs, even as she warns of the threats against them. Each group of essays moves, as Moore herself has been moved, from celebration to lamentation to bewilderment and finally to the determination to act in defense of wild songs and the creatures who sing them. Music is the shivering urgency and exuberance of life ongoing. In a time of terrible silencing, Moore asks, who will forgive us if we do not save nature's songs?
Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood: Permafrost and Extinction in the Russian Arctic
by Charlotte WrigleyExploring one of the greatest potential contributors to climate change—thawing permafrost—and the anxiety of extinction on an increasingly hostile planet Climate scientists point to permafrost as a &“ticking time bomb&” for the planet, and from the Arctic, apocalyptic narratives proliferate on the devastating effects permafrost thaw poses to human survival. In Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood, Charlotte Wrigley considers how permafrost—and its disappearance—redefines extinction to be a lack of continuity, both material and social, and something that affects not only life on earth but nonlife, too.Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood approaches the topic of thawing permafrost and the wild new economies and mitigation strategies forming in the far north through a study of the Sakha Republic, Russia&’s largest region, and its capital city Yakutsk, which is the coldest city in the world and built on permafrost. Wrigley examines people who are creating commerce out of thawing permafrost, including scientists wishing to recreate the prehistoric &“Mammoth steppe&” ecosystem by eventually rewilding resurrected woolly mammoths, Indigenous people who forage the tundra for exposed mammoth bodies to sell their tusks, and government officials hoping to keep their city standing as the ground collapses under it. Warming begets thawing begets economic activity— and as a result, permafrost becomes discontinuous, both as land and as a social category, in ways that have implications for the entire planet. Discontinuity, Wrigley shows, eventually evolves into extinction.Offering a new way of defining extinction through the concept of &“discontinuity,&” Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood presents a meditative and story-focused engagement with permafrost as more than just frozen ground.
Earth, Life, and System: Evolution and Ecology on a Gaian Planet (Meaning Systems)
by Bruce ClarkeExploring the broad implications of evolutionary theorist Lynn Margulis’s work, this collection brings together specialists across a range of disciplines, from paleontology, molecular biology, evolutionary theory, and geobiology to developmental systems theory, archaeology, history of science, cultural science studies, and literature and science. Addressing the multiple themes that animated Margulis’s science, the essays within take up, variously, astrobiology and the origin of life, ecology and symbiosis from the microbial to the planetary scale, the coupled interactions of earthly environments and evolving life in Gaia theory and earth system science, and the connections of these newer scientific ideas to cultural and creative productions. Dorion Sagan acquaints the reader with salient issues in Lynn Margulis’s scientific work, the controversies they raised, and the vocabulary necessary to follow the arguments. Sankar Chatterjee synthesizes several strands of current theory for the origin of life on earth. James Strick tells the intertwined origin stories of James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and Margulis’s serial endosymbiosis theory. Jan Sapp explores the distinct phylogenetic visions of Margulis and Carl Woese. Susan Squier examines the epigenetics of embryologist and developmental biologist C. H. Waddington. Bruce Clarke studies the convergence of ecosystem ecology, systems theory, and science fiction between the 1960s and the 1980s. James Shapiro discusses the genome evolution that results not from random changes but rather from active cell processes. Susan Oyama shows how the concept of development balances an over-emphasis on genetic coding and other deterministic schemas. Christopher Witmore studies the ways in which a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO, mixes up natural resources, animal lives, and human appetites. And Peter Westbroek brings the insights of earth system science toward a new worldview essential for a proper response to global change.
Earth, Our Living Planet: The Earth System and its Co-evolution With Organisms (The Frontiers Collection)
by Philippe Bertrand Louis LegendreEarth is, to our knowledge, the only life-bearing body in the Solar System. This extraordinary characteristic dates back almost 4 billion years. How to explain that Earth is teeming with organisms and that this has lasted for so long? What makes Earth different from its sister planets Mars and Venus? The habitability of a planet is its capacity to allow the emergence of organisms. What astronomical and geological conditions concurred to make Earth habitable 4 billion years ago, and how has it remained habitable since? What have been the respective roles of non-biological and biological characteristics in maintaining the habitability of Earth? This unique book answers the above questions by considering the roles of organisms and ecosystems in the Earth System, which is made of the non-living and living components of the planet. Organisms have progressively occupied all the habitats of the planet, diversifying into countless life forms and developing enormous biomasses over the past 3.6 billion years. In this way, organisms and ecosystems "took over" the Earth System, and thus became major agents in its regulation and global evolution. There was co-evolution of the different components of the Earth System, leading to a number of feedback mechanisms that regulated long-term Earth conditions. For millennia, and especially since the Industrial Revolution nearly 300 years ago, humans have gradually transformed the Earth System. Technological developments combined with the large increase in human population have led, in recent decades, to major changes in the Earth's climate, soils, biodiversity and quality of air and water. After some successes in the 20th century at preventing internationally environmental disasters, human societies are now facing major challenges arising from climate change. Some of these challenges are short-term and others concern the thousand-year evolution of the Earth's climate. Humans should become the stewards of Earth.
Earth-Based Psychology: Path Awareness from the Teachings of Don Juan, Richard Feynman, and Lao Tse
by Arnold MindellDrawing liberally from physics, psychology, aboriginal beliefs, and shamanism, this spiritual guide defines, explores, and applies both earth-based psychology and the related idea of path awareness--the innate ability to sense where to turn at a given moment.
