Earth Then and Now: Amazing Images of Our Changing World
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Hardcover
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Written by Fred Pearce and Zac Goldsmith.
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($39.95)
Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
300 stunning before-and-after photographs that show the staggering transformation of our world.
Earth Then and Now records the dramatic way our planet has changed over the past century. On one page is a specific part of the world as it was 5, 20, 50 or even 100 years ago. On the facing page is the same place as it looks today. Each stark visual comparison tells a compelling story -- a melting glacier, an expanding desert, an encroaching cityscape, a natural disaster.
Earth Then and Now reminds us that nothing is without a cost. Highly topical and thought provoking chapters in this book include:
- Environmental change: Bearing witness to the effects of global warming
- Industrialization: Revealing the hidden costs of "progress"
- Urbanization: Showing the effects of our spreading cities
- Natural disasters: Reminding us of the power of nature
- War: Using comparisons to show the impact of armed conflict
- Travel and tourism: Illustrating the predatory nature of development.
Concise captions explain the facts and then allow the reader to draw personal conclusions. Anyone concerned about the environment will enjoy and appreciate Earth Then and Now.
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Dale Brayden thinks this book is Excellent.
This is a large book of then/now photographs illustrating the extent and rapidity of human-caused change to our planet, ranging from global warming, to urbanization, to deforestation.
The before/after photographs of glaciers around the world are especially frightening. At the present rate of retreat there will be no more glaciers in the U.S. Glacier National Park by 2030 - 23 years from now. Huge sheets of ice have detached from Antarctica and are now melting in the southern ocean. Kilimanjaro is no longer ice-capped. The glacial source of Lake Geneva in Switzerland will soon be entirely gone. Photos taken from just 20 years ago compared to today show very significant changes.
The section on deforestation is equally depressing. One photo, not a before and after but a single photo, shows the boundary line between the Gifford-Pinchot national forest and the private Weyerhauser land adjacent to it. On one side is forest, on the other barren hilltops as far as the camera can see. It looks like a composite shot, but it isn't. Libertarians would presumably applaud the barren hills as evidence of the benefits of private initiative. I'm pretty sure it demonstrates why we need good government.
The rate of change, change for the worse, is almost incomprehensible. Urbanization has transformed small cities into multi-million population ghettos in the past 40 years. Industrial farming has removed vast areas of forest and drained some rivers completely dry. It is clearly unsustainable. Sadly, it is over-population rather than easy-to-fix social policies that is at the root of most of these problems.