Earth And The Human Future

Author : Bob Krone
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Nature
ISBN : UVA:X004897861

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Beyond Earth by Bob Krone Pdf

This is a critical time for the space program, and for all of us. Even the significant steps that we have taken since the dawn of the space age in 1957, including orbital flight, the Moon landings, and orbiting space stations, will in retrospect seem to be tiny steps compared to what lies ahead. Migrating into space will challenge us beyond anything we have previously accomplished, and we are destined to face adventures that are both fantastically breathtaking and supremely dangerous. "Beyond Earth" is for everyone interested in humankind's next great adventure -- the human settlement of the Solar System. A unique collection of world-class scholars, scientists, engineers, managers, astronauts, artists, authors, and professors examine the key questions of our unique circumstance at the dawn of a new era in space exploration and development: Why does space matter to us? What can we use it for? How can we get there efficiently? What will ordinary life be like in space? What will our homes be like on the Moon? On Mars? In orbit? Will we play? Will we love? The book does not stop with questions. It goes beyond the dramatic, the superficial, and the overly technical to the prescriptive, literally laying the brick and mortar for our future space faring civilisation. Contributing authors come from both hard and soft sciences; include education and the arts; and ask children, who will be the future space dwellers, for their visions. They document needed research. There are three underlying assumptions driving this book: First, that the human urge for flight, exploration and survival, plus its curiosity about the universe, are deeply embedded in our genes and in our minds; Second, that even if these urges were ignored, the continual improvement of the quality of life for the human race on earth, and perhaps even its ultimate survival, hinge on the successes of human exploration and habitation of space; and, Third that our generation can use the opportunity presented by outwards expansion to design a rewarding and exciting future of collaboration to capitalise on the lessons learned from human history on Earth.

Author : David Grinspoon
Publisher : Hachette UK
Page : 544 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2016-12-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781455589135

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Earth in Human Hands by David Grinspoon Pdf

NASA Astrobiologist and renowned scientist Dr. David Grinspoon brings readers an optimistic message about humanity's future in the face of climate change. For 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.

Author : Michio Kaku
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2018-02-20
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780385542777

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The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku Pdf

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The national bestselling author of The God Equation traverses the frontiers of astrophysics, artificial intelligence, and technology to offer a stunning vision of man's future in space, from settling Mars to traveling to distant galaxies. “Amazing … Kaku is in smooth perfect control of it the entire time.” —The Christian Science Monitor We are entering a new Golden Age of space exploration. With irrepressible enthusiasm and a deep understanding of the cutting-edge research in space travel, world-renowned physicist and futurist Dr. Michio Kaku presents a compelling vision of how humanity may develop a sustainable civilization in outer space. He reveals the developments in robotics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology that may allow us to terraform and build habitable cities on Mars and beyond. He then journeys out of our solar system and discusses how new technologies such as nanoships, laser sails, and fusion rockets may actually make interstellar travel a possibility. We travel beyond our galaxy, and even beyond our universe, as Kaku investigates some of the hottest topics in science today, including warp drive, wormholes, hyperspace, parallel universes, and the multiverse. Ultimately, he shows us how humans may someday achieve a form of immortality and be able to leave our bodies entirely, laser porting to new havens in space.

Author : Eric Holthaus
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2020-06-30
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780062883186

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The Future Earth by Eric Holthaus Pdf

The first hopeful book about climate change, The Future Earth shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. The basics of climate science are easy. We know it is entirely human-caused. Which means its solutions will be similarly human-led. In The Future Earth, leading climate change advocate and weather-related journalist Eric Holthaus (“the Rebel Nerd of Meteorology”—Rolling Stone) offers a radical vision of our future, specifically how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. Anchored by world-class reporting, interviews with futurists, climatologists, biologists, economists, and climate change activists, it shows what the world could look like if we implemented radical solutions on the scale of the crises we face. What could happen if we reduced carbon emissions by 50 percent in the next decade? What could living in a city look like in 2030? How could the world operate in 2040, if the proposed Green New Deal created a 100 percent net carbon-free economy in the United States? This is the book for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the current state of our environment. Hopeful and prophetic, The Future Earth invites us to imagine how we can reverse the effects of climate change in our own lifetime and encourages us to enter a deeper relationship with the earth as conscientious stewards and to re-affirm our commitment to one another in our shared humanity.