Earth-Shattering Events: Earthquakes, Nations, and Civilization
by Andrew Robinson"A truly welcome and refreshing study that puts earthquake impact on history into a proper perspective." --Amos Nur, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, Stanford University, California, and author of Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God Since antiquity, on every continent, human beings in search of attractive landscapes and economic prosperity have made a Faustian bargain with the risk of devastation by an earthquake. Today, around half of the world’s largest cities – as many as sixty – lie in areas of major seismic activity. Many, such as Lisbon, Naples, San Francisco, Teheran, and Tokyo, have been severely damaged or destroyed by earthquakes in the past. But throughout history, starting with ancient Jericho, Rome, and Sparta, cities have proved to be extraordinarily resilient: only one, Port Royal in the Caribbean, was abandoned after an earthquake. Earth-Shattering Events seeks to understand exactly how humans and earthquakes have interacted, not only in the short term but also in the long perspective of history. In some cases, physical devastation has been followed by decline. But in others, the political and economic reverberations of earthquake disasters have presented opportunities for renewal. After its wholesale destruction in 1906, San Francisco went on to flourish, eventually giving birth to the high-tech industrial area on the San Andreas fault known as Silicon Valley. An earthquake in Caracas in 1812 triggered the creation of new nations in the liberation of South America from Spanish rule. Another in Tangshan in 1976 catalysed the transformation of China into the world’s second largest economy. The growth of the scientific study of earthquakes is woven into this far-reaching history. It began with a series of earthquakes in England in 1750. Today, seismologists can monitor the vibration of the planet second by second and the movement of tectonic plates millimeter by millimeter. Yet, even in the 21st century, great earthquakes are still essentially "acts of God," striking with much less warning than volcanoes, floods, hurricanes, and even tornadoes and tsunamis.
Earth-Shattering: Violent Supernovas, Galactic Explosions, Biological Mayhem, Nuclear Meltdowns, and Other Hazards to Life in Our Universe
by Bob BermanA heart-pumping exploration of the biggest explosions in history, from the Big Bang to mysterious activity on Earth and everything in betweenThe overwhelming majority of celestial space is inactive and will remain forever unruffled. Similarly, more than 90 percent of the universe's 70 billion trillion suns had non-attention-getting births and are burning through their nuclear fuel in steady, predictable fashion. But when cosmic violence does unfold, it changes the very fabric of the universe, with mega-explosions and ripple effects that reach the near limits of human comprehension. From colliding galaxies to solar storms, and gamma ray bursts to space-and-time-warping upheavals, these moments are rare yet powerful, often unseen but consequentially felt. Likewise, here on Earth, existence as we know it is fragile, always vulnerable to hazards both natural and manufactured. As we've learned from textbooks and witnessed in Hollywood blockbusters, existential threats such as biological disasters, asteroid impacts, and climate upheavals have the all-too-real power to instantaneously transform our routine-centered lives into total chaos, or much worse. While we might be helpless to stop these catastrophes-whether they originate on our own planet or in the farthest reaches of space-the science behind such cataclysmic forces is as fascinating as their results can be devastating. In Earth-Shattering, astronomy writer Bob Berman guides us through an epic, all-inclusive investigation into these instances of violence both mammoth and microscopic. From the sudden creation of dazzling "new stars" to the furiously explosive birth of our moon, from the uncomfortable truth about ultra-high-energy cosmic rays bombarding us to the incredible ways in which humanity has harnessed cataclysmic energy for its gain, Berman masterfully synthesizes some of our worst fears into an astonishing portrait of the universe that promises to transform the way we look at the world(s) around us. In the spirit of Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carlo Rovelli, what emerges is a rollicking, profound, and even humbling exploration of all the things that can go bump in the night.
Earth: 50 Ideas You Really Need to Know
by Martin RedfernThis latest book in Quercus's bestselling "50 Ideas" series is a wonderfully accessible overview of the only place we know of in the universe that is capable of sustaining life. Expert popular science writer Martin Redfern covers all the natural processes of the Earth: climate, ocean currents, air currents, the elements, plate tectonics, fossils, the evolution of life, volcanology, sea levels and the ultimate fate of the Earth.
Earth: An Intimate History
by Richard ForteyIn Earth, the acclaimed author of Trilobite! and Life takes us on a grand tour of the earth's physical past, showing how the history of plate tectonics is etched in the landscape around us. Beginning with Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in Roman times helped spark the science of geology, and ending in a lab in the West of England where mathematical models and lab experiments replace direct observation, Richard Fortey tells us what the present says about ancient geologic processes. He shows how plate tectonics came to rule the geophysical landscape and how the evidence is written in the hills and in the stones. And in the process, he takes us on a wonderful journey around the globe to visit some of the most fascinating and intriguing spots on the planet. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Earth: An Introduction To Physical Geology 10th Edition
by Edward J. Tarbuck Frederick K. Lutgens Dennis TasaWith its strong focus on readability and illustrations, this trusted best seller makes an often-complex subject more accessible for readers like you. It offers a meaningful, non-technical survey that is informative and up-to-date for learning basic principles and concepts. For the Tenth Edition, the text's design and figures have been updated, and the chapter on climate change has been revised significantly.
Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology
by Edward J. Tarbuck Dennis G. Tasa Frederick K Lutgens Scott LinnemanBringing Earth to life Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology, 13th Edition, is a leading text in the field, characterized by no-nonsense, student-friendly writing, excellent illustrations, and a modular learning path driven by learning objectives. The new edition is the first to integrate 3D technology that brings geology to life. This edition features significant content updates, a new Geology in the News feature to promote student engagement, and a new Data Analysis feature to help develop students’ critical thinking skills.