Earth is, to our knowledge, the only life-bearing body in the Solar System. This extraordinary characteristic dates back almost 4 billion years. How to explain that Earth is teeming with organisms and that this has lasted for so long? What makes Earth different from its sister planets Mars and Venus? The habitability of a planet is its capacity to allow the emergence of organisms. What astronomical and geological conditions concurred to make Earth habitable 4 billion years ago, and how has it remained habitable since? What have been the respective roles of non-biological and biological characteristics in maintaining the habitability of Earth? This unique book answers the above questions by considering the roles of organisms and ecosystems in the Earth System, which is made of the non-living and living components of the planet. Organisms have progressively occupied all the habitats of the planet, diversifying into countless life forms and developing enormous biomasses over the past 3.6 billion years. In this way, organisms and ecosystems "took over" the Earth System, and thus became major agents in its regulation and global evolution. There was co-evolution of the different components of the Earth System, leading to a number of feedback mechanisms that regulated long-term Earth conditions. For millennia, and especially since the Industrial Revolution nearly 300 years ago, humans have gradually transformed the Earth System. Technological developments combined with the large increase in human population have led, in recent decades, to major changes in the Earth's climate, soils, biodiversity and quality of air and water. After some successes in the 20th century at preventing internationally environmental disasters, human societies are now facing major challenges arising from climate change. Some of these challenges are short-term and others concern the thousand-year evolution of the Earth's climate. Humans should become the stewards of Earth.

The acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams tackles "big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness ... in an entertaining and easily digestible way” (Wall Street Journal) with a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities—and impossibilities—of nothingness and infinity, and how our place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between. Can space be divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch in the lab? Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, whom The Washington Post has called “the poet laureate of science writers,” explores these questions and more—from the anatomy of a smile to the capriciousness of memory to the specialness of life in the universe to what came before the Big Bang. Probable Impossibilities is a deeply engaged consideration of what we know of the universe, of life and the mind, and of things vastly larger and smaller than ourselves.

“If you want one of the shortest, fastest routes to getting toxic chemicals out of your life, get behind the wheel of Gay Browne’s Living with a Green Heart and you’ll get there in no time flat.” —Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group In an increasingly toxic world, the paths to environmental health and personal well-being run parallel. The journey begins with a few small steps. Is the damage we’re doing to our planet literally leaving you sick, sore, and gasping for air? Want to take back our inalienable rights to clean air, clean water, and healthy food? In this quietly revolutionary book, environmental pioneer and founder of Greenopia, Gay Browne, shares a roadmap for making incremental changes that will not only transform your life, but heal the world we share. From the home to the office, from the foods we eat to the clothes we wear, here are actions you can take today that will improve your Personal Environmental Health, and help you stop feeling overwhelmed, reduce illness, improve sleep, mood, and focus, and start making a difference, including: *Make conscious choices when shopping, and support companies with good environmental stewardship and healthy products. *Test your water for harmful chemicals, install an affordable water filtration system, and reduce your water use by utilizing water more efficiently. *Work with your doctor to create a personal plan for detoxing your body. *Use only non-toxic and organic household products, and choose organic, eco-friendly fabrics made by sustainable and fair trade certified companies. *Choose the method of transportation that makes the lightest carbon footprint. With these and many other actions, Gay Browne’s work has taught her that even the smallest change for the better, faithfully practiced, can have an immense positive impact on our minds, bodies, and spirits—not to mention the planet.

Living on a damaged planet challenges who we are and where we live. This timely anthology calls on twenty eminent humanists and scientists to revitalize curiosity, observation, and transdisciplinary conversation about life on earth. As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent “arts of living.” Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival in a more-than-human Anthropocene. The essays are organized around two key figures that also serve as the publication’s two openings: Ghosts, or landscapes haunted by the violences of modernity; and Monsters, or interspecies and intraspecies sociality. Ghosts and Monsters are tentacular, windy, and arboreal arts that invite readers to encounter ants, lichen, rocks, electrons, flying foxes, salmon, chestnut trees, mud volcanoes, border zones, graves, radioactive waste—in short, the wonders and terrors of an unintended epoch. Contributors: Karen Barad, U of California, Santa Cruz; Kate Brown, U of Maryland, Baltimore; Carla Freccero, U of California, Santa Cruz; Peter Funch, Aarhus U; Scott F. Gilbert, Swarthmore College; Deborah M. Gordon, Stanford U; Donna J. Haraway, U of California, Santa Cruz; Andreas Hejnol, U of Bergen, Norway; Ursula K. Le Guin; Marianne Elisabeth Lien, U of Oslo; Andrew Mathews, U of California, Santa Cruz; Margaret McFall-Ngai, U of Hawaii, Manoa; Ingrid M. Parker, U of California, Santa Cruz; Mary Louise Pratt, NYU; Anne Pringle, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Deborah Bird Rose, U of New South Wales, Sydney; Dorion Sagan; Lesley Stern, U of California, San Diego; Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus U.

Claude C. Albritton's fascinating book explores the history and science of geology, from the earliest understandings of the earth's composition to modern theories of plate tectonics and seismic activity. With engaging writing and useful diagrams, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the field of geology or the history of science. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Living in the World By: Theodore Ihejieto Living in the World is a book of love and life, called circle of positive energy and energy of sunlight. The book is a book of Planet Earth, because the living planet gave sunlight energy to the author of living in the world. The author is a human being who did not like the way human beings were suffering in the world and thought that he needed to do something in order to improve the standard of living in the world. Author Theodore Ihejieto was born into a Christian family who believed in God and trusted God to protect them from evil and death. Death killed the author’s father, which made him stop trusting God. Death killed the immediate junior brother of the author and made him declare war against God. The author read many religious books and discovered that human beings did not know God, because human beings did not have the intention to know God. Ihejieto wants to know God and succeeds in knowing God because God showed Himself to him when he started questioning the integrity of God. Living in the World is a healing book for human beings to absorb and chase death away, because living in the world destroys the fear of God and the devil of God in human beings.

Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand their own mind and to find a spiritual path that is compatible with science As an impressionable young student, Susan Blackmore had an intense, dramatic and life-changing experience, seeming to leave her body and travel the world. With no rational explanation for her out-of-body experience (OBE) she turned to astral projection and the paranormal, but soon despaired of finding answers. Decades later, a Swiss neurosurgeon accidentally discovered the spot in the brain that can induce OBEs and everything changed; this crucial spot is part of the brain's self-system and when disturbed so is our experience of self. Blackmore leaped back into OBE research and at last began to unravel what had happened to her. Seeing Myself describes her long quest for answers through spirituality, religion, drugs, meditation, philosophy and neuroscience. Anyone can have an OBE, indeed 15 per cent of us have. Even more have experienced sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming and the creepy sense of an invisible presence. At last, with the advent of brain stimulation, fMRI scanning and virtual reality, all these phenomena are beginning to make sense. Long relegated to the very fringes of research, the new science of out-of-body experiences is now contributing to our understanding of consciousness and our very selves.