Becoming Earth is a book for the creationists to read, on the real story of how earth came into being, giving also a major shift on how to save our planet. Earth is a vast interconnected living system that over billions of years, has transformed a lump of orbiting rock into our cosmic oasis, breathing oxygen into our atmosphere and turning rock into fertile soil and creating massive oceans. This is a book that in the words of Steve Silberman ‘weaves science and history, with the grace of a poet’.
When I was a boy, I thought I could change the weather. On sweltering summer days in suburban California, I would draw a picture of blue rain and march around it on the lawn, splashing it with a potion of hose water and yard trimmings. As I grew up, so did my understanding of meteorology. I learned how water evaporates from lakes, rivers and oceans.
Rain, I was taught, is an inevitable outcome of atmospheric physics – a gift that we and other creatures passively receive. And due to long-term atmospheric ripple effects, the Amazon rainforest contributes to rainfall as far away as Canada. A tree growing in Brazil can change the weather in Manitoba.
Author Ferris Jabr is a contributing writer for The New York Times and Scientific America. He lives in Oregon (US). This is his first book.
This wondrous book reveals our living planet for the miracle that it is. Carla Safina
We tend to take our rare jewel of a home planet for granted. In his startlingly beautiful book, the author shows us exactly why we shouldn’t. Deborah Blum
A science writer with a poet’s soul, Ferris is among the few scribes worthy of serving as biographer for the life-encrusted rock we call home. Ben Goldfarb
There are times reading this book, when you feel like you are peering right down into the very heart of our living planet. It is quite simply, a work of genius. Robert Moor
The Collective Intelligence of Life on Earth
The Internet of Animals is an illuminating account of the untapped knowledge of the animal kingdom, from animal migration to how elephants can detect tsunamis. What do animals know that we don’t? In this book, scientist Martin Wikelski argues that animals have a unique ‘sixth sense’. If we give animals a voice, our perception of the world could change forever.
As they tag animals around the world with tiny tracking devices and link their movements to the International Space Station, this taps into the ‘internet of animals’, an astonishing network of information made up of thousands of creatures communicating with each other and their environments. This project ICARUS is poised to change the world. We learn how barnyard animals become restless when earthquakes are imminent, African animals sense when poachers are on the move and frigatebards in South America depart before hurricanes arrive.
We also now know that animal migrations are not triggered by genes encoded in DNA but by elaborate cultures. By learning from them, we can better prepare for earthquakes, floods and hurricanes – and also learn to live alongside animals in harmony.
Martin is director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour and honorary professor of ornithology at University of Konstanz.
