Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook625 pages9 hours
Cataclysms: An Environmental History of Humanity
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Humanity is by many measures the biggest success story in the animal kingdom; but what are the costs of this triumph? Over its three million years of existence, the human species has continuously modified nature and drained its resources. In Cataclysms, Laurent Testot provides the full tally, offering a comprehensive environmental history of humanity’s unmatched and perhaps irreversible influence on the world.
Testot explores the interconnected histories of human evolution and planetary deterioration, arguing that our development from naked apes to Homo sapiens has entailed wide-scale environmental harm. Testot makes the case that humans have usually been catastrophic for the planet, “hyperpredators” responsible for mass extinctions, deforestation, global warming, ocean acidification, and unchecked pollution, as well as the slaughter of our own species. Organized chronologically around seven technological revolutions, Cataclysms unspools the intertwined saga of humanity and our environment, from our shy beginnings in Africa to today’s domination of the planet, revealing how we have blown past any limits along the way—whether by exploding our own population numbers, domesticating countless other species, or harnessing energy from fossils. Testot’s book, while sweeping, is light and approachable, telling the stories—sometimes rambunctious, sometimes appalling—of how a glorified monkey transformed its own environment beyond all recognition.
In order to begin reversing our environmental disaster, we must have a better understanding of our own past and the incalculable environmental costs incurred at every stage of human innovation. Cataclysms offers that understanding and the hope that we can now begin to reform our relationship to the Earth.
Testot explores the interconnected histories of human evolution and planetary deterioration, arguing that our development from naked apes to Homo sapiens has entailed wide-scale environmental harm. Testot makes the case that humans have usually been catastrophic for the planet, “hyperpredators” responsible for mass extinctions, deforestation, global warming, ocean acidification, and unchecked pollution, as well as the slaughter of our own species. Organized chronologically around seven technological revolutions, Cataclysms unspools the intertwined saga of humanity and our environment, from our shy beginnings in Africa to today’s domination of the planet, revealing how we have blown past any limits along the way—whether by exploding our own population numbers, domesticating countless other species, or harnessing energy from fossils. Testot’s book, while sweeping, is light and approachable, telling the stories—sometimes rambunctious, sometimes appalling—of how a glorified monkey transformed its own environment beyond all recognition.
In order to begin reversing our environmental disaster, we must have a better understanding of our own past and the incalculable environmental costs incurred at every stage of human innovation. Cataclysms offers that understanding and the hope that we can now begin to reform our relationship to the Earth.
Unavailable
Related to Cataclysms
Related ebooks
Alien Religion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSites of Insight: A Guide to Colorado Sacred Places Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Quest for Gaia: A Book of Changes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMankind Final Hour Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Evo-Illusion: Why Iid Trumps Id and Evolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAtmospheric Pressure Plasma for Surface Modification Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood Fable Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Electrical Interactions in Molecular Biophysics: An Introduction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe ninth vibration and other stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife During Wartime Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Literature Suppressed on Religious Grounds, Fourth Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDive: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breaking The Silence: A Christian's Guide to Loving Their LGBTQ+ Family Members Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Equality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ambrose Bierce: A Biography by Carey Mcwilliams (Illustrated) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prometheus Tree Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Zero and Other Fictions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Secret Technology of Building the Great Egyptian Pyramids - Part One: Who Were They?! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStranger Than Fiction Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsParadise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Readings of the Vessantara Jataka Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Warfare of Science Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPearls of Wisdom: Advice from a Dead Squirrel Who Knows Everything Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMiniature Fiction: Another 50 Very Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Nuclei to Stars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
History For You
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ZERO Percent: Secrets of the United States, the Power of Trust, Nationality, Banking and ZERO TAXES! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wise as Fu*k: Simple Truths to Guide You Through the Sh*tstorms of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Unveiled: How the West Empowers Radical Muslims Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The War of Art: by Steven Pressfield | Includes Analysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Cataclysms
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews