The Earth Around Us: Maintaining a Livable Planet - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0716733978 ISBN 13: 9780716733973

Publisher: W H Freeman & Co, 2000

Synopsis

Soil contamination...public lands...surface and groundwater pollution...coastal erosion...global warming. Have we reached the limits of this planet's ability to provide for us? If so, what can we do about it?

These vital questions are addressed by Jill Schneiderman in The Earth Around Us, a unique collection of thirty-one essays by a diverse array of today's foremost scientist-writers. Sharing an ability to communicate science in a clear and engaging fashion, the contributors explore Earth's history and processes--especially in relation to today's environmental issues--and show how we, as members of a global community, can help maintain a livable planet. The narratives in this collection are organized into seven parts that describe:

- Earth's time and history and the place of people in it

- Views of nature and the ethics behind our conduct on Earth

- Resources for the twenty-first century, such as public lands, healthy forests and soils, clean ground and surface waters, and fluctuating coastlines

- Ill-informed local manipulations of landscapes across the United States

- Innovative solutions to environmental problems that arise from knowledge of the interactions between living things and the Earth's air, water, and soil

- Natural and human-induced global scale perturbations to the earth system

- Our responsibility to people and all other organisms that live on Earth

Never before has such a widely experienced group of prominent earth scientists been brought together to help readers understand how earth systems function to produce our physical and biological environment. Driven by the belief that earth science is, and should be, an integral part of everyday life, The Earth Around Us empowers all of us to play a more educated and active part in the search for a sustainable future for people and other living things on our planet.

About this title

From the Back Cover

CONTRIBUTORS
Ronald Amundson--professor of pedology (soil science) in the Division of Ecosystem Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.

David Applegate--Director of Government Affairs at the American Geological Institute.

Victor R. Baker--1998 President of the Geological Society of America, and Head of the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Arizona.

Jay L. Banner--associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at University of Texas who specializes in the evolution of groundwater, surface water, and the oceans.

Paul Bierman--recipient of the Geological Society of America's Young Scientist Award for his promising research on glaciers and climate (University of Vermont).

Marcia G. Bjornerud--associate professor of geology at Lawrence University who's interested in how scientific depictions of nature both influence and reflect popular cultural beliefs.

Caryl Edward Buchwald--Professor of Environmental Studies at Carleton College whose work includes many years of service on Minnesota's state environmental regulatory boards.

David M. Bush--member of the National Academy of Sciences Post-Disaster Field Study Team for both Hurricane Gilbert and Hurricane Hugo (State University of West Georgia).

Paul Doss--teacher of environmental geology, physical geology, wetland science, and hydrogeology at The University of Southern Indiana in Evansville.

Thomas F. Downham, II--professor of dermatology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine who studies the health effects of ultraviolet radiation in relation to global ozone depletion.

Gordon P. Eaton--former director of two of this country's major institutions of earth science: the U. S. Geological Survey and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

James E. Evans--teacher of sedimentology, hydrogeology, and mechanics of fluid motion in the Geology Department at Bowling Green State University.

George W. Fisher--professor of earth and planetary sciences at The John Hopkins University who studies the moral, ethical, and theological dimensions of issues linking the earth sciences to sustainability and human health.

Wilfrid M. Gill--hydrogeologist in the southwestern United States.

Johan F. Gottgens--limnologist in the Department of Biology at the University of Toledo.

Stephen Jay Gould--teacher of geology, history of science, and biology at Harvard University and New York University, and recipient of many awards--among them the National Book Award, the National Book Critic's Circle Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Prize.

Rosa E. Gwinn--environmental geochemist at a major environmental consulting firm in Bethesda, Maryland.

Robin L. Hornung--co-chair of the National Council of Sun Protection, Ozone Depletion, and the Ultraviolet Index for the National Association of Physicians for the Environment (Northwestern University).

Susan Werner Kieffer--MacArthur Fellow and founder of Kieffer & Woo, Inc., a research and development company that specializes in nonlinear earth processes and data analysis.

Allison Macfarlane--Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation fellow in International Peace and Security at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

Scudder D. Mackey--member of the Ohio Geological Survey.

Cathryn A. Manduca--member of the Olmsted County Environmental Commission (she was chair in 1998).

John McPhee--Staff writer for the New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World, his comprehensive work on the geology of North America.

Kirsten M. Menking--assistant professor of geology at Vassar College and co-author of the textbook Environmental Geology: An Earth Systems Approach.

Tamara Nameroff--Climate Task Force Coordinator for the President's Council on Sustainable Development.

William J. Neal--professor of geology at Grand Valley State University and winner of the 1993 American Geological Institute's Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Understanding of Geology.

Naomi Oreskes--associate professor of history of science at the University of California at San Diego.

Jeffrey L. Payne--Deputy Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Services Center in Charleston, South Carolina.

Orrin H. Pilkey--professor of geology and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Duke University and recipient of the Francis Shepard Award for excellence in marine geology from the Geological Society of America.

Lauret E. Savoy--associate professor in geology and geography at Mount Holyoke College.

Jill S. Schneiderman--associate professor of geology at Vassar College and editor of The Earth Around Us.

John M. Sharp, Jr.--professor of geology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Virginia Ashby Sharpe--philosopher at the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York who specializes in health care ethics and environmental philosophy.

Jill Singer--sedimentologist and professor at Buffalo State College.

Steven M. Stanley--professor in the department of earth and planetary sciences at The John Hopkins University and author of the Earth System History and Children of the Ice Age (W. H. Freeman, 1998).

Meg E. Stewart--consultant for a major environmental firm working on problems of pollution in New York and New Jersey Harbor and technical supporter in the Geographic Information Systems Computer Library at Vassar College.

Frederick J. Swanson--head of the Long-Term Ecological Research program sponsored by the National Science Foundation at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest in western Oregon.

E-an Zen--member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, former President of the Geological Society of America, and adjunct professor of geology at the University of Maryland.

About the Author

JILL S. SCHNEIDERMAN is an associate professor of geology at Vassar College, where she teaches courses in geology, environmental sciences, and women's studies. She is the author of numerous scientific papers on subjects ranging from the formation of mountain ranges to the geological history of the Nile Delta. A congressional science fellow during the 104th Congress, she worked on environmental issues as a science advisor to the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate.

About this edition

• Publisher: W H Freeman & Co
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0716733978
• ISBN 13: 9780716733973
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 455
• Editor: Schneiderman Jill S.