The Earth In Transition

A group of outstanding environmental scientists has compiled a collection of case studies that illustrate the changes being wrought on the biosphere by the human presence.

The great energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is under way. As oil insecurity deepens, the extraction risks of fossil fuels rise, and concerns about climate instability cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new world energy economy is emerging. The old economy, fueled by oil, natural gas, and coal is being replaced with one powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The Great Transition details the accelerating pace of this global energy revolution. As many countries become less enamored with coal and nuclear power, they are embracing an array of clean, renewable energies. Whereas solar energy projects were once small-scale, largely designed for residential use, energy investors are now building utility-scale solar projects. Strides are being made: some of the huge wind farm complexes under construction in China will each produce as much electricity as several nuclear power plants, and an electrified transport system supplemented by the use of bicycles could reshape the way we think about mobility.

A scenario for the next half-century (2020 - 2070) that explores climate disruption, a world systems crisis, a great fall for humanity, a time of great sorrow, awakening to our predicament as a human community, and together confronting the choice of rising to a higher level of maturity and potential as a species. While moving toward a pathway of great transition, Choosing Earth also acknowledges two other futures that are powerfully present in the world: 1) A pathway of breakdown, chaos and collapse; and 2) a pathway of authoritarian control enhanced with AI that wrenches the world back from the brink of catastrophe with the strict controls. This wide-ranging book looks wide, deep, and long: Looks wide by integrating a wide range and diversity of knowledge sources. Looks deep by including consciousness, awakening experiences, compassion and other invisible factors for understanding. Looks long by raising our gaze to the next half-century and beyond to get our bearings for the changing pathway ahead.

This volume presents the latest science on all significant geological and paleontological aspects of the Earth during the Late Triassic Period. Rather than presenting a collection of narrowly focused research papers, the volume consists of a series of peer-reviewed chapters on specific aspects of the Late Triassic world (e.g., tectonics, magmatism, paleobotany, climate, etc.), all authored by experts in the subject of their respective chapters. Each chapter reviews and summarizes the latest findings in these fields and also includes a review of the pertinent literature. The author list is very broadly international and forms a veritable who’s who of expertise in these fields. The book is loosely organized to present the physical aspects of Earth during the Late Triassic at the outset, followed by the paleontological aspects. The latter section is further organized to present the record of the marine environment first before moving onto land, with fauna followed by flora. The volume closes with a review of the end-Triassic extinctions.

The beginning is near... the beginning of Oneness and the end of duality. Various Guides through a channel named, Maddison Brownne are telling us that the earth is moving from being a dark planet to being a Light planet, from a time of the male archetype to a time of the feminine archetype and from duality to Oneness. But first, a great storm has begun and within a decade, it will pass. Surviving that storm will not be easy, but it will lead us to the magic and wonder of the New Earth!

World human population is expected to reach upwards of 9 billion by 2050 and then level off over the next half-century. How can the transition to a stabilizing population also be a transition to sustainability? How can science and technology help to ensure that human needs are met while the planet's environment is nurtured and restored? Our Common Journey examines these momentous questions to draw strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies' efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well being. The book argues that societies should approach sustainable development not as a destination but as an ongoing, adaptive learning process. Speaking to the next two generations, it proposes a strategy for using scientific and technical knowledge to better inform future action in the areas of fertility reduction, urban systems, agricultural production, energy and materials use, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation, and suggests an approach for building a new research agenda for sustainability science. Our Common Journey documents large-scale historical currents of social and environmental change and reviews methods for "what if" analysis of possible future development pathways and their implications for sustainability. The book also identifies the greatest threats to sustainabilityâ€"in areas such as human settlements, agriculture, industry, and energyâ€"and explores the most promising opportunities for circumventing or mitigating these threats. It goes on to discuss what indicators of change, from children's birth-weights to atmosphere chemistry, will be most useful in monitoring a transition to sustainability.

There exists a large literature on the spectroscopic properties of copper(II) com- 9 pounds. This is due to the simplicity of the d electron configuration, the wide variety of stereochemistries that copper(II) compounds can adopt, and the f- xional geometric behavior that they sometimes exhibit [1]. The electronic and geometric properties of a molecule are inexorably linked and this is especially true with six-coordinate copper(II) compounds which are subject to a Jahn-T- ler effect.However,the spectral-structural correlations that are sometimes d- wn must often be viewed with caution as the information contained in a typical solution UV-Vis absorption spectrum of a copper(II) compound is limited. Meaningful spectral-structural correlations can be obtained in a related series of compounds where detailed spectroscopic data is available. In the fol- 4– lowing sections two such series are examined; the six-coordinate CuF and 6 2+ Cu(H O) ions doped as impurities in single crystal hosts.Using low tempera- 2 6 ture polarized optical spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance, a very detailed picture can be drawn about the geometry of these ions in both their ground and excited electronic states. We then compare the spectrosco- cally determined structural data with that obtained from X-ray diffraction or EXAFS measurements.