Read 'N' Seed: Final Review of "Under a Green Sky"

Overview of "Under a Green Sky" by Peter Ward
The beginning of this book wasn’t my favorite. It had very specific information, that I wasn’t that interested in. It also involved many view points from the author and other paleontologists about the various topics I’ve talked about. Some of the viewpoints and theories would get very lengthy and boring to read. However, when Peter Ward was discussing the K-T extinction, which was when the Earth was most likely hit by a giant meteor and the debris that was blown into the atmosphere. Causing total blackness, and ultimately killing off most of the species. I think that this was one of the most significant things I learned in this book. This is because it’s always possible for another meteor to strike the Earth.


The second part of the book was more attention-grabbing. It was really interesting to read about how the Earth almost frozen at one point, and it was the rise in greenhouse gases that was responsible for completely changing the temperature all over the World, causing it to thaw. This was the second most significant thing I read about. Our greenhouse gases are rising now, causing the temperature to rise to happen everywhere. This is important because history is already starting to repeat itself, and many people don’t realize what can happen if the green house gases continue to rise. Reading this book can help open people’s eyes to the past, and what can happen.

This leads to the third most significant part of the book. When Ward discussed that the next extinction could be caused by a green house extinction. When he said that it would only take a 25 foot rise in the Earths oceans to wipe out half of the World’s population I was blown away! And that by the year 3000 it is supposed to rise by 200 feet. This is extrememly important information, and something that I think I should have known before reading this book.


Recommendation
I would recommend this book.. or to even just skim the first couple of chapters, get a general idea, and read the whole second half. I found that much more interesting. But overall I learned A LOT from this book, and have found myself telling people random facts from it.

Read 'N' Seed: 4th Quarter of "Under a Green Sky"

Main Topics

The first chapter discussed how the state of Washington, many centuries ago, used to be very tropical. Fossils of tropical plants, palm trees, and crocodiles can still be found there. This shows a glimpse of what the Eocene era of the World was like; tropical everywhere. An island near Australia called New Caledonia has an interesting geography in that it gets warm there but the waters are still cooler. This island is being studied now because it could offer some insight as to what the World will look like someday due to global warming.

The author discussed some effects of living in places that are unbearably hot. For example, in many climates most people use drugs to help make it through the day, such as Kava root, and Khat. Also, the brain doesn't work as well and disease, such as malaria, are easier spread.

Ward examines the environmental changes that could lead to the next  greenhouse extinction; sea level rise, ocean acidification, global warming and coral reef "bleaching." He concludes the sea levels will rise by 200 feet by the year 3000.  A 25 foot rise would most likely wipe out half of the Worlds population. Ward says, "As far as can be seen in the present, we have not yet reached the point of no return, or the tipping point." The key is to keeping carbon dioxide levels below 450 parts per million.

Terminology

ocean acidification: The lowering pH levels of the planet's oceans.

coral reef 'bleaching': Coral starts to become white and can be caused by a reduction in photosynthetic pigment. Coral bleaching as been an increasing problem for the last twenty years.

Implications

The fact that the author believes that in under 1,000 years the sea levels may rise by 200 feet and only a 25 foot rise has the potential to wipe out half of Earth's population is so scary! That would obviously have a huge impact on humanity, and in not that large amount of time. With information like this out there I would thank that this would be enough to scare people into making major changes. Especially since we can still make the changes necessary to change the current path we are on.

Read 'N' Seed Third Quarter of "Under a Green Sky"

Main Topics
a main topic first discussed was that millions of years ago there is evidence that the Earth was at one time called a 'snowball Earth.' This was ended by a rapid rise in greenhouse gases that were probably volcanically produced. These gases were measure in parts per million, but even with such a small addition of these gases it was enough to completely change the temperature all around the World.  Greenhouse gases are believed to be the major culprit for causing climate shifts throughout Earth's history. When the World warms it affects the oceans circulation system.  Greenhouse extinctions were also explained.
Currently, the global temperature is around 15 degrees and 16 degrees celcius. Each time the carbon dioxide levels double the global temperature's increase by about 2 degrees celcius. According to this book, in just a century the Earth's temperature should be around 20 degrees celcius which would, "conceivably bring about the greatest mass death of humans in all of history."

Terminology

'snowball Earth': This was a possible time in Earth's history when the entire Earth became so cold that the oceans may have frozen from pole to pole.

Greenhouse extinction:Where low oxygenated bottom water is at depths were sunlight can hit it green sulfur bacteria start to grow and expand filling the low oxygenated water.  Living amoung other bacteria that produce large amouts of hydrogen sulfide, this gas rises into the atmosphere, breaking down the ozone layer and killing a lot of the plant and animal life. With an increase in ultraviolet radiation most of the phytoplankton are killed. With the heat of the planet rising and the high levels of hydrogen sulfide creates a mass extinction oin Earth.


