Living dangerously

by Heinrich D. Holland

"What will be the fate of humanity and our store of natural resources in the next century? Will we drown in our own garbage and destroy the diversity of the biosphere? Heinrich Holland and Ulrich Petersen examine these and other questions in an innovative earth, natural resource, and environmental sciences textbook. Moving away from the organization of traditional geology courses, their work is based on an Earth systems science approach covering the interaction of the Earth, Sun, atmosphere, biosphere, and oceans. The first section of the book deals with the workings of the Earth as a complex system, the sources of external and internal energy, and the effects of these energies on near surface and deep Earth environments. The second section deals with the formation, distribution, availability, and cost of renewable and nonrenewable resources, and addresses the adequacy of these resources for humanity during the next century. Finally, the third section deals with the effects of humanity