Earth As A Cradle For Life, The: The Origin, Evolution And Future Of The Environment: The Origin, Evolution and Future of the Environment

The Earth as a Cradle for Life aims to fill the gap between readers who have a strong and informed scientific interest in the environment (but no access to the journal literature), and their desire for a basic understanding of the environment. It provides a comprehensive account, and requires no advanced mathematical skills. It will also satisfy a need for a textbook on fundamental science for students in tertiary environmental science courses that may otherwise neglect the underlying basis of their subject.

The Earth as a Cradle takes a step back from common perceptions of the environment, and presents a new fundamental perspective. It draws attention to observations that have been neglected or discounted for reasons the authors found invalid, and which allow a more coherent account of the environment than is possible without them.

Misunderstandings about the environment are common, even in the scientific community. They arise in part from the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject and the difficulty in keeping all relevant observations in mind and assessing their validity. These misunderstandings are often consequences of the band-wagon effect: when an idea is reinforced by repeated quotation and becomes difficult to contradict even when it is in obvious conflict with observations. This is especially so in a subject with strong media interest and conflicting commercial interests — and Cradle sweeps these considerations aside and presents a new environmental scenario.

This book draws on several decades of research by the authors on fundamental Earth science, and presents probing insights on environmental questions that are not widely recognized — even in the professional community. For this reason it will become a landmark in the environmental science and Earth science literature.

Contents:

• Physical and Astronomical Foundations:
  • “The Age of the Earth as an Abode Fitted for Life” (Lord Kelvin, 1899)
  • Rotation, Tides and the Moon
  • The Variable Sun and Other Astronomical Effects
  • The Magnetic Field
• The Evolving Earth:
  • Internal Heat and the Evolution of the Earth
  • The Oceans
  • Planetary Atmospheres and the Appearance of Free Oxygen
  • Thermal Balance, the Greenhouse Effect and Sea Level
  • Environmental Crises and Mass Extinctions of Species
  • Stability of the Environment
  • Inorganic Mineral Deposits as Products of an Evolving Environment
  • Fossil Fuels, Buried Carbon and Photosynthetic Oxygen
• Human Influences:
  • Effects of Fossil Fuel Use
  • A Comparison of Human Energy Use with Natural Dissipations
  • The Cradle is Rocking
  • A Summary of Salient Conclusions

Readership: General public, students, professionals, and researchers in the fields of environmental science, geology, geophysics, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, and environmental education.