Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet - cover image

Copyright

Philippe D. Tortell

Published On

2020-04-22

ISBN

Paperback978-1-78374-845-7
Hardback978-1-78374-846-4
PDF978-1-78374-847-1
HTML978-1-80064-605-6
XML978-1-78374-850-1
EPUB978-1-78374-848-8
MOBI978-1-78374-849-5

Language

  • English

Print Length

288 pages (xvi + 278)

Dimensions

Paperback203 x 20 x 203 mm(8" x 0.79" x 8")
Hardback203 x 24 x 203 mm(8" x 0.94" x 8")

Weight

Paperback1374g (48.47oz)
Hardback1808g (63.78oz)

Media

Illustrations15

OCLC Number

1154460896

LCCN

2020414212

BIC

  • RNKH
  • RND

BISAC

  • NAT010000
  • NAT011000
  • SCI026000

LCC

  • GE149
  • E26

Keywords

  • Earth Day
  • Earth’s environment
  • Earth’s natural systems
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Earth 2020

An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet

  • Philippe D. Tortell (editor)
Fifty years have passed since the first Earth Day, on 22 April 1970. This accessible, incisive, and timely collection of essays brings together a diverse set of expert voices to examine how the Earth’s environment has changed over this past half century, and what lies in store for our planet over the coming fifty years.

Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet responds to a public increasingly concerned about the deterioration of Earth’s natural systems, offering readers a wealth of perspectives on our shared ecological past, and on the future trajectory of planet Earth.

Written by world-leading thinkers on the front-lines of global change research and policy, this multi-disciplinary collection maintains a dual focus: some essays investigate specific facets of the physical Earth system, while others explore the social, legal and political dimensions shaping the human environmental footprint. In doing so, the essays collectively highlight the urgent need for collaboration across diverse domains of expertise in addressing one of the most significant challenges facing us today.

Earth 2020 is essential reading for everyone seeking a deeper understanding of the past, present and future of our planet, and the role of humanity in shaping this trajectory.

Reviews

Conceived before Covid-19, 'Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet' is an attempt to review various environmental topics from climate change to biodiversity and pollution crises in a series of testimonies by "insiders,” specialists in their respective disciplines. It begins with a solid introduction by Philippe Tortell explaining his journey into the preparation of these essays. As he explains in the introduction the idea for this book came to him as a way "to focus public attention (if only for a short while) on topics of significant importance.”[5] Tortell explains the book as a way of assessing the human footprint on the "Earth system” since the first celebration of Earth Day in 1970.

Loys Maingon

"A Measure of Change". The Ormsby Review, 2021.

Full Review

Additional Resources

On Monday, May 4, at 12 p.m. EDT the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society at Dartmouth hosted an online panel discussions with four contributors of Earth 2020: An Insider's Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet.This panel was co-moderated by Philippe Tortell, editor of the title and professor at the University of British Columbia and Elizabeth Wilson, director of the Irving Institute and professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.

[video]Online panel 1

In this panel the following authors participated:

Sally N. Aitken, University of British Columbia
Douglas G. MacMartin, Cornell University
Roland Geyer, University of California, Santa Barbara
U. Rashid Sumaila, University of British Columbia

[video]Online panel 2

The second panel includes the following panelists:

Robert Socolow, Princeton University
Candis Callison, University of British Columbia
Janet G. Hering, ETH and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Alice Gorman Flinders University

[audio]Ice Core Walk(Philippe Tortell, Chris Chafe and Greg Niemeyer)
[audio]Earth Symphony(Chris Chafe, with Phillipe Tortell and Jonathan Girard)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction

Philippe D. Tortell


Earth Sounds

Philippe D. Tortell


Impatient Earth

John Harte and Robert Socolow


Climate 1970-2020

Tapio Schneider


Politics and Law

Elizabeth May


Carbon

David Archer


Everyday Biodiversity

Jeffrey R. Smith and Gretchen C. Daily


Energy

Elizabeth J. Wilson and Elias Grove Nielsen


Forests

Sally N. Aitken


Environmental Economics

Don Fullerton


Air

Jon Abbatt


Geoengineering

Douglas G. MacMartin and Katharine L. Ricke


Ice

Julian Dowdeswell


Imaging Earth

Edward Burtynsky


Mother Earth

Deborah McGregor


Sea Level Rise, 1970-2070: A View from the Future

Robert E. Kopp


Climate Negotiation

Rosemary Lyster


Weather

Neville Nicholls


Knowing Earth

Sheila Jasanoff


Fish

U. Rashid Sumaila and Daniel Pauly


The Global Chemical Experiment

Elsie Sunderland and Charlotte Wagner


Land

Navin Ramankutty and Hannah Wittman


Oceans 2020

David M. Karl


Earth and Plastic

Roland Geyer


Fresh Water

Janet G. Hering


Media

Candis Callison


Space Junk

Alice Gorman


Saving the Boat

Zoe Craig-Sparrow and Grace Nosek-Sparrow


Index

Author Biographies


Contributors

Philippe D. Tortell

(editor)
Head of the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science at University of British Columbia