Author : Claude A. Piantadosi
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2013-01-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780231531030

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Mankind Beyond Earth by Claude A. Piantadosi Pdf

Seeking to reenergize Americans' passion for the space program, the value of further exploration of the Moon, and the importance of human beings on the final frontier, Claude A. Piantadosi presents a rich history of American space exploration and its major achievements. He emphasizes the importance of reclaiming national command of our manned program and continuing our unmanned space missions, and he stresses the many adventures that still await us in the unfolding universe. Acknowledging space exploration's practical and financial obstacles, Piantadosi challenges us to revitalize American leadership in space exploration in order to reap its scientific bounty. Piantadosi explains why space exploration, a captivating story of ambition, invention, and discovery, is also increasingly difficult and why space experts always seem to disagree. He argues that the future of the space program requires merging the practicalities of exploration with the constraints of human biology. Space science deals with the unknown, and the margin (and budget) for error is small. Lethal near-vacuum conditions, deadly cosmic radiation, microgravity, vast distances, and highly scattered resources remain immense physical problems. To forge ahead, America needs to develop affordable space transportation and flexible exploration strategies based in sound science. Piantadosi closes with suggestions for accomplishing these goals, combining his healthy skepticism as a scientist with an unshakable belief in space's untapped—and wholly worthwhile—potential.

Author : Filipe Duarte Santos
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 423 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2011-09-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783642053603

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Humans on Earth by Filipe Duarte Santos Pdf

This is a wide-ranging and persuasive book written by an undisputed expert. Beginning with a broad history of the Universe, Earth, Life, and Man, it considers the origins and rise of science and technology, before moving on to discuss the present state of the world and its/our possible futures. Humans on Earth then addresses the main challenges for social and economic development in the 21st century in the context of global change. It presents a detailed but non-technical analysis of questions relating to climate change, our dependence on fossil fuels, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, desertification, and air, water, soil, and ocean pollution, as well as problems related to overpopulation, poverty, social and economic inequalities, and conflict potential. The three main, but largely mutually exclusive, discourses on human development and the environment are described and discussed. The main emphasis is on the risks and uncertainties of the short-term future – the next 50 to 100 years – with regard to environmental degradation and the sustainability of our growth paradigm. "... a sweeping, thoughtful view of the role of humans in shaping our modern world." Paul Epstein, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School

Author : Gerard K. O'Neill
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1981
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0671242571

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2081 by Gerard K. O'Neill Pdf

Author : David Wallace-Wells
Publisher : Tim Duggan Books
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2019-02-19
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780525576723

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The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells Pdf

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books

Author : Curt Stager
Publisher : HarperCollins Canada
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2011-03-22
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781443405584

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Deep Future by Curt Stager Pdf

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 : Teruhisa Komatsu,Hubert-Jean Ceccaldi,Jiro Yoshida,Patrick Prouzet,Yves Henocque
Publisher : Springer
Page : 415 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2019-02-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783030001384

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Oceanography Challenges to Future Earth by Teruhisa Komatsu,Hubert-Jean Ceccaldi,Jiro Yoshida,Patrick Prouzet,Yves Henocque Pdf

This book documents the effects of natural hazards on coastal ecosystems in detail. The sea is an indispensable component of the Earth system, and human societies obtain many goods and services from the marine environment. Global warming threatens marine ecosystems through seawater temperature rise, acidification, sea-level rise and the increased frequency of severe storms. The repeated effects of tsunamis also have major impacts on coastal ecosystems. Increases in population and industry activities along the coast cause the degradation of coastal ecosystems through direct and indirect uses of the environment such as reclamation, overexploitation of bioresources, and pollution. Given these facts, we need to improve our understanding of the physical, chemical and biological mechanisms characterizing marine ecosystems, in order to better measure the effects of anthropogenic and natural impacts on the sea and its ecosystems. Equipped with a comprehensive understanding of the sea, including the effects of the main pressures on it, we will have a better idea of the future state of the sea based on several scenarios of global warming. The 16th France-Japan Symposium on Marine Science focused on using advances in oceanography to better understand the current status of the sea from physical, chemical, biological and ecological perspectives, including fishery sciences and integrated approaches.

