Enriching the Earth

Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262693134
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Book Description
Dr. Smil is the world's authority on nitrogenous fertilizer. The industrial synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen has been of greater fundamental importance to the modern world than the invention of the airplane, nuclear energy, space flight, or television. The expansion of the world's population from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to today's six billion would not have been possible without the synthesis of ammonia. In Enriching the Earth, Vaclav Smil begins with a discussion of nitrogen's unique status in the biosphere, its role in crop production, and traditional means of supplying the nutrient. He then looks at various attempts to expand natural nitrogen flows through mineral and synthetic fertilizers. The core of the book is a detailed narrative of the discovery of ammonia synthesis by Fritz Haber—a discovery scientists had sought for over one hundred years—and its commercialization by Carl Bosch and the chemical company BASF. Smil also examines the emergence of the large-scale nitrogen fertilizer industry and analyzes the extent of global dependence on the Haber-Bosch process and its biospheric consequences. Finally, it looks at the role of nitrogen in civilization and, in a sad coda, describes the lives of Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch after the discovery of ammonia synthesis.

The Earth in Her Hands

Author: Jennifer Jewell
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN: 1604699027
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
“An empowering and expertly curated look at the horticultural world.” —Gardens Illustrated In this beautiful and empowering book, Jennifer Jewell introduces 75 inspiring women. Working in wide-reaching fields that include botany, floral design, landscape architecture, farming, herbalism, and food justice, these influencers are creating change from the ground up. Profiled women include flower farmer Erin Benzakein; codirector of Soul Fire Farm Leah Penniman; plantswoman Flora Grubb; edible and cultural landscape designer Leslie Bennett; Caribbean-American writer and gardener Jamaica Kincaid; soil scientist Elaine Ingham; landscape designer Ariella Chezar; floral designer Amy Merrick, and many more. Rich with personal stories and insights, Jewell’s portraits reveal a devotion that transcends age, locale, and background, reminding us of the profound role of green growing things in our world—and our lives.

Ecopsychology

Author: Theodore Roszak
Publisher: Sierra Club Books for Children
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
This pathfinding collection--by premier psychotherapists, thinkers, and eco-activists in the field--shows how the health of the planet is inextricably linked to the psychological health of humanity, individually and collectively. It is sure to become a definitive work for the ecopsychology movement. Forewords by Lester O. Brown and James Hillman.

Rare Earth

Author: Peter D. Ward
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0387218483
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Book Description
What determines whether complex life will arise on a planet, or even any life at all? Questions such as these are investigated in this groundbreaking book. In doing so, the authors synthesize information from astronomy, biology, and paleontology, and apply it to what we know about the rise of life on Earth and to what could possibly happen elsewhere in the universe. Everyone who has been thrilled by the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets and the indications of life on Mars and the Jovian moon Europa will be fascinated by Rare Earth, and its implications for those who look to the heavens for companionship.

The Earth Has a Soul

Author: Carl G. Jung
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781556433795
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
While never losing sight of the rational, cultured mind, Jung speaks for the natural mind, source of the evolutionary experience and accumulated wisdom of our species. Through his own example, Jung shows how healing our own living connection with Nature contributes to the whole.

Healing Grounds

Author: Liz Carlisle
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642832227
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
A powerful movement is happening in farming today—farmers are reconnecting with their roots to fight climate change. For one woman, that’s meant learning her tribe’s history to help bring back the buffalo. For another, it’s meant preserving forest purchased by her great-great-uncle, among the first wave of African Americans to buy land. Others are rejecting monoculture to grow corn, beans, and squash the way farmers in Mexico have done for centuries. Still others are rotating crops for the native cuisines of those who fled the “American wars” in Southeast Asia. In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers who are reviving their ancestors’ methods of growing food—techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. These farmers are restoring native prairies, nurturing beneficial fungi, and enriching soil health. While feeding their communities and revitalizing cultural ties to land, they are steadily stitching ecosystems back together and repairing the natural carbon cycle. This, Carlisle shows, is the true regenerative agriculture – not merely a set of technical tricks for storing CO2 in the ground, but a holistic approach that values diversity in both plants and people. Cultivating this kind of regenerative farming will require reckoning with our nation’s agricultural history—a history marked by discrimination and displacement. And it will ultimately require dismantling power structures that have blocked many farmers of color from owning land or building wealth. The task is great, but so is its promise. By coming together to restore these farmlands, we can not only heal our planet, we can heal our communities and ourselves.

Catalysts for Nitrogen Fixation

Author: Barry E. Smith
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402036116
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
Biological nitrogen fixation provides more than 50% of the total annual input of the essential element nitrogen to world agriculture. Thus, it is of immense agronomic importance and critical to food supplies, particularly in developing countries. This book, with chapters authored by internationally renowned experts, provides a comprehensive and detailed account of the fascinating history of the process - including the surprising discoveries of molybdenum-independent nitrogenases and superoxide-dependent nitrogenase; a review of Man's attempts to emulate the biological process - most successfully with the commercially dominant Haber-Bosch process; and the current state of the understanding art with respect to the enzymes - called nitrogenases - responsible for biological nitrogen fixation. The initial chapters use a historical approach to the biological and industrial processes, followed by an overview of assay methodologies. The next set of chapters focuses on the classical enzyme, the molybdenum nitrogenase, and details its biosynthesis, structure, composition, and mechanism of action as well as detailing both how variants of its two component proteins are constructed by recombinant DNA technology and how computational techniques are being applied. The sophisticated chemical modelling of the metal-containing clusters in the enzyme is reviewed next, followed by a description of the two molybdenum-independent nitrogenases - first, the vanadium-containing enzyme and then the iron-only nitrogenase - together with some thoughts as to why they exist! Then follows an up-to-date treatment of the clearly "non-classical" properties of the superoxide-dependent nitrogenase, which more closely resembles molybdenum-containing hydroxylases and related enzymes, like nitrate reductase, that it does the other nitrogenases. Each chapter contains an extensive list of references. This book is the self-contained first volume of a comprehensive seven-volume series. No other available work provides the up-to-date and in-depth coverage of this series and this volume. This book is intended to serve as an indispensable reference work for all scientists working in this area, including agriculture and the closely related metals-in-biology area; to assist students to enter this challenging area of research; and to provide science administrators easy access to vital relevant information.

The Layers of Earth’s Atmosphere

Author: Elizabeth Borngraber
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1508169160
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26

Book Description
Earth's atmospheric layers include the exosphere, thermosphere, mesosphere, stratosphere, and troposphere. How and why have scientists divided Earth's atmosphere into these layers? What exactly are these layers made up of? What happens in each layer? Readers will learn the answers to these questions and more in this enriching text that supports curricular science studies. Readers will identify the various traits of each of the atmospheric layers, ascertain their functions, and appreciate their significance in regulating conditions on Earth.

The Pillars of the Earth

Author: Ken Follett
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101442190
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1009

Book Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Book Club Selection The “extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece” (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career—and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning, ended. “Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,” extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett’s unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother. A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett’s historical masterpiece.

A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth

Author: Henry Gee
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250276667
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Book Description
The Royal Society's Science Book of the Year "[A]n exuberant romp through evolution, like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space. Gee’s grand tour enthusiastically details the narrative underlying life’s erratic and often whimsical exploration of biological form and function.” —Adrian Woolfson, The Washington Post In the tradition of Richard Dawkins, Bill Bryson, and Simon Winchester—An entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story. In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place—in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor. Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents—a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia, adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving, from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves. In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor. Drawing on the very latest scientific understanding and writing in a clear, accessible style, he tells an enlightening tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.