“Silent Earth” has received a five-star “must read🏆” review on Reedsy. Blending scientific depth and practical foresight, this book is both a wake-up call and a guide for navigating environmental collapse.
Synopsis
Silent Earth is a technical reference for civil engineers, land-use and urban planners, and city administrators. It covers a broad range of topics and should serve as a springboard for specialists wishing to learn more about adapting to climate change and biosphere decline.
As the Earth’s living systems deteriorate at an unprecedented rate, human societies face the urgent challenge of adapting to an increasingly unstable environment. Physical Geographer Garry Rogers offers a clear-eyed examination of our options, arguing that while complete restoration of the biosphere is no longer feasible, strategic adaptation remains possible. Drawing on extensive research, Rogers outlines practical approaches for communities to maintain essential functions as ecosystem services decline. While large-scale adaptation efforts face significant barriers, this groundbreaking work shows how planners and administrators can implement effective strategies to enhance resilience in a transforming world. Essential reading for navigating our environmental future. Ideal for policymakers, scholars, environmentalists, and engaged citizens, Silent Earth challenges readers to envision a future where, even amidst biosphere decline, adaptation and innovation can pave the way for survival.
Garry Rogers’ Silent Earth: Adaptations for Life in a Devastated Biosphere explores the escalating degradation of Earth’s biosphere, offering strategies for human adaptation. It points to the realistic inevitability of this need to adjust, as humanity is facing the consequences of irreversible damage already done. Rogers goes beyond the simple dialogue of climate change, expanding and examining the interconnected impact of the entire biosphere, from current impacts such loss of biodiversity to coral reef bleaching.
In Section IV, Rogers draws upon research to emphasize that as soon as 2030 we are on the brink, and that we urgently need to act not only to prevent further destruction, but also to prepare for survival:
The cumulative and synergistic effects of human impacts are pushing ecosystems closer to tipping points. Feedback loops and shifting ecosystem boundaries are accelerating environmental change, while these effects interact in complex ways, amplifying their individual impacts. As we approach 2030, addressing these interconnected challenges will require an integrated approach to conservation and climate action to mitigate the far-reaching impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem stability.
The strength of Silent Earth lies in Section V, which presents a blueprint for adaptation. Rogers proposes various strategies from water management to cultural and governance reforms. His emphasis on grassroots action and local resilience is both pragmatic and empowering, especially given his acknowledgment of the political and societal inertia that is likely to hinder adaptation on a wider scale.
Silent Earth is thoroughly researched, intellectually stimulating, and well-cited. Rogers excels in synthesizing vast amounts of ecological, social, and technological data into a cohesive narrative.
Silent Earth is a valuable resource for those interested in interdisciplinary approaches to global challenges. It’s an important and thought-provoking read for anyone seeking to understand and address the complex realities of ecological decline.
GR: Humans cause desertification directly as livestock grazing, farming, and logging remove plants and expose soil to erosion. They also cause desertification indirectly by burning fossil fuel, increasing global temperature, and increasing droughts and storms. Of course, there are also the disturbing impacts of our toxic wastes and our footprints on the land. And there’s more. Folks, I think we’ve covered all the bases.
(Monster thunderstorm explodes over Northwestern Africa last night, hurling a huge dust storm or Haboob northward toward Europe. Image source: The Met Office.)
Robertscribbler.–“An expansion of the Sahara Desert northward into Europe. A scenario that has long been a concern raised by scientists modeling potential extreme weather and climate scenarios related to human-caused climate change. And this week, it appears that Southern and Eastern Europe are going to get a taste of Sahara Desert-type weather conditions. It’s just unfolding a bit more dramatically than scientists at first anticipated.
“Last night, a massive thunderstorm large enough to cover the England, Scotland and Ireland combined blew up over western Africa. The storm, larger than most hurricanes, drew in strong, hot winds from North Africa and the Sahara Desert. These winds bore upon them a great load of dust. Dust which the strong outflow of the storm then turned northward along a frontal boundary draped across the Mediterranean toward Europe.” Continue reading: Monster African Thunderstorm Hurls Enormous Haboob at Europe, 100 + Degree (F) Heat to Follow | robertscribbler
Unaware of the consequences of its behavior, the growing human population is erasing sixty-five million of years of biodiversity recovery since the massive extinction that eliminated dinosaurs and most other species. This is without doubt the greatest issue of our time, perhaps of all time. In the article below, Quentin Wheeler points out that biodiversity is not even being mentioned by our current presidential candidates.
Saguaro, the iconic species of the Sonoran Desert, blooming in April, two months earlier than usual (Rogers, 2016).
