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. |
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