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Author: William F. Ruddiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691173214
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
The impact on climate from 200 years of industrial development is an everyday fact of life, but did humankind's active involvement in climate change really begin with the industrial revolution, as commonly believed? Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum has sparked lively scientific debate since it was first published--arguing that humans have actually been changing the climate for some 8,000 years--as a result of the earlier discovery of agriculture. The "Ruddiman Hypothesis" will spark intense debate. We learn that the impact of farming on greenhouse-gas levels, thousands of years before the industrial revolution, kept our planet notably warmer than if natural climate cycles had prevailed--quite possibly forestalling a new ice age. Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum is the first book to trace the full historical sweep of human interaction with Earth's climate. Ruddiman takes us through three broad stages of human history: when nature was in control; when humans began to take control, discovering agriculture and affecting climate through carbon dioxide and methane emissions; and, finally, the more recent human impact on climate change. Along the way he raises the fascinating possibility that plagues, by depleting human populations, also affected reforestation and thus climate--as suggested by dips in greenhouse gases when major pandemics have occurred. While our massive usage of fossil fuels has certainly contributed to modern climate change, Ruddiman shows that industrial growth is only part of the picture. The book concludes by looking to the future and critiquing the impact of special interest money on the global warming debate. In the afterword, Ruddiman explores the main challenges posed to his hypothesis, and shows how recent investigations and findings ultimately strengthen the book's original claims.
Author: William F. Ruddiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691173214
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Get Book Here
Book Description
The impact on climate from 200 years of industrial development is an everyday fact of life, but did humankind's active involvement in climate change really begin with the industrial revolution, as commonly believed? Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum has sparked lively scientific debate since it was first published--arguing that humans have actually been changing the climate for some 8,000 years--as a result of the earlier discovery of agriculture. The "Ruddiman Hypothesis" will spark intense debate. We learn that the impact of farming on greenhouse-gas levels, thousands of years before the industrial revolution, kept our planet notably warmer than if natural climate cycles had prevailed--quite possibly forestalling a new ice age. Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum is the first book to trace the full historical sweep of human interaction with Earth's climate. Ruddiman takes us through three broad stages of human history: when nature was in control; when humans began to take control, discovering agriculture and affecting climate through carbon dioxide and methane emissions; and, finally, the more recent human impact on climate change. Along the way he raises the fascinating possibility that plagues, by depleting human populations, also affected reforestation and thus climate--as suggested by dips in greenhouse gases when major pandemics have occurred. While our massive usage of fossil fuels has certainly contributed to modern climate change, Ruddiman shows that industrial growth is only part of the picture. The book concludes by looking to the future and critiquing the impact of special interest money on the global warming debate. In the afterword, Ruddiman explores the main challenges posed to his hypothesis, and shows how recent investigations and findings ultimately strengthen the book's original claims.
Author: Joanna D. Haigh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400866545
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
The Earth's climate system depends entirely on the Sun for its energy. Solar radiation warms the atmosphere and is fundamental to atmospheric composition, while the distribution of solar heating across the planet produces global wind patterns and contributes to the formation of clouds, storms, and rainfall. The Sun’s Influence on Climate provides an unparalleled introduction to this vitally important relationship. This accessible primer covers the basic properties of the Earth’s climate system, the structure and behavior of the Sun, and the absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere. It explains how solar activity varies and how these variations affect the Earth’s environment, from long-term paleoclimate effects to century timescales in the context of human-induced climate change, and from signals of the 11-year sunspot cycle to the impacts of solar emissions on space weather in our planet’s upper atmosphere. Written by two of the leading authorities on the subject, The Sun’s Influence on Climate is an essential primer for students and nonspecialists alike.