Global warming, deforestation, desertification, environmental pollution, and ocean acidification are familiar labels for human-caused destruction of biodiversity and stability of Earth ecosystems. They are all connected to the attempt by our billions of people to satisfy their desires for food, reproduction, safety, and convenience. Allowed uncontrolled expansion, any one of them can achieve planet-wide destruction of biodiversity. Consider that even if this year’s great climate-change treaty achieves a sudden shift to safe energy and stops global warming, it will not save life on Earth. No single-issue approach can.
“It’s unlikely that presidential candidates will ever utter the word “biodiversity” while campaigning this year.
“Yet among emerging environmental challenges, none has fewer facts or more enduring threats than the large-scale loss of biodiversity. That’s why we need a visionary investment in fundamental exploration to create knowledge and options.
“And our elected representatives should lead vigorous discussions about what we can and should do about it. From Jefferson to Kennedy, from the Northwest Territory to the depths of space, presidents of vision have opened new frontiers to exploration.
“Serious environmental problems are a bipartisan challenge that deserves to be in every presidential platform. While scientific questions should be firewalled from politics, what we do with scientific knowledge should not. The best solutions should emerge from the rough and tumble of public debate.
“Biodiversity belongs in our public discussion because we have so much to learn from the Earth’s species – both what it means to be human and the knowledge encapsulated in nature – as we plot our future in a time of great change.”
“This is not the first time that earth has weathered such a mass extinction event. There have been five previously, the most recent occurring 65 million years ago, marked by the disappearance of the great dinosaurs.
“In each case, evolutionary processes have restored high levels of species diversity, but this should give us little comfort. Biodiversity recovery takes place over tens of millions of years. And in the meanwhile, there can be enormously chaotic consequences for ecosystems.
“It’s estimated that 10 million more species could be described or redescribed in greater detail.andreaskay/flickr, CC BY-NC-SA”
“Our knowledge of the species with which we share planet Earth is dangerously limited, meaning that we make decisions and policies in near complete ignorance of basic facts. Our best guess is that there are 10 million living species, more or less, excluding the single-celled bacteria and Archaea.
“Of these, fewer than two million are known to science. And of documented species, most are known by little more than a few diagnostic features and a name. While the rate of species extinction has greatly increased, the pace at which we are exploring species has not.
“In one of the original “big science” ideas, the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus set out in the mid-18th century to complete a global inventory of all the kinds of animals and plants. That inventory continues today, but at an unacceptably slow pace. We discover about 18,000 species each year, a rate unchanged since the 1940s in spite of technological advances.
“This need not be so. Given appropriate technical support and coordinated teamwork, it has been estimated that 10 million species could be described or redescribed in greater detail in no more than 50 years.
“As global environments are stressed, we need reliable knowledge of species diversity upon which to detect and measure changes. Ironically, we have mapped the rocky surface of Mars in greater detail than the living biosphere of our own planet.
“Unless we know what species exist and where, how are we to recognize invasive species, measure rates of extinction or even know whether our conservation strategies are working or not? How are we to understand or restore complex ecosystems when we are ignorant of the majority of their functioning parts? And how much are we willing to risk losing by not undertaking a comprehensive biodiversity moon shot?”
Half the Earth?
“Three major benefits would accrue from a NASA-scale mission to explore the biosphere.
“First would be baseline documentation of the species that exist early in the 21st century, including how they assemble into complex networks in ecosystems. Such baseline data would be transformative for ecology, conservation biology, and resource management, and establish a detailed point of comparison for whatever changes come in the future.
“Second is unleashing the full potential of biomimicry. For 3.8 billion years natural selection has maintained favorable adaptations and weeded out unworkable ones. Among the millions of such adaptations, engineers and innovators can find inspiration for entirely new designs, materials, products and processes.
“The extent to which we succeed creating a truly sustainable future – from renewable energy to degradable materials to cities that function like efficient ecosystems – may well depend on how much knowledge we gather from other species, including those about to go extinct.
“Last, but not least, is knowledge of our origins. Anthropologists continue to fill gaps in our knowledge of the emergence of modern humans, but that is only the most recent chapter in our story. Every attribute that we think of as uniquely human was modified from characteristics of earlier mammals. And features supposedly unique to mammals were similarly modified from even earlier ancestors and so forth, all the way back to the first single-celled species from which the diversity of life around us evolved.
“We can no more understand what it is to be human without exploring this whole history than we could account for why Earth is as it is in the absence of knowledge of the universe.
“We stand a much better chance of slowing the rate of extinction and reducing the percentage of species ultimately lost if we complete a planetary species inventory. And by preserving evidence and knowledge of those species that are lost, we can continue to learn from them.
“New tools, such as those from information science and molecular genetics, can help speed species exploration, but are most powerful when used in combination with detailed descriptive studies of species that reveal their evolutionary novelties.
“E.O. Wilson’s new book, “Half Earth,” proposes that half our planet be reserved for all the other species. His suggestion has unassailable common sense and is perhaps the most workable solution holding promise for millions of other species.
