Overview

"""Smithsonian Ocean"" was commissioned especially for the Museum but it is much more than a companion volume. Deborah Cramer, one of the country's most celebrated science writers (frequently compared to Rachel Carson) has written an engaging and perspective-changing history of the ocean. Her text is gorgeously illustrated. For more than three and a half billion years, the ocean has been Earth's lifeline. Life was spawned in the sea. The ocean sheltered Earth's first plants and animals, and created an environment where walking fish could come ashore. Climate changes wrought by the sea created evolutionary pathways for mammals, and gave rise to our human ancestors. The sea still sustains us.Rushing currents supply water to the atmosphere's protective greenhouse (without which the planet would freeze) and send rain to dry land, making our lives possible. Ever since the first rain fell to fill the first sea, opening and closing oceans have been essential to life on Earth. Yet, even as we are realizing how vast the sea's realm, how complex and wondrous its workings, how rich and diverse its inhabitants - with discovery upon discovery unpredicted and unimagined - we are redesigning it. The UN's fourth Global Environment Report-the global community's leading environmental assessment study released this month - makes the urgency shockingly clear: 'A sixth major extinction is under way, this time caused not by natural disasters but by human population growth and consumption patterns. It is urgent to enhance our scientific understanding of the potential tipping points beyond which reversibility is not assured.'"

Full Product Details

9780061343834

Table of Contents

Reviews

This elegant, lovingly written book immerses readers in the symbiosis between humanity and the sea. Deborah Cramer's sweeping work introduces us to the ancestral ocean, on which human influence has now grown profound, and charges us to rejuvenate our essential partnership with its wondrous rhythms and life-giving waters. -- Paul EpsteinCenter for Global Health and the Environment, Harvard Medical School

Authoritatively researched, clearly written, and beautifully illustrated, this book is best of its class. --EO Wilson This irresistible invitation to explore the ocean that gave birth to life itself, together with the imperative to know the living ocean and treat it with respect, should be in every home. --Thomas E. LovejoyPresident, The Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment This elegant, lovingly written book immerses readers in the symbiosis between humanity and the sea. Deborah Cramer s sweeping work introduces us to the ancestral ocean, on which human influence has now grown profound, and charges us to rejuvenate our essential partnership with its wondrous rhythms and life-giving waters. --Paul EpsteinCenter for Global Health and the Environment, Harvard Medical School Authoritatively researched, clearly written, and beautifully illustrated, this book is best of its class. --EO Wilson Deborah Cramer s achievement in creating this classic study of the world s seas is destined for lasting importance. Her book is a hymn to something that is both beautiful and fragile, a fervent prayer that we recognize it as such, and an eloquent plea for all humankind to cherish it. --Simon Winchesterauthor of Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman Rachel Carson wrote the ocean s biography for the 20th century, and DeborahCramer, with the same passion and meticulous research, has written it for the21st. This book is a remarkable achievement. --Linda Learauthor of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature With poetic grace and deep scientific savvy, Deborah Cramer eloquentlyconveys the sweeping history of the Earth from fiery origin throughthe explosion of life in the sea to the present era of profound human impact.Whether you seek information or inspiration, this volume is a must. --Sylvia Earleoceanographer, deep sea explorer, and ocean activist Deborah Cramer has given us an eloquent life history of the ocean, natural and human, and rightly challenges us to exercise better stewardshipof the sea of the sea and leave a legacy of healthy oceans for our children. --Michael SuttonVice President and Director, Center for the Future of the Oceans This irresistible invitation to explore the ocean that gave birth to life itself, together with the imperative to know the living ocean and treat it with respect, should be in every home. --Thomas E. Lovejoy President, The Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment This elegant, lovingly written book immerses readers in the symbiosis between humanity and the sea. Deborah Cramer's sweeping work introduces us to the ancestral ocean, on which human influence has now grown profound, and charges us to rejuvenate our essential partnership with its wondrous rhythms and life-giving waters. --Paul Epstein Center for Global Health and the Environment, Harvard Medical School Deborah Cramer's achievement in creating this classic study of the world's seas is destined for lasting importance. Her book is a hymn to something that is both beautiful and fragile, a fervent prayer that we recognize it as such, and an eloquent plea for all humankind to cherish it. --Simon Winchester author of Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman Rachel Carson wrote the ocean's biography for the 20th century, and Deborah Cramer, with the same passion and meticulous research, has written it for the 21st. This book is a remarkable achievement. --Linda Lear author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature With poetic grace and deep scientific savvy, Deborah Cramer eloquently conveys the sweeping history of the Earth from fiery origin through the explosion of life in the sea to the present era of profound human impact. Whether you seek information or inspiration, this volume is a must. --Sylvia Earle oceanographer, deep sea explorer, and ocean activist Deborah Cramer has given us an eloquent life history of the ocean, natural and human, and rightly challenges us to exercise better stewardship of the sea of the sea and leave a legacy of healthy oceans for our children. --Michael Sutton Vice President and Director, Center for the Future of the Oceans

Author Information

Deborah Cramer writes about science, nature, and the environment. Currently a visiting scholar at MIT's Earth System Initiative, she is the author of Great Waters: An Atlantic Passage. She lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available