The Green Marble: Earth System Science and Global Sustainability

by David P. Turner

Humans have difficulty thinking at the global scale. Yet as we come to understand our planet as a single, interconnected, complex system and encounter compelling evidence of human impact on Earth's climate and biosphere, the need for a truly global effort is increasingly urgent. In this concise and accessible text, David P. Turner presents an overview of global environmental change and a synthesis of research and ideas from the rapidly evolving fields of earth system science and sustainability science that is suitable for anyone interested in humanity's current predicaments and what we can do about them.

The Green Marble examines Earth's past, contemporary human disruption, and the prospects for global environmental governance. Turner emphasizes the functioning of the biosphere--the totality of life on Earth--including its influence on geologic history, its sensitivity to human impacts, and its possible role in ameliorating climate change. Relying on models of the earth system that synthesize vast amounts of monitoring information and recent research on biophysical processes, The Green Marble describes a range of scenarios for our planetary home, exploring the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and factors such as economic globalization. Turner juxtaposes cutting-edge ideas from both the geosciences and the social sciences to illustrate how humanity has arrived upon its current dangerous trajectory, and how we might pull back from the brink of civilization-challenging environmental change. Growing out of the author's popular course on global environmental change, The Green Marble is accessible to non-science majors and provides a framework for understanding the complex relationship of humanity to the global environment.

Genres: Sustainability, Nonfiction, Science

314 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 15, 2018

Reviews

[David Conklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Turner's new book is unusual in several very good ways. For starters, it is at the same time both very readable and also packed with interesting technical details from the present state of earth system science. Second, it puts our current climate change situation in the context of our planet's entire 4-billion-year history, a much needed perspective. Who knew, for example, that at one time in the distant geological past the atmospheric CO2 concentration was several times higher than today, or just how different the climate was then? It is a cautionary tale. Turner combines proper science with his own passion for finding a way forward to a sustainable future. He describes several plausible scenarios for how it could all turn out in the end. It's a good read!

[J Christopher G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very ambitious and worthwhile attempt at making sustainability science (including climate science) digestible to the layperson (although some parts were still too academic for me), but an important contribution towards climate solutions

[Juliane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as an assigned coursebook - I greatly enjoyed the first, more natural science based part, but did not get around to reading the second, more sociological/political part, since I felt quite familiar with those topics already. A good introductory volume.