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University of California Press

Earth under Fire

How Global Warming Is Changing the World

by Gary Braasch (Author), William McKibben (Author)
Price: $31.95 / £27.00
Publication Date: Mar 2009
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9780520943933

About the Book

More than a warning, Earth under Fire is the most complete illustrated guide to the effects of climate change now available. It offers an upbeat and intelligent account of how we can lessen the effects of our near-total dependence on fossil fuels using technologies and energy sources already available. A thorough revision and a new preface for the paperback edition bring the compelling facts about climate change up to date.

About the Author

Gary Braasch is an Ansel Adams Award-winning photojournalist and a fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers. He is the author of Photographing the Patterns of Nature.

Reviews

"This is a dramatically illustrated and fastidiously annotated survey of how climate change is altering the global ecosystem—from melting glaciers to animal migrations, to droughts—not to mention how it is affecting cities and societies. Photographer Gary Braasch, an Ansel Adams Award winner, and writer Bill McKibben . . . go beyond the data of leading climate scientists and attempt to leverage information in the service of education. This may be the most deeply researched photo book of all time."
Vanity Fair
“A clearheaded, comprehensive look at the state of the science, and the planet. . . . Earth under Fire may be not simply a book, but a benchmark.”
Orion
"The pictures are truly eye-opening. . . . Looking at the changes already underway paints a staggering picture and perhaps highlights what a visual society we have become; we may not truly believe what we've done to the planet until we actually see the results for ourselves."
The Ecologist
“What normally would be a dull repetition of emissions reduction policies becomes, in this author's hands, a refreshing take on theories, facts and scientific opinions, sprinkled with comment from leading policymakers. Braasch has told the story of climate change in a new way by bringing together startling and breathtaking imagery with personal accounts and the best available scientific evidence.”
Nature Climate Change
“While the science underlying global warming is complex, its impact is made comprehensible in this richly photographic blend of memoir and reportage.”
Booklist
“Braasch uses his award-winning skill behind the camera to produce a practical, level-headed and thorough overview of the current state of global warming, from a ground-level definition to stunning images of its effects.”
Publishers Weekly
“The almost 300-page book documents the ongoing environmental changes around the world, including efforts to reduce them, with more than 100 eye-popping photographs taken in 22 countries from four continents . . . a well-researched book with in-depth texts on the science behind climate change and how it impacts people’s lives worldwide, including its larger implications for businesses, governments, and societies.”
UN Chronicle
Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World is a personal record . . . of the consequences of modern affluence on this planet we call home. Read this book and your head will be swimming, just like weary polar bears, outside of ones’s usual realm.”
Treehugger.com
“Nothing takes climate change out of the abstract quite as effectively as photographs. . . . Photojournalist Gary Braasch spent eight years observing and documenting the evidence and impacts of global warming . . . The result is a meticulously researched, visually stunning work that performs the equally important tasks of convincing the reader of the scope of the problem and the urgent need to tackle it, as well as prescribing how to do that.”
Canwest News Service
“A meticulously researched, visually stunning work that performs the equally important tasks of convincing the reader of the scope of the problem and the urgent need to tackle it, as well as prescribing how to do that.”
Saskatoon Star Phoenix
"The power of Gary Braasch's personal witness to the climate crisis makes this essential reading for every citizen."—Al Gore

Earth under Fire is an important work documenting climate change. With an accessible text and startling photographs, it takes the reader on a world tour of the human effect on our climate.”—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"Braasch's descriptions and photographs of how climate change is unraveling ecosystems and human lives make real and vivid what for too many remains speculative and abstract. Each deeply researched story—the rising suicide rate in a melting Inuit village, fields of European butterflies killed by a false spring, coastal houses falling into the sea in North Carolina—becomes a memorable character in a rapidly unfolding drama that threatens to engulf us all."—Amory B. Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

"There are scant books equal to the task of spelling out the greatest challenge in human history-global climate change. Rarer still is an author who can both write and photograph it, seamlessly marrying text and images. Earth under Fire is that rare book."—Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest and The Ecology of Commerce

"This is a well-written description of the effects of human-driven climate change on our all-too-vulnerable planet. The pictures give a marvelously direct account of what is happening almost before our eyes."—Sir Crispin Tickell, former British Ambassador to the United Nations

"Global warming has found its Baedeker in Gary Braasch. Braasch has traveled all over our changing world and recorded in word and photograph what's going on. We all need to see what he saw, and Earth under Fire does a beautiful job of that."—James Gustave Speth, author of Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment