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Author: Vladimir I. Vernadsky
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461217504
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
"Vladimir Vernadsky was a brilliant and prescient scholar-a true scientific visionary who saw the deep connections between life on Earth and the rest of the planet and understood the profound implications for life as a cosmic phenomenon." -DAVID H. GRINSPOON, AUTHOR OF VENUS REVEALED "The Biosphere should be required reading for all entry level students in earth and planetary sciences." -ERIC D. SCHNEIDER, AUTHOR OF INTO THE COOL: THE NEW THERMODYNAMICS OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION
Author: Vladimir I. Vernadsky
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461217504
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
"Vladimir Vernadsky was a brilliant and prescient scholar-a true scientific visionary who saw the deep connections between life on Earth and the rest of the planet and understood the profound implications for life as a cosmic phenomenon." -DAVID H. GRINSPOON, AUTHOR OF VENUS REVEALED "The Biosphere should be required reading for all entry level students in earth and planetary sciences." -ERIC D. SCHNEIDER, AUTHOR OF INTO THE COOL: THE NEW THERMODYNAMICS OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION
Author: Rebecca Reider
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 082634674X
Category : Ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
Reider tells the tangled tale of the creation, and eventual disintegration, of the experimental eco-utopia known as Biosphere 2.
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026201856X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317
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Book Description
An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production. The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared. Many species have exerted enormous influence on the biosphere's character and productivity, but none has transformed the Earth in so many ways and on such a scale as Homo sapiens. In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil offers an interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistory to the present day. Smil examines all harvests—from prehistoric man's hunting of megafauna to modern crop production—and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. Without harvesting of the biomass, Smil points out, there would be no story of human evolution and advancing civilization; but at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very foundations of civilization's well-being. In his detailed and comprehensive account, Smil presents the best possible quantifications of past and current global losses in order to assess the evolution and extent of biomass harvests. Drawing on the latest work in disciplines ranging from anthropology to environmental science, Smil offers a valuable long-term, planet-wide perspective on human-caused environmental change.
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262692984
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
A comprehensive overview of Earth's biosphere, written with scientific rigor and essay-like flair. In his latest book, Vaclav Smil tells the story of the Earth's biosphere from its origins to its near and long-term future. He explains the workings of its parts and what is known about their interactions. With essay-like flair, he examines the biosphere's physics, chemistry, biology, geology, oceanography, energy, climatology, and ecology, as well as the changes caused by human activity. He provides both the basics of the story and surprising asides illustrating critical but often neglected aspects of biospheric complexity. Smil begins with a history of the modern idea of the biosphere, focusing on the development of the concept by Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky. He explores the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, life's evolution and metabolism, and the biosphere's extent, mass, productivity, and grand-scale organization. Smil offers fresh approaches to such well-known phenomena as solar radiation and plate tectonics and introduces lesser-known topics such as the quarter-power scaling of animal and plant metabolism across body sizes and metabolic pathways. He also examines two sets of fundamental relationships that have profoundly influenced the evolution of life and the persistence of the biosphere: symbiosis and the role of life's complexity as a determinant of biomass productivity and resilience. And he voices concern about the future course of human-caused global environmental change, which could compromise the biosphere's integrity and threaten the survival of modern civilization.
Author: H. Lieth
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642809138
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
The period since World War II, and especially the last decade influenced by the International Biological Program, has seen enormous growth in research on the function of ecosystems. The same period has seen an exponential' rise in environmental problems including the capacity of the Earth to support man's population. The concern extends to man's effects on the "biosphere"-the film of living organisms on the Earth's surface that supports man. The common theme of ecologic research and environmental concerns is primary production the binding of sunlight energy into organic matter by plants that supports all life. Many results from the IBP remain to be synthesized, but enough data are available from that program and other research to develop a convincing sum mary of the primary production of the biosphere-the purpose of this book. The book had its origin in the parallel interests of the two editors and Gene E. Likens, which led them to prepare a symposium on the topic at the Second Biological Congress of the American Institute of Biological Sciences in Miami, Florida, October 24, 1971. Revisions of the papers presented at that symposium appear as Chapters 2, 8, 9, 10, and 15 in this book. We have added other chapters that complement this core; these include discussion and evaluation of methods for measuring productivity and regional production, current findings on tropical productivity, and models of primary productivity.
Author: Jane Poynter
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9781560257752
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
It's a story that has never been told … until now. Imagine being sealed into a closed environment for two years — cut off from the outside world with only seven other people — enduring never-ending hunger, severely low levels of oxygen, and extremely difficult relationships. Crew members struggled to survive in Biosphere 2, where they swore nothing would go in or out — no food or water, not even air — all in the name of science. For the first time, biospherian Jane Poynter — who lived and loved in the Biosphere — is ready to share what really happened in there. She takes readers on a riveting, fast-paced trip through shattered lives, scientific discovery, cults, love, fears of insanity, and inspiring human endurance. The eight biospherians who closed themselves into the Biosphere emerged 730 days later… much wiser, thinner, and having done what many had said was impossible.
Author: Donald G. Kaufman
Publisher: Kendall Hunt
ISBN: 9780787257132
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 708
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Book Description
Author: Mitchell Thomashow
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262264921
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
A guide for understanding the ecological and existential aspects of global environmental change. This book shows how to make global environmental problems more tangible, so that they become an integral part of everyday awareness. At its core is a simple assumption: that the best way to learn to perceive the biosphere is to pay close attention to our immediate surroundings. Through local natural history observations, imagination and memory, and spiritual contemplation, we develop a place-based environmental view that can be expanded to encompass the biosphere. Interweaving global change science, personal narrative, and commentary on a wide range of scientific and literary works, the book explores both the ecological and existential aspects of urgent issues such as the loss of biodiversity and global climate change. Written in a warm, engaging style, Bringing the Biosphere Home considers the perceptual connections between the local and global, how the ecological news of the community is of interest to the world, and how the global movement of people, species, and weather systems affects the local community. It shows how global environmental change can become the province of numerous educational initiatives—from the classroom to the Internet, from community forums to international conferences, from the backyard to the biosphere. It explains important scientific concepts in clear, nontechnical language and provides dozens of ideas for learning how to practice biospheric perception.
Author: Dana Desonie
Publisher: Chelsea House Pub
ISBN: 9780816062195
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
Discusses the origin and evolution of life on Earth, the effects of pollution and its relation to climate change, the importance of biodiversity, and the need to save endangered and threatened species.
Author: Gregory Vogt
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
ISBN: 0761328408
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 82
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Book Description
Describes the attributes of the biosphere, the animal and plant life that live in the biosphere, and how fragile and dynamic it is.
