Earth
Subtitle: the operators' manual
Edition: First edition
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.; W.W. Norton
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 479
ISBN-13: 9780393081091
Copyright date: 2011
Description: Since the discovery of fire, humans have been energy users. And this is a good thing--our mastery of energy is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom and has allowed us to be the dominant species on the planet. However, this mastery comes with a price: we are changing our environment in a profoundly negative way by heating it up. Using one engaging story after another, coupled with accessible scientific facts, world authority Richard B. Alley explores the history of energy use by humans over the centuries, gives a doubt-destroying proof that already-high levels of carbon dioxide are causing damaging global warming, and surveys the alternative energy options that are available to exploit right now. These new energy sources might well be the engines for economic growth in the twenty-first century.--From publisher description.
Table of contents: label: Preface
title: ix; label: PART I. THE BURNING QUESTION; label: 1. Prepare to Come About
title: 3; label: 2. Burning to Learn
title: 12; label: 3. Peak Trees and Peak Whale Oil
title: 21; label: PART II. LEARNING WHILE WE BURN; label: 4. Fossil Fuelish--Some Telling Facts
title: 43; label: 5. Abraham Lincoln or Your Brother-in-Law?
title: 58; label: 6. Red, White, and Blue-Green
title: 73; label: 7. Canting the Kayak
title: 86; label: 8. Why Accountants and Physicists Care about the Past
title: 94; label: 9. The Moving Finger Writes
title: 106; label: 10. And Having Writ, Moves On
title: 120; label: 11. The Great Ice That Covers the Land
title: 133; label: 12. Kindergarten Soccer and the Last Century of Climate
title: 141; label: 13. But My Brother-in-Law Said . . .
title: 155; label: 14. The Future
title: 170; label: 15. Valuing the Future
title: 188; label: PART III. THE ROAD TO TEN BILLION SMILING PEOPLE; label: 16. Toilets and the Smart Grid
title: 209; label: 17. Sustainable Solutions on the Wind
title: 224; label: 18. Sun and Water
title: 239; label: 19. Down by the Sea, Where the Water Power Grows
title: 252; label: 20. Power from the Land
title: 264; label: 21. Put It Where the Sun Doesn't Shine: Nuclear Energy and Carbon Sequestration
title: 277; label: 22. Conservation--Why Saving Energy Doesn't Mean Sitting Around in the Dark
title: 291; label: 23. Game-Changers? Geoengineering, Fusion, and . . .
title: 303; label: 24. Ten Billion and Smiling
title: 316; label: Notes
title: 333; label: Acknowledgements
title: 445; label: Figure Credits and Notes
title: 447; label: Index
title: 455