Author : Jan Zalasiewicz,Kim Freedman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2009-09-10
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780199214983

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The Earth After Us by Jan Zalasiewicz,Kim Freedman Pdf

If aliens came to Earth 100 millions years in the future, what traces would they find of long-extinct humanity's brief reign on the planet? This engaging and thought-provoking account looks at what our species will leave behind, buried deep in the rock strata, and provides us with a warning of our devastating environmental impact.

Author : Kirk R Smith
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2019-09-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780429725661

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Earth And The Human Future by Kirk R Smith Pdf

During the second half of the twentieth century, great changes have occurred in the natural sciences, spawned by the leap forward in physics during the war years and the growth in understanding of earth's history and place in the cosmos. Also, with the new and terrible consequences of full-fledged war, the nuclear age has brought to the fore the ne

Author : Alan Weisman
Publisher : Little, Brown
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2013-09-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780316236508

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Countdown by Alan Weisman Pdf

A powerful investigation into the chances for humanity's future from the author of the bestseller The World Without Us. In his bestselling book The World Without Us, Alan Weisman considered how the Earth could heal and even refill empty niches if relieved of humanity's constant pressures. Behind that groundbreaking thought experiment was his hope that we would be inspired to find a way to add humans back to this vision of a restored, healthy planet-only in harmony, not mortal combat, with the rest of nature. But with a million more of us every 4 1/2 days on a planet that's not getting any bigger, and with our exhaust overheating the atmosphere and altering the chemistry of the oceans, prospects for a sustainable human future seem ever more in doubt. For this long awaited follow-up book, Weisman traveled to more than 20 countries to ask what experts agreed were probably the most important questions on Earth -- and also the hardest: How many humans can the planet hold without capsizing? How robust must the Earth's ecosystem be to assure our continued existence? Can we know which other species are essential to our survival? And, how might we actually arrive at a stable, optimum population, and design an economy to allow genuine prosperity without endless growth? Weisman visits an extraordinary range of the world's cultures, religions, nationalities, tribes, and political systems to learn what in their beliefs, histories, liturgies, or current circumstances might suggest that sometimes it's in their own best interest to limit their growth. The result is a landmark work of reporting: devastating, urgent, and, ultimately, deeply hopeful. By vividly detailing the burgeoning effects of our cumulative presence, Countdown reveals what may be the fastest, most acceptable, practical, and affordable way of returning our planet and our presence on it to balance. Weisman again shows that he is one of the most provocative journalists at work today, with a book whose message is so compelling that it will change how we see our lives and our destiny.

Author : Nancy Ellen Abrams,Joel R. Primack
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2011-04-19
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780300167320

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The New Universe and the Human Future by Nancy Ellen Abrams,Joel R. Primack Pdf

A cultural philosopher and an astrophysicist attempt to decipher how we fit into the universe, and the impact our placement has on us. After a four-century rupture between science and the questions of value and meaning, this groundbreaking book presents an explosive and potentially life-altering idea: if the world could agree on a shared creation story based on modern cosmology and biology—a story that has just become available—it would redefine our relationship with Planet Earth and benefit all of humanity, now and into the distant future. Written in eloquent, accessible prose and illustrated in magnificent color throughout, including images from innovative simulations of the evolving universe, this book brings the new scientific picture of the universe to life. It interprets what our human place in the cosmos may mean for us and our descendants. It offers unique insights into the potential use of this newfound knowledge to find solutions to seemingly intractable global problems such as climate change and unsustainable growth. And it explains why we need to “think cosmically, act globally” if we're going to have a long-term, prosperous future on Earth. “Should be read by anyone, not just scientists, who worry about the human condition.”—Deepak Chopra, The Huffington Post “A prophetic book. Its message ranks right up there with those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel. Like the prophets, it is at times poetic, demanding, grounded, soaring, empowering, and always awe-inspiring.”—Matthew Fox, Tikkun “The ideas and images are fascinating and certainly contribute to a sense of the profound stakes involved in what we’re doing to the planet and ourselves.”—William Kowinski, North Coast Journal

Author : Martin Rees
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2021-10-05
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9780691231068

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On the Future by Martin Rees Pdf

A provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science from world-renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes—good and bad—are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow. The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence—if pursued and applied wisely—could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. At the same time, further advances in space science will allow humans to explore the solar system and beyond with robots and AI. But there is no “Plan B” for Earth—no viable alternative within reach if we do not care for our home planet. Rich with fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology, this accessible book will captivate anyone who wants to understand the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.