Planet Earth in Jeopardy

Planet Earth in Jeopardy PDF

Author: Lydia Dotto

Publisher: Wiley

Published: 1986-03-26

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 9780471998365

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A distillation of the report by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), an international effort by over 200 scientisits. Written for a lay audience, it presents the thrust of the original arguments of the two-volume study without the scientific minutiae. Explores the climatic and atmospheric changes induced, radiation and fallout, and the putative biological consequences.

Final Jeopardy

Final Jeopardy PDF

Author: Stephen Baker

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2011-02-27

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0547519435

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The “charming and terrifying” story of IBM’s breakthrough in artificial intelligence, from the Business Week technology writer and author of The Numerati (Publishers Weekly, starred review). For centuries, people have dreamed of creating a machine that thinks like a human. Scientists have made progress: computers can now beat chess grandmasters and help prevent terrorist attacks. Yet we still await a machine that exhibits the rich complexity of human thought—one that doesn’t just crunch numbers, or take us to a relevant web page, but understands and communicates with us. With the creation of Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing computer, we are one step closer to that goal. In Final Jeopardy, Stephen Baker traces the arc of Watson’s “life,” from its birth in the IBM labs to its big night on the podium. We meet Hollywood moguls and Jeopardy! masters, genius computer programmers and ambitious scientists, including Watson’s eccentric creator, David Ferrucci. We see how Watson’s breakthroughs and the future of artificial intelligence could transform medicine, law, marketing, and even science itself, as machines process huge amounts of data at lightning speed, answer our questions, and possibly come up with new hypotheses. As fast and fun as the game itself, Final Jeopardy shows how smart machines will fit into our world—and how they’ll disrupt it. “The place to go if you’re really interested in this version of the quest for creating Artificial Intelligence.” —The Seattle Times “Like Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine, Baker’s book finds us at the dawn of a singularity. It’s an excellent case study, and does good double duty as a Philip K. Dick scenario, too.” —Kirkus Reviews “Like a cross between Born Yesterday and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Baker’s narrative is both . . . an entertaining romp through the field of artificial intelligence—and a sobering glimpse of things to come.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Hacking Planet Earth

Hacking Planet Earth PDF

Author: Thomas M. Kostigen

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0525538356

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An exploration of the cutting-edge technology that will enable us to confront the realities of climate change. For decades scientists and environmentalists have sounded the alarm about the effects of global warming. We are now past the tipping point. As floods, storms, and extreme temperatures become our daily reality, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" efforts aren't enough anymore. In Hacking Planet Earth, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Kostigen takes readers to the frontlines of geoengineering projects that scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, and other visionaries around the world are developing to solve the problems associated with climate change. From giant parasols hovering above the Earth to shield us from an unforgiving sun, to lasers shooting up into clouds to coax out much-needed water, Kostigen introduces readers to this inspiring work and the people who are spearheading it. These futurist, far- thinking, world-changing ideas will save us, and Hacking Planet Earth offers readers their new vision for the future.

Thinking the Unthinkable

Thinking the Unthinkable PDF

Author: Lydia Dotto

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 0889208247

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An overwhelming majority of climatologists believe there will be significant changes in climate during the next century. Although the rate and magnitude of this change are uncertain, it could happen very rapidly. In August 1987, a working group of fifty scientists and humanists from Russia, Eastern and Western Europe, the United States, and Canada gathered in Calgary to focus their attention on the impact upon civilization of sudden climate change. One of the more revealing aspects of climate change discussed in Thinking the Unthinkable: Civilization and Rapid Climate Change is that contrary to the popular viewpoint complex societies are more vulnerable to environmental and climate disruption than less “advanced” societies. This work was written to emphasize the gravity of the situation we now face. It should serve to inform not only those concerned with our global environment, but more importantly the policy makers who will be responsible for setting new guidelines and policies aimed at safeguarding our fragile environment.

Danger Planet Earth

Danger Planet Earth PDF

Author: Dr. E. Finikiotis

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2017-08-18

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 1543401848

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The book outlines the evidence that global warming is caused by the direct heating effect of the sun’s rays on the planet and provides a step-by-step program on what we must do to arrest this. The G20 nations should join forces to attain the cooperation of all nations to initiate the program as soon as possible to stop the global warming advance and make this a priority strategy. Desertification, partly due to global warming, is progressing at an alarming rate.

Danger Planet Earth

Danger Planet Earth PDF

Author: E. Finikiotis

Publisher:

Published: 2017-08-18

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781543401868

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The book outlines the evidence that global warming is caused by the direct heating effect of the sun's rays on the planet and provides a step-by-step program on what we must do to arrest this. The G20 nations should join forces to attain the cooperation of all nations to initiate the program as soon as possible to stop the global warming advance and make this a priority strategy. Desertification, partly due to global warming, is progressing at an alarming rate.

You Can Remake the World

You Can Remake the World PDF

Author: Laurent Claude Mekongo Mengue

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2015-02-06

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1504936396

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Todays world is a world divided into two categories: The world of the confident and the world of disenchanted. The world of the confident is one of riches, and powerful people (rich and developed countries); in short, the world of horrible and misleading neologisms who live at the expense of those who listen to them. This is a minority world where people are unscrupulous: the world of the wicked. Although a majority one, but it is a world of the damned, suffered, crushed, and manipulated to remain more in their sore; this is the world of weaker and less wealthy, where living beings are exposed to all the evils that bully people today. To overcome this inequality of nations, we need to decide to renounce violence, to bring peace in the world. This is the big change requested; it may not be for everyone, but it is necessary and a concern for a world of pride and freedom.

Tipping Point for Planet Earth

Tipping Point for Planet Earth PDF

Author: Anthony D. Barnosky

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-04-26

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1466852011

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Four people are born every second of every day. Conservative estimates suggest that there will be 10 billion people on Earth by 2050. That is billions more than the natural resources of our planet can sustain without big changes in how we use and manage them. So what happens when vast population growth endangers the world’s food supplies? Or our water? Our energy needs, climate, or environment? Or the planet’s biodiversity? What happens if some or all of these become critical at once? Just what is our future? In Tipping Point for Planet Earth, world-renowned scientists Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly explain the growing threats to humanity as the planet edges toward resource wars for remaining space, food, oil, and water. And as they show, these wars are not the nightmares of a dystopian future, but are already happening today. Finally, they ask: at what point will inaction lead to the break-up of the intricate workings of the global society? The planet is in danger now, but the solutions, as Barnosky and Hadly show, are still available. We still have the chance to avoid the tipping point and to make the future better. But this window of opportunity will shut within ten to twenty years. Tipping Point for Planet Earth is the wake-up call we need.

The World Environment 1972–1992

The World Environment 1972–1992 PDF

Author: O. El-Kholy

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 877

ISBN-13: 9401122806

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Our planet is under siege. Assaults on the atmosphere -the greenhouse effect, the depletion of the ozone layer and increasing air pollution - pose a still unquantified threat to human life. The dumping of hazardous wastes, and land based sources of pollution, present a similar threat to the oