Children of the sun : a history of humanity's unappeasable appetite for energy
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Children of the sun : a history of humanity's unappeasable appetite for energy
W.W. Norton, c2006
1st ed
- : pbk
Available at / 5 libraries
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Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto Universityグローバル専攻
GCOE||501.6||Cro200013592814
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [167]-180) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
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ISBN 9780393059359
Description
When the hearth fires started burning in the Palaeolithic, our ancestors broadened the exploitation of food and initiated an avalanche of change. Cooking is not often associated with drilling for oil but both are innovations that allow us to tap the sun's energy accumulated in organic matter. A story of slow evolutionary change and sharp revolutionary departures, "Children of the Sun" reveals how humanity's successes hinge directly on effective uses of sun energy and how humans have transformed the world and themselves in their quest for energy. But dwindling natural resources, global warming and environmental pollution all testify to the limits of our fossil-fuel civilisation. Although we haven't yet adopted a feasible alternative, our ingenuity and adaptability as a species give us hope.
- Volume
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: pbk ISBN 9780393931532
Description
All life on earth is dependent on energy from the sun, but one species has evolved to be especially efficient in tapping that supply. This is the story of the human species and its dedicated effort to sustain and elevate itself by making the earth's stores of energy its own. A story of slow evolutionary change and sharp revolutionary departures, it takes readers from the origins of the species to our current fork in the road.
With a winning blend of wit and insight, Alfred W. Crosby reveals the fundamental ways in which humans have transformed the world and themselves in their quest for energy. When they first started, humans found fuel much like other species in the simple harvesting of wild plants and animals. A major turn in the human career came with the domestication of fire, an unprecedented achievement unique to the species. The greatest advantage from this breakthrough came in its application to food. Cooking vastly increased the store of organic matter our ancestors could tap as food, and the range of places they could live. As they spread over the earth, humans became more complicated harvesters, negotiating alliances with several other species-plant and animal-leading to the birth of agriculture and civilizations. For millennia these civilizations tapped sun energy through the burning of recently living biomass-wood, for instance. But humans again took a revolutionary turn in the last two centuries with the systematic burning of fossilized biomass. Fossil fuels have powered our industrial civilization and in turn multiplied our demand for sun energy. Here we are then, on the verge of exceeding what the available sources of sun energy can conventionally afford us, and suffering the ill effects of our seemingly insatiable energy appetite. A found of the field of global history, Crosby gives a book that glows with illuminating power.
by "Nielsen BookData"