Harvesting the Biosphere
What We Have Taken from Nature
- Publisher
- MIT Press
- Initial publish date
- Aug 2015
- Category
- Environmental Science, General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780262528276
- Publish Date
- Aug 2015
- List Price
- $34.00
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780262018562
- Publish Date
- Dec 2012
- List Price
- $47.00
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production.
The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared. Many species have exerted enormous influence on the biosphere's character and productivity, but none has transformed the Earth in so many ways and on such a scale as Homo sapiens. In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil offers an interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistory to the present day. Smil examines all harvests—from prehistoric man's hunting of megafauna to modern crop production—and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. Without harvesting of the biomass, Smil points out, there would be no story of human evolution and advancing civilization; but at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very foundations of civilization's well-being.
In his detailed and comprehensive account, Smil presents the best possible quantifications of past and current global losses in order to assess the evolution and extent of biomass harvests. Drawing on the latest work in disciplines ranging from anthropology to environmental science, Smil offers a valuable long-term, planet-wide perspective on human-caused environmental change.
About the author
Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of forty books, including Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses and Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing, both published by the MIT Press. In 2010 he was named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013 Bill Gates wrote on his website that “there is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.”
Editorial Reviews
There's no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.... In Harvesting the Biosphere, Smil gives us as clear and numeric a picture as is possible of how humans have altered the biosphere.—Bill Gates, The Gates Notes—
Other titles by
How to Feed the World
The History and Future of Food
El tamaño de las cosas / Size : How It Explains the World
Grand Transitions
How the Modern World Was Made
Invention and Innovation
A Brief History of Hype and Failure
How the World Really Works
The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
Numbers Don't Lie
71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World
Growth
From Microorganisms to Megacities
Energy and Civilization
A History
Energy
A Beginner's Guide
Power Density
A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses