Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr
Our planet is absolutely teeming with life. Indeed, from nearly a mile below our feet, where microbes persist in a sunless world, to microorganisms on droplets of water in the air above our heads, the existence of life has profoundly shaped our Earth. In Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr, the author divides the book into three sections to explore life found in rock, water and air. We travel underground with Jabr into Homestake Mine in South Dakota to Wrangel Island in Siberia to a tower high above the Amazonian rainforest and beyond.
But all the sections follow the theme of how life transforms Earth. Jabr shows the reader how everywhere you look on Earth there are small ecosystems of flourishing life. In Uganda, an elephant’s footprint collects water where a scientist found:
… microorganisms, beetles, mites, mayflies, worms, leeches, snails and dragonfly larvae. In some regions of the forest, the water-filled footprints – which can persist for a year or longer – were the only ponds available to such creatures …
The footprints of elephants, mammoths and other multi-ton megafauna have almost certainly served as impromptu ecosystems for tens of millions of years, yet prior to a decade ago, few scientists had formally documented them. To be sure, life’s influence on its environment is so thorough and manifold that we are still discovering all the forms it takes, even when it comes to the largest and most dynamic creatures among us. Simply by taking a step, an animal can remake the Earth and leave new worlds in its wake.
Tiny marine life helps regulate our climate
Methane – a potent greenhouse gas – can significantly warm our planet when it’s exhumed from Earth. In fact, Jabr writes:
Marine sediments contain one of the largest reservoirs of methane on the planet, 80% of which is produced by microbes. Were all that methane to rise into the atmosphere, it would significantly thicken Earth’s invisible blanket of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and greatly intensify global warming. But another set of microbes recycles 90% of the methane rising through seafloor sediments before it reaches the surface, constituting ‘one of the most important controls of greenhouse gas emissions and climate on Earth,’ as one group of experts on deep ocean microbiology has called it.
Also, in a different chapter in the water section, we read about the ugly reality of death by plastic. Jabr visits the most plastic-polluted beach on Earth, Kamilo Beach in Hawaii. I had recently visited Hawaii for the first time and would have liked to have visited Kamilo Beach to see it for myself. But I had been short on time to see everything I wanted to. Yet, despite the fact that it’s unappealing, it immediately made me want to plan a return trip and remove a garbage bag full of plastic myself. However, the beach is much better than it was a few decades ago. Regular cleanups have made a difference, yet:
an estimated 15 to 20 tons of debris continue to wash ashore every year
from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a whirlpool of plastic trash in the ocean some three times the size of Spain.
Life in the air
The air section talks about how tiny bacteria in the atmosphere provide seeds for raindrops and how fire is essential to a healthy landscape. In addition, it also discusses the increasing amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. With this in mind, one eye-opening passage put our use of fossil fuels in vivid perspective:
Environmental scientist and policy analyst Vaclav Smil has calculated that a single gallon of gasoline represents one hundred tons of ancient life, roughly equal to 20 adult elephants. Every sedan with a typical 15-gallon gas tank demands the equivalent of 300 elephants simply to keep running. Fossil fuels are not just conveniently concentrated forms of energy, they are outrageously extravagant. A fossil fuel is essentially an ecosystem in an urn.
Becoming Earth sends a message
The epilogue sends a reality check to those who dream of conquering planets in the solar system and nearby worlds while the Earth burns:
The interventions required to prevent the worst outcomes of this crisis are known and achievable … To ignore the necessary changes here on Earth in favor of terraforming other planets in any meaningful time frame is unforgivable folly. We are nowhere near the level of ecological understanding and technological sophistication required to turn an inanimate and airless rock into a new Earth, but we are without question capable of preserving the one living planet we already have, and the only one we’ve ever found.
Bottom line: Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr shows how our planet is absolutely teeming with life. Jabr explores life in rock, water and air and shows how life has transformed Earth.
