Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

A comprehensive overview of Earth's biosphere, written with scientific rigor and essay-like flair.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.

Biosphere. --- Biosphere --- Biology --- Health & Biological Sciences --- Biology - General --- Life (Biology) --- Planets --- Gaia hypothesis --- Geobiology --- PHYSICAL SCIENCES/General --- ENVIRONMENT/General

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

A realistic yet encouraging look at how society can change in ways that will allow us to feed an expanding global population.This book addresses the question of how we can best feed the ten billion or so people who will likely inhabit the Earth by the middle of the twenty-first century. He asks whether human ingenuity can produce enough food to support healthy and vigorous lives for all these people without irreparably damaging the integrity of the biosphere.What makes this book different from other books on the world food situation is its consideration of the complete food cycle, from agriculture to post-harvest losses and processing to eating and discarding. Taking a scientific approach, Smil espouses neither the catastrophic view that widespread starvation is imminent nor the cornucopian view that welcomes large population increases as the source of endless human inventiveness. He shows how we can make more effective use of current resources and suggests that if we increase farming efficiency, reduce waste, and transform our diets, future needs may not be as great as we anticipate.Smil's message is that the prospects may not be as bright as we would like, but the outlook is hardly disheartening. Although inaction, late action, or misplaced emphasis may bring future troubles, we have the tools to steer a more efficient course. There are no insurmountable biophysical reasons we cannot feed humanity in the decades to come while easing the burden that modern agriculture puts on the biosphere.

Agronomy --- agro-industrie --- Nutritionary hygiene. Diet --- Water supply. Water treatment. Water pollution --- Nature protection --- afvalwater --- Environmental protection. Environmental technology --- milieu --- Agricultural productivity. --- Food supply. --- Plant and Crop Sciences. Crop Sciences --- Crop Sciences (General) --- 338.439.053 --- Balancing in food production and supply economics --- Crop Sciences (General). --- hergebruik --- Agricultural productivity --- Food supply --- Food control --- Produce trade --- Agriculture --- Food security --- Single cell proteins --- Productivity, Agricultural --- Farm management --- Economic aspects --- petrochemie --- waterverontreiniging --- waterzuivering --- E-books --- Agriculture - General --- Earth & Environmental Sciences --- ENVIRONMENT/General --- PHYSICAL SCIENCES/General