Implications
It stated in the book that " the key to climate change seems to be both the level and the rate at which carbon dioxide rises into the atmosphere." Climate change is obviously something that is affecting us today. The scary thing about reading these chapters was that rises in carbon dioxide levels most likely played a huge role in extinctions from the past. Since our greenhouse gases have been rising today I think it is extremely important that we do something about now.
The last part of my main topics about temperature increase and carbon dioxide levels was shocking! If things keep going the way there going in just 100 years there could be a huge mass extinction. This is just goes to show that something NEEDS to be done and changes need to be made.

Carbon Dioxide Levels

Read 'N' Seed 2: First Quarter of Under a Green Sky

I've read the first two chapers,61 pages, of Under a Green Sky by Peter Ward. And I'm not going to lie, as of right now I don't really like the book. It's like reading a text book from a paleontology class. A lot of the really specifc details go over my head and I have to repeatedly re-read paragraphs to make sure I read it right. However, what I do understand of what I've read so far is pretty interesting.

Though there is lots of background information about the theorys and viewpoints. There has been one main topic that has been talked about a lot so far. And then another that has been touched on.
The first being the K-T extinction. This took place inbetween the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. This extinction caused a lot of controversy because a father and son scientific team from the University of Berkley named  Alvarez published a paper saying that this extiniction was caused by a giant asteroid that hit the Earth caused huge environmental changes through out the whole world. Many critics didn't believe his theory and challenged it for a long time. They believe that it the extinction was caused by a long term climate change and extinctions happened over a course of a long time.

Alvarez explained his theory was like a domino effect. The first being that it wasn't just the impact itself that would have killed off so many species, it was a period of darkness that occured after the impact because of the large amount of debris in meteoric and Earth material that was blown into the atmosphere. This would kill much of the plant life on earth. Next, large amounts of sulfer was also in the atmosphere after the impact, that rained down as acid rain. Also, because so much sunlight would have been absorbed by atmosphereic dust particles the Earth cooled down to almost, or to, near freezing temperatures. Which before the impact the Earth had mostly tropical. With all of these drastic changes a mass extiniction was a definite possiblity.

Later, Peter Ward was able to vist a K-T boundary site, which are located all over the world. In his journey there he made a discovery that supported Alverez's theory. He found, tiny pieces of platinum and iridium- which is what stars and asteroids are made out of. Platunum and iridium were then discovered all over the world at other K-T boundary sites. By the 1990s very few people doubted Alvarez's theory. Were the asteroid supposedly hit was the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, the impact site being called the Chicxulub Crater.

The other topic, was another boundary that was discovered that was first thought to be a time period when very little extinction took place. But it was discovered, through investigation of carbon and oxygen isotopes, that instead the shallow water of the oceans being more than the deeper water it was just the opposite. The water was being warmed from the bottom. Since the water was becoming more warm, there was less oxygen in the water many organisms living in the ocean started to die out fairly rapidly.

Implications

The topics so far affect society because the more we know about Earth's past the better we can prepare for the future. Actually many scientists in the book said that it is very possible that many of Earth's extinctions could have been caused my meteors, and that it could happen again. So far, not much has been mentioned about a rise in CO2 or global warming but many of the reviews of the book have said it's a big part of Under a Green Sky. So I think that implications that can affect society today are going to be addressed more later in the book.

Read 'N' Seed 1: Under a Green Sky

Hi guys, I needed to pick a different book so this has been updated! I chose "Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future" by Peter D. Ward . This book will cover a range of  environmental topics that seem to mostly be dealing with global warming. Such as at the end of the Permian period their was a rise in carbon dioxide that lead to a climate change which caused major destruction to species. Juding by the titles of many of the chapters this book talks a lot about extinctions and what could possibly be coming in the future. To give you a better idea the chapters are as follows:

1. Welcome to the Revolution
2. The Overlooed Extinction
3. The Mother of All Extinctions
4. The Misinterpreted Extinction
5. A New Paradigm for Mass Extinction
6. The Driver of Extinction
7. Bridging the Deep Past and Near Past
8. The Oncoming Extinction of Winter
9. Back to the Eocene
Finale: The New Old World.

I chose this book because after learning more about global warming in class, I think this book will be really interesting and offer a lot of new insight. I know this book is going to have a lot of facts in it, and from reading the first couple of pages Ward seems like he writes in a "non-lecturing" can of way that will be appealing. This book has 10 chapters and 204 pages. I am going to read  chapters 1 and 2  for the 1st quarter. Chapters 3-5 for quarter 2. Chapters 6-8 for quarter 3 and chapters 9 and the 'finale' for quarter 4.
Here are 3 links about the author and the book:

HaperCollins :This offers a summary of the book.

Wikipedia: This site has information about the author, Peter Ward.

Powells: This site offers a review of the book.

Introductory Post

Welcome to my Maggie's Environmental Lifestyle page! I'm a new community health major, and I'm not completely sure what I want to do with my major when I graduate. I have worked with children for a long time, and am interested in nutricion, so I could see doing some kind of combination of the two.


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