Your Life as Planet Earth A new way to understand the story of the Earth, its climate and our origins

486 Pages·2014·10.083 MB·English

by  Howard Lee

YOUR LIFE AS PLANET EARTH

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Advance Praise for
Your Life as Planet Earth

“What a fun read! And a lot of great and important
conclusions. I hope it finds a wide audience, because they will
love its unique approach to making science interesting and
accessible, yet complete.”
Professor Erik Asphaug, University of Arizona,
author of Impact Craters in the Solar System
“I highly recommend this engaging book for anyone
wanting to learn more about the planet we live on. Using the
clever metaphor of Earth’s planetary evolution as an individual
passing through the various stages of life, “Your Life as Planet
Earth” tells a remarkable tale of a planet that has
witnessed tumult and turmoil, and experienced the full range of
extremes from icehouse to inferno. Yet the book leaves no doubt
that Earth faces her greatest challenge of all today, confronted
with massive and unprecedented human interference, be it mass
extinction, ocean acidification, or perhaps the greatest threat of
all—human-caused climate change.”
Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor Penn State
University,
author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.
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YOUR LIFE AS PLANET EARTH
_________
A new way to understand the story of
the Earth, its climate and our
origins.
_________

Howard Lee

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Copyright © 2014 Howard Lee.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case
of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
1st Edition – e-book version.
ISBN: 978-0-9766137-1-8
ylape.com
Cover designed by Howard Lee using images by NASA.
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Dedicated to Scouts everywhere.
Keep leaving the world better than you find it.

“The keys to the future of our species
and our planet
have always lain in the deep past”
Richard Fortey, FRS

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Contents
PREFACE
PART 1: YOUR LIFE AS PLANET EARTH
Abbreviations
1. TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD
Your near-death experience
Your first memories
2. TROUBLED TEEN
A bad case of acne
You’re a teen parent!
3. MID-LIFE CRISES
Maturing into your 30s
It’s a gas!
4. RETIREMENT
Feeling cold in your 80s - Slushball Earth #2
At 86 - Getting a complex
At 88 – To protect and to prey
5. OLD AGE AND HEART ATTACKS
At 90 – Heart attack!
Jaws
At 91 - The invention of walking
At 92 – A double heart attack
Age 92 to 93 - Swamps and giant bugs
At 93 – The invention of the eggshell
6. THE DAY YOU SET YOURSELF ON FIRE
Age 94 - Dawn of the dinosaurs
Back to the burn unit
95 to 96 – Jurassic giants
7. AN OVERAGED HIPPIE!
At 98 – grass and chalk
8. HOT FLASHES
Atlantic fizz
Train wreck
9. YOUR LAST YEAR - A CHILLER
Central heating failure
Seas of grass
Volcanoes and instant diamonds
The day the sea dries up
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Of ice and man
10. YOUR 100TH BIRTHDAY!
Your long goodnight
11. BOTTOM LINE
PART 2: TECHNIQUES OF TIME TRAVEL
1. ORIGIN
Cosmic sediments
Moon formation
The lost elements – clues to Earth’s childhood
2. THE TERRA FIRMA ILLUSION
Drifting continents
The plumbing of Hades
Did the Earth move for you too?
Bottom line:
3. PROOF OF LIFE
Evolution before our eyes
Not your grandfather’s fossils
Missing links – found!
Breadcrumbs of evolution
Bottom Line:
4. THE CLOCKS IN ROCKS
Sands of time
Radiation-free proofs of an old Earth
Radioactive rock-clocks
Dating humans
Dating fossils with SHRIMP
Ages of lavas and granites
Dating sediments
Cooking time – dating metamorphic rocks
Antiquity of meteorites and impacts
The ups and downs of mountains
Bottom line:
5. DIPPING A TOE IN ANCIENT SEAS, BREATHING THE AIR
OF LOST WORLDS
Thermometers for times past
Ice cores
Barometers for old atmospheres
A brief history of space weather
Fossil raindrops and packrat urine
Rock-solid evidence of ancient climates
Bottom line:
6. THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO THE PAST
The power of humans
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We are the cause
Uncertainty in climate change
Signposts from the past
Why care? - Prognosis
What to do about it
Bottom line:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
SOURCES

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