Author: Tullis C. Onstott
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691096449
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 506
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Book Description
APPENDIX A: Chronology of the Exploration of Subsurface Life -- APPENDIX B: Chronology of the Meeting of the U.S. DOE's SSP Meetings -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- INDEX
Author: Richard B. Alley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400852242
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
In the 1990s Richard B. Alley and his colleagues made headlines with the discovery that the last ice age came to an abrupt end over a period of only three years. In The Two-Mile Time Machine, Alley tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. He explains that humans have experienced an unusually temperate climate compared to the wild fluctuations that characterized most of prehistory. He warns that our comfortable environment could come to an end in a matter of years and tells us what we need to know in order to understand and perhaps overcome climate changes in the future. In a new preface, the author weighs in on whether our understanding of global climate change has altered in the years since the book was first published, what the latest research tells us, and what he is working on next.
Author: Geoffrey K. Vallis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691150281
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
Explores climate and oceans, providing a look at the basics of climate, a descriptive overview of the oceans, a brief introduction to dynamics, and coverage of other related topics.
Author: Michael L. Bender
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691145555
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Earth's climate has undergone dramatic changes over the geologic timescale. At one extreme, Earth has been glaciated from the poles to the equator for periods that may have lasted millions of years. At another, temperatures were once so warm that the Canadian Arctic was heavily forested and large dinosaurs lived on Antarctica. Paleoclimatology is the study of such changes and their causes. Studying Earth's long-term climate history gives scientists vital clues about anthropogenic global warming and how climate is affected by human endeavor. In this book, Michael Bender, an internationally recognized authority on paleoclimate, provides a concise, comprehensive, and sophisticated introduction to the subject. After briefly describing the major periods in Earth history to provide geologic context, he discusses controls on climate and how the record of past climate is determined. The heart of the book then proceeds chronologically, introducing the history of climate changes over millions of years--its patterns and major transitions, and why average global temperature has varied so much. The book ends with a discussion of the Holocene (the past 10,000 years) and by putting manmade climate change in the context of paleoclimate. The most up-to-date overview on the subject, Paleoclimate provides an ideal introduction to undergraduates, nonspecialist scientists, and general readers with a scientific background.
Author: Kenneth S. Deffeyes
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691141193
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
"In 2001, Kenneth Deffeyes made a grim prediction: oil production would reach a peak within the next decade - and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it." "In this updated edition of Hubbert's Peak, Deffeves explains the crisis that few now deny we are headed toward. Using geology and economics, he shows how everything from the rising price of groceries to the subprime mortgage crisis has been exacerbated by the shrinking supply - and growing price - of oil. Although there is no easy solution to these problems, Deffeves argues that the first step is understanding the trouble that we are in."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: William F. Ruddiman
Publisher: Macmillan Higher Education
ISBN: 1464184984
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 466
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Book Description
At a time when the evidence is stronger than ever that human activity is the primary cause for global climate change, William Ruddiman's breakthrough text returns in a thoroughly updated new edition. It offers a clear, engaging, objective portrait of the current state of climate science, including compelling recent findings on anthropogenic global warming and important advances in understanding past climates.
Author: Curt Stager
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
ISBN: 1443405582
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
In this extraordinary book, paleoclimatologist Curt Stager shows how what we do to the environment in the next one hundred years will affect not just the next few centuries but the next 100,000 years of human existence. Most of us have accepted that our planet is warming and that humans have played the key role in causing climate change. Yet few of us realize the magnitude of what’s happening. In Deep Future, Curt Stager draws on the planet’s geological history to provide a view of where we may be headed long term. On the bright side, we have already put off the next ice age. But whether we will barrel ahead on a polluting path to a totally ice-free Arctic, miles of submerged coasts or an acidified ocean still remains to be decided. And that decision is ours to make. Deep Future adds a new dimension to the debate—one that will change how we think about what we are doing to our planet.
Author: Taylor, Peter
Publisher: Bristol University Press
ISBN: 1529210488
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
This urgent book brings our cities to the fore in understanding the human input into climate change. The demands we are making on nature by living in cities has reached a crisis point and unless we make significant changes to address it, the prognosis is terminal consumption. Providing a radical new argument that integrates global understandings of making nature and making cities, the authors move beyond current policies of mitigation and adaption and pose the challenge of urban stewardship to tackle the crisis. Their new way of thinking re-orients possibilities for environmental policy and calls for us to reinvent our cities as spaces for activism.