“If we accelerate species exploration, we can add value to “their” half of the world by better understanding and appreciating its residents while finding nature-inspired solutions to sustainably meet our needs in the confines of our half.
“The sooner we act, the greater our chances to avoid a sixth extinction event and preserve nature’s vast library of clues to better ways to meet human needs in an era of rapid global environmental change.”
We are living in the Anthropocene age, in which human influence on the planet is so profound – and terrifying – it will leave its legacy for millennia. Politicians and scientists have had their say, but how are writers and artists responding to this crisis?
“These six examples illustrate that there is no one-size-fits all approach for researchers to address today’s grand environmental challenges, but two common themes emerge. The first is that it is no longer enough to simply do the science and publish an academic paper; that is a necessary first step, but moves only halfway towards the goal of guiding the planet towards a future that is sustainable for both human civilization and the biosphere. To implement knowledge that arises from basic research, it is necessary to establish dialogues and collaborations that transcend narrow academic specialties, and bridge between academia, industry, the policy community and society in general. The second theme is that now is the time to rise to these scientific and communication challenges. The trajectories of population overgrowth, climate change, ecosystem loss, extinctions, disease, and environmental contamination have been rapidly accelerating over the past half-century. If not arrested within the next decade, their momentum may prevent us from stopping them short of disaster.” From: elementascience.org
Alexander von Humboldt was the most influential man of his age. His contributions helped unify our understanding of nature and how human alterations could lead to dangerous changes. Heads of government, scientists, engineers, artists, and authors were inspired by and consulted with him on a range of topics. Around the world, there are more cities, parks, mountains, and rivers named for Humboldt than anyone else that ever lived.
Dr. Ulloa Ulloa (front, left) and field assistants at the Humboldt statue on Chimborazo in 2009.
Humboldt’s strengths were his curiosity, his tireless desire to record his experiences, his ability to see connections, and his ability to write about objective facts with lyrical prose. He described nature as a web of life, noting and mapping the plant and animal changes with elevation on Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador a century before C. Hart Merriam mapped life zones in central Arizona. He invented isotherms, the lines on maps connecting areas of equal temperatures, and he warned that human destruction of nature was having widespread consequences. He described the drop in stream flow, lake level, and general climate change resulting from cutting forests and diverting streams for monoculture farming. Humboldt influenced and inspired Goethe, Darwin, Hooker, Bolivar, Thoreau, Muir, and many more. Without Humboldt’s books, Darwin might never have gone to sea, South America might have remained a slave-holding Spanish colony for another century, and nature conservation might have lagged even farther behind human alteration of the land.
Humboldt’s zonal flora and fauna map of Chimborazo.
I am delighted to report that my grandson born in October, 2014 bears the name Alexander. Alex’s birthplace is just 15 miles west of my home in Humboldt, AZ.
The essay introduced below provides links to some the books by and about Humboldt. The one by Andrea Wulf is one of my all-time favorite biographical works.
Climate-change demonstrations show our leaders that we want them to take steps to stop global warming. We must also ask our leaders to change the human activities that are causing climate change.
We want them to block corporate control over our government and the decisions it makes.
We want them to end international sales of weapons and begin to encourage peace and a focus on life style and resource use.
We want them to discourage unsustainable resource harvests.
We want them to encourage human rights and equality.
We want them to speak out for wild animals and natural ecosystems.
We want them to call for restoring the damaged lands and seas.
And finally, we want them to oppose gender inequality and overpopulation.
Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, activities causing climate change would continue. Farming, deforestation, industrial fishing, desertification, construction, and growth of the human population would continue to waste the Earth and release CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
“The UN predicts over 50 million people will be forced to leave their homes by 2020 because their land has turned to desert. This is already happening in Senegal, writes Laeila Adjovi.Cattle herder …” From: jpratt27.wordpress.com
GR: Desertification on the left, deforestation on the right, and nature squeezed in the middle. As the pressure ejects those 50 million people over the next five years, Europe will become a different kind of place.
“Everything central to our way of life is in the growth mode: the banks, the corporations, all our extractive and service industries, and, not least of all, our population. More people means: more willing buyers of homes, cars, electronic gadgets, and all the trappings of modern life. More jobs, more prosperity, more everything.
“More, more, more. It is in the interest of banks and corporations, as well as businesses large and small, that the market for products continues to grow. More, more, more. Grow, grow, grow.
“On a finite planet with degraded natural systems and diminishing natural resources, this growth imperative, built-in to our systems and into our lives, is an irresistible force coming up against an immovable object. It is us hitting a wall, and doing so at speed. More and more people in my time now see this crash coming.” blog.edsuom.com
GR: Hey grandkids, we just couldn’t help ourselves. (We really couldn’t. To see what it would take for humans to survive on Earth, read Corr Syl the Warrior.)
GarryRogers Nature Conservation 