Main entry:

Woodwell, G. M.

Title & Author:

A world to live in : an ecologist's vision for a plundered planet / George M. Woodwell.

Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2016]
©2016

Description:

xvi, 227 pages ; 23 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-217) and index.
Life on the skin of the earth. In the beginning ; Nuclear energy : the commons redefined ; DDT drives a geochemical tempest ; Carbon and the climatic disruption -- Environment is political : climate heats up. The global commons : a corporate feedlot ; Climate in the tides of politics ; The adaptation myth : an attractive conceit threatens all ; The limits of biodiversity -- Which world?. Governments : whither in the storm? ; A new departure ; Sic utere : a world to live in.
Dust jacket.

Summary:

A century of industrial development is the briefest of moments in the half billion years of the earth's evolution. And yet our current era has brought greater changes to the earth than any period in human history. The biosphere, the globe's life-giving envelope of air and climate, has been changed irreparably. In A World to Live In, the distinguished ecologist George Woodwell shows that the biosphere is now a global human protectorate and that its integrity of structure and function are tied closely to the human future. The earth is a living system, Woodwell explains, and its stability is threatened by human disruption. Industry dumps its waste globally and makes a profit from it, invading the global commons; corporate interests overpower weak or nonexistent governmental protection to plunder the planet. The fossil fuels industry offers the most dramatic example of environmental destruction, disseminating the heat-trapping gases that are now warming the earth and changing the climate forever. The assumption that we can continue to use fossil fuels and "adapt" to climate disruption, Woodwell argues, is a ticket to catastrophe. But Woodwell points the way toward a solution. We must respect the full range of life on earth -- not species alone, but their natural communities of plant and animal life that have built, and still maintain, the biosphere. We must recognize that the earth's living systems are our heritage and that the preservation of the integrity of a finite biosphere is a necessity and an inviolable human right. -- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9780262034074 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
0262034077 (hardcover ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Restoration ecology.
Global environmental change.
Global warming.
Environmental degradation.
Pollution.
Air Pollution.
Radioactive pollution of the atmosphere.
Réhabilitation (Écologie)
Changement global (Environnement)
Réchauffement de la Terre.
Environnement Dégradation.
Pollution radioactive de l'atmosphère.
global warming.
chemical pollution.
pollution.
Environment and ecology.
Umweltpolitik
Umwelt
Zukunft
Environment and Ecology.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 292552
Call No.: BIB 236891
Status: Available