Read more in Media We Love:
Planet Earth, Past and Present by Michael Carroll
Archaeology from Space by Sarah Parcak
The post Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr: Media we love first appeared on EarthSky.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/Iwns34U
Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr
Our planet is absolutely teeming with life. Indeed, from nearly a mile below our feet, where microbes persist in a sunless world, to microorganisms on droplets of water in the air above our heads, the existence of life has profoundly shaped our Earth. In Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr, the author divides the book into three sections to explore life found in rock, water and air. We travel underground with Jabr into Homestake Mine in South Dakota to Wrangel Island in Siberia to a tower high above the Amazonian rainforest and beyond.
But all the sections follow the theme of how life transforms Earth. Jabr shows the reader how everywhere you look on Earth there are small ecosystems of flourishing life. In Uganda, an elephant’s footprint collects water where a scientist found:
… microorganisms, beetles, mites, mayflies, worms, leeches, snails and dragonfly larvae. In some regions of the forest, the water-filled footprints – which can persist for a year or longer – were the only ponds available to such creatures …
The footprints of elephants, mammoths and other multi-ton megafauna have almost certainly served as impromptu ecosystems for tens of millions of years, yet prior to a decade ago, few scientists had formally documented them. To be sure, life’s influence on its environment is so thorough and manifold that we are still discovering all the forms it takes, even when it comes to the largest and most dynamic creatures among us. Simply by taking a step, an animal can remake the Earth and leave new worlds in its wake.
Tiny marine life helps regulate our climate
Methane – a potent greenhouse gas – can significantly warm our planet when it’s exhumed from Earth. In fact, Jabr writes:
Marine sediments contain one of the largest reservoirs of methane on the planet, 80% of which is produced by microbes. Were all that methane to rise into the atmosphere, it would significantly thicken Earth’s invisible blanket of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and greatly intensify global warming. But another set of microbes recycles 90% of the methane rising through seafloor sediments before it reaches the surface, constituting ‘one of the most important controls of greenhouse gas emissions and climate on Earth,’ as one group of experts on deep ocean microbiology has called it.
Also, in a different chapter in the water section, we read about the ugly reality of death by plastic. Jabr visits the most plastic-polluted beach on Earth, Kamilo Beach in Hawaii. I had recently visited Hawaii for the first time and would have liked to have visited Kamilo Beach to see it for myself. But I had been short on time to see everything I wanted to. Yet, despite the fact that it’s unappealing, it immediately made me want to plan a return trip and remove a garbage bag full of plastic myself. However, the beach is much better than it was a few decades ago. Regular cleanups have made a difference, yet:
an estimated 15 to 20 tons of debris continue to wash ashore every year
from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a whirlpool of plastic trash in the ocean some three times the size of Spain.
Life in the air
The air section talks about how tiny bacteria in the atmosphere provide seeds for raindrops and how fire is essential to a healthy landscape. In addition, it also discusses the increasing amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. With this in mind, one eye-opening passage put our use of fossil fuels in vivid perspective:
Environmental scientist and policy analyst Vaclav Smil has calculated that a single gallon of gasoline represents one hundred tons of ancient life, roughly equal to 20 adult elephants. Every sedan with a typical 15-gallon gas tank demands the equivalent of 300 elephants simply to keep running. Fossil fuels are not just conveniently concentrated forms of energy, they are outrageously extravagant. A fossil fuel is essentially an ecosystem in an urn.
Becoming Earth sends a message
The epilogue sends a reality check to those who dream of conquering planets in the solar system and nearby worlds while the Earth burns:
The interventions required to prevent the worst outcomes of this crisis are known and achievable … To ignore the necessary changes here on Earth in favor of terraforming other planets in any meaningful time frame is unforgivable folly. We are nowhere near the level of ecological understanding and technological sophistication required to turn an inanimate and airless rock into a new Earth, but we are without question capable of preserving the one living planet we already have, and the only one we’ve ever found.
Bottom line: Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr shows how our planet is absolutely teeming with life. Jabr explores life in rock, water and air and shows how life has transformed Earth.
Read more in Media We Love:
Planet Earth, Past and Present by Michael Carroll
Archaeology from Space by Sarah Parcak
The post Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr: Media we love first appeared on EarthSky.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/Iwns34U
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire