Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Tracing our environmental impact through time, David Howe demonstrates how humanity’s exploitation of Earth’s natural resources has pushed our planet to its limit and asks: What’s next for our depleted planet?
Everything we use started life in the earth, as a rock or a mineral vein, a layer of an ancient seabed, or perhaps the remains of a 400-million-year-old volcano. Humanity's ability to fashion nature to its own ends is by no means a new phenomenon—we have been inventing new ways to help ourselves to its bounty for tens of thousands of years. But today, we mine, quarry, pump, cut, blast, and crush Earth's resources at an unprecedented rate. We have become a dominant, even dangerous, force on the planet.
In Extraction to Extinction, David Howe traces our impact through time to unearth how our obsession with endlessly producing and throwing away more and more stuff could destroy our planet. But is there still time to turn it around?
"A lyrical and questing narrative of how humans have used and abused natural resources down the ages ... long-brewed technical knowledge combined with an easy storyteller's acumen, fluency and wisdom." Michael Leeder, Professor Emeritus at the University of east Anglia, Norwich and author of the recent Measures for Measure: Geology and the Industrial Revolution (Dunedin)
"One of the strengths of Howe’s work is his depth of learning, combined with a light touch in presenting the material that makes it accessible." Dr Lou Agosta, Assistant Professor, Medical Education in the Humanities, University of Chicago Graham School
Rocks and Resources
Concentrate
Bricks, Pots and Ceramics
Copper
Iron and Steel
Concrete
Glass
Aluminum
Plastics
Lithium, Rare Earths and the Information Age
Pollution and the Wounded Planet
Coal, Oil and Climate Change
The Anthropocene
References
Acknowledgements
Index