Product Description

Plants have transformed our planet over the last 470 million years as they invaded the land and diversified into the astonishing variety we know today. But their influence has reached even further: they have profoundly moulded the Earth's climate and the evolutionary trajectory of life. Far from being 'silent witnesses to the passage of time', plants are dynamic components of our world, shaping the environment throughout history as much as that environment has shaped them. In iThe Emerald Planet/i, David Beerling puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth's history, and in helping us to predict its future. His account draws together evidence from fossil plants, from experiments with their living counterparts, and from computer models of the 'Earth System', to illuminate the history of our planet and its biodiversity. This new approach reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how forests once grew on Antarctica, how plants played a starring role in allowing spectacular giant insects to thrive in the Carboniferous; and strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. Along the way, Beerling introduces a lively cast of pioneering scientists from Victorian times onwards whose discoveries provided the crucial background to these and the other puzzles. This new understanding of our planet's past sheds a sobering light on our own climate-changing activities, and offers clues to what our climatic and ecological futures might look like. There could be no more important time to take a close look at plants, and to understand the history of the world through the stories they tell.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #128200 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-15
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.09 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Review
`Within these pages is one of the greatest stories ever told... It is as fascinating as it is important.' New Scientist

`Here at last is David Beerling as the Green Knight, revealing the extraordinary story of the construction of our emerald planet. Rigorous science joins hands with an enthusiastic delivery to re-awaken our fascination in plants, while engaging anecdotes provide a thrilling background to an extraordinary story of climate change and our current environmental crisis. ' Simon Conway Morris (author of Life's Solution)

`Beerling gives us the big picture of how plants have changed our planet - and poses the key question of how we will manage the emerald planet to ensure the kind of future we desire. ' Sir Peter Crane (Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1999-2006)

From the Publisher
25 B&W

About the Author
David Beerling is Professor of Palaeoclimatology at the University of Sheffield. Before this he held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. His work on the evolution of life and the physical environment was recognized by the award of a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize in Earth Sciences in 2001. He has published many papers in scientific journals and is co-author of iVegetation and the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Modelling the first 400 million years/i (Cambridge University Press, 2001).