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When The Impact of Global Warming on Texas was first published in 1995, it discussed climate change as a likely future phenomenon, predicted by scientific studies. This entirely rewritten second edition presents evidence that early climate change impacts can now be observed and identifies the threats climate change will pose to Texas through the year 2050. It also offers the hopeful message that corrective action, if taken now, can avert unmanageable consequences.

The book begins with a discussion of climate science and modeling and the information that can be derived from these sources for Texas. The authors follow this with an analysis of actual climate trends in the various Texas climate regions, including a predicted rise in temperatures of 5.4 degrees F (plus or minus 1.8 F) by the end of the century. This could lead to less rainfall and higher evaporation, especially in regions that are already dry. Other important effects include possible changes in El Niño (climate variability) patterns and hurricane behaviors. Taking into account projected population growth, subsequent chapters explore likely trends with respect to water availability, coastal impacts, and biodiversity.

The authors then look at the issues from a policy perspective, focusing on Texas's importance to the national economy as an energy producer, particularly of oil and gas. They recommend that Texas develop its own climate change policy to serve the goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy independence, ensuring regional security, and improving management of water, air, land, and wildlife.

The geochemical processes that take place in water bodies do not stem entirely from the activity of bacteria, but are also determined by the biological activity of higher plants and animals. The Microflora of Lakes and Its Geochemical Activity, the first English translation of the work of S. I. Kuznetsov, renowned Soviet microbiologist, is a detailed description of these processes.

The Microflora of Lakes opens with a complete outline of the ecology and physical and chemical properties of water bodies and a discussion of the entire complex of hydrobionts, since these factors exert tremendous influence on the microbial population. The work then focuses on the principles of the morphology and physiology of the living cell, background knowledge essential to the understanding of the role of microorganisms in the chemical cycle. Having laid the groundwork for the discussion, Kuznetsov follows with chapters on the distribution of bacteria and transformations of organic matter in lakes. He then examines the role of bacteria in the oxygen regime, and the cycles of organic matter, nitrogen, sulfur, iron, manganese and phosphorus. The last chapter describes the role of microorganisms in sediments of calcium carbonate waters.

The Microflora of Lakes and Its Geochemical Activity provides a wealth of information on the microbial limnology of fresh-water lakes throughout the world, particularly in the Soviet Union. As a summary of the geochemical activities as related to the geographic, geological, and physical relationships of fresh-water lakes, it is a monumental study.

The Microflora of Lakes was translated for the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C., by the Israel Program for Scientific Translations in Jerusalem.

An internationally recognized scientist shows that Earth’s separate continents, once together in Pangea, are again on a collision course.

You’ve heard of Pangea, the single landmass that broke apart some 175 million years ago to give us our current continents, but what about its predecessors, Rodinia or Columbia? These “supercontinents” from Earth’s past provide evidence that land repeatedly joins and separates. While scientists debate what that next supercontinent will look like—and what to name it—they all agree: one is coming.

In this engaging work, geophysicist Ross Mitchell invites readers to remote (and sometimes treacherous) lands for evidence of past supercontinents, delves into the phenomena that will birth the next, and presents the case for the future supercontinent of Amasia, defined by the merging of North America and Asia. Introducing readers to plate tectonic theory through fieldwork adventures and accessible scientific descriptions, Mitchell considers flows deep in the Earth’s mantle to explain Amasia’s future formation and shows how this developing theory can illuminate other planetary mysteries. He then poses the inevitable question: how can humanity survive the intervening 200 million years necessary to see Amasia?

An expert on the supercontinent cycle, Mitchell offers readers a front-row seat to a slow-motion mystery and an ongoing scientific debate.

“Here is Willis’s fundamental argument: The more we learn about Earth—our one ‘pale blue data point’ for a planet on which life has definitively arisen—the more qualified we will be to recognize signs of life elsewhere. . . . [A] joyful account.”—Steven Poole, The Wall Street Journal
 
A thrilling tour of Earth that shows the search for extraterrestrial life starts in our own backyard.
 
Is there life off Earth? Bound by the limitations of spaceflight, a growing number of astrobiologists investigate the question by studying life on our planet. Astronomer and author Jon Willis shows us how it’s done, allowing readers to envision extraterrestrial landscapes by exploring their closest Earth analogs. With Willis, we dive into the Pacific Ocean from the submersible-equipped E/V Nautilus to ponder the uncharted seas of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons; search the Australian desert for some of Earth’s oldest fossils and consider the prospects for a Martian fossil hunt; visit mountaintop observatories in Chile to search for the telltale twinkle of extrasolar planets; and eavesdrop on dolphins in the Bahamas to imagine alien minds.
 
With investigations ranging from meteorite hunting to exoplanet detection, Willis conjures up alien worlds and unthought-of biological possibilities, speculating what life might look like on other planets by extrapolating from what we can see on Earth, our single “pale blue dot”—as Carl Sagan famously called it—or, in Willis’s reframing, scientists’ “pale blue data point.”

Thirty years ago, our global energy landscape did not look remarkably different from what it does today. Three or four decades from now, it certainly will: dwindling oil reserves will clash with skyrocketing demand, as developing nations around the world lead their citizens into the modern energy economy, and all the while, the grave threat of catastrophic climate change looms ever larger. Energy worries are at an all-time high—just how will we power our future?

With The Powers That Be, Scott L. Montgomery cuts through the hype, alarmism, and confusion to give us a straightforward, informed account of where we are now, and a map of where we’re going. Starting with the inescapable fact of our current dependence on fossil fuels—which supply 80% of all our energy needs today—Montgomery clearly and carefully lays out the many alternative energy options available, ranging from the familiar, like water and solar, to such nascent but promising sources as hydrogen and geothermal power. What is crucial, Montgomery explains, is understanding that our future will depend not on some single, wondrous breakthrough; instead, we should focus on developing a more diverse, adaptable energy future, one that draws on a variety of sources—and is thus less vulnerable to disruption or failure.

An admirably evenhanded and always realistic guide, Montgomery enables readers to understand the implications of energy funding, research, and politics at a global scale. At the same time, he doesn’t neglect the ultimate connection between those decisions and the average citizen flipping a light switch or sliding behind the wheel of a car, making The Powers That Be indispensible for our ever-more energy conscious age.

Uncovers human histories, cultures, and politics on the ocean floor.

While often characterized as an alien realm, the seabed has long been fundamental to human life. As new technologies offer ever greater access to this environment, the bottom of the ocean is key to debates about our future—and yet we are poorly equipped to understand our relation to it.

The Seabed plumbs the ocean’s depths to reveal a rich and complex history of human activity at the seafloor, a history that extends from the classical world to the present. Jimmy Packham and Laurence Publicover highlight the literary significance of the seabed, examining works by writers including Aphra Behn, Anton Chekhov, Euripides, Herman Melville, M. NourbeSe Philip, William Shakespeare, Derek Walcott, and H. G. Wells, as well as lesser-known authors who have imagined this dark and mysterious realm. Putting these in dialogue with the science writing of Rachel Carson, Sylvia Earle, and others, and with visual art, politics, and historical case studies, they show how imaginative speculations concerning the ocean floor have influenced, and continue to inform, human activity on the seabed itself. Through chapters that explore sea burial and seafloor memorials, scientific exploration, deep-sea infrastructure, salvage from the seabed, and deep-sea extraction, the book reveals that the ocean floor’s cultural visibility has fluctuated over time. But longstanding visions of the seabed continue to shape our relationship with this place, a site for undersea cables and—in the near future—deep-sea mining.

The bottom of the ocean is closer than we think. Understanding our history there is crucial to assessing the present and imagining our future.

One of the world's oldest crossroads, the Sinai joins the great continental land masses of Africa and Eurasia. Its physical geography of rugged mountain peaks, desert plains, and sea coasts was formed by the collision of the two continental plates, while the human tides that have swept across the region over millennia have left an intricate web of cultures and ethnicities.

In this book, Ned Greenwood offers a complete, up-to-date physical geography of Sinai. After an introductory chapter that situates Sinai within world history and geography, he focuses in detail on the following areas: plate tectonics and geology, geomorphology and drainage, weather and climate, soils, and biogeography.

In the concluding chapter, Greenwood considers the human geography of Sinai, including the pressures currently posed by population growth, political extremism, and environmental constrictions on development. He offers a fully rounded picture of the physical environment of Sinai that will be vital reading for everyone concerned about the future of this strategic yet fragile land.

Throughout the four hundred thousand years that humanity has been collecting fossils, sea urchin fossils, or echinoids, have continually been among the most prized, from the Paleolithic era, when they decorated flint axes, to today, when paleobiologists study them for clues to the earth’s history. 

In The Star-Crossed Stone, Kenneth J. McNamara, an expert on fossil echinoids, takes readers on an incredible fossil hunt, with stops in history, paleontology, folklore, mythology, art, religion, and much more. Beginning with prehistoric times, when urchin fossils were used as jewelry, McNamara reveals how the fossil crept into the religious and cultural lives of societies around the world—the roots of the familiar five-pointed star, for example, can be traced to the pattern found on urchins. But McNamara’s vision is even broader than that: using our knowledge of early habits of fossil collecting, he explores the evolution of the human mind itself, drawing striking conclusions about humanity’s earliest appreciation of beauty and the first stirrings of artistic expression. Along the way, the fossil becomes a nexus through which we meet brilliant eccentrics and visionary archaeologists and develop new insights into topics as seemingly disparate as hieroglyphics, Beowulf, and even church organs.

An idiosyncratic celebration of science, nature, and human ingenuity, The Star-Crossed Stone is as charming and unforgettable as the fossil at its heart.

Updated throughout, the definitive guide for students, practitioners, and anyone interested in where climate science, politics, and policy stand today.

The physics and chemistry that drive human-caused climate change are surprisingly clear-cut. How we think about, talk about, and respond to the situation is dizzyingly complex. Meteorologist and journalist Robert Henson has spent years making climate science approachable and engaging. His internationally recognized book, The Thinking Person’s Guide to Climate Change, provides both specialists and newcomers with the background, insights, and confidence to engage with the paramount environmental issues of our lives (and beyond).

Drawing on a wealth of studies and assessments, this comprehensive yet lively guide brings a fresh eye to topics often buried in rhetoric. Introductory sections bring to life more than a century of painstaking research that tells us what we know and don’t know about human effects on climate. Henson discusses how and where fossil fuel use has been linked to heat waves, melting ice, wildfires, and other extremes. The guide also explores the high-stakes debates that swirl around climate change—including efforts to deny, downplay, or distract from the crisis—and how political, diplomatic, and legal systems are grappling with it. Color illustrations help explain everything from how the greenhouse effect traps heat to which everyday activities emit the most carbon. Special-feature boxes take readers to locations across the globe: small Pacific islands confronting sea level rise, Africa and its major rainfall shifts, California and year-round wildfire threats, and Florida with hurricanes intensifying ever more rapidly.

Thoroughly updated, this third edition has new coverage of the survivability of extreme heat, the use of global temperature thresholds, the challenge of carbon pricing, and other timely topics. It spotlights the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report as well as evolving geopolitics. This book acknowledges controversy, underscores points of agreement, and favors action over apathy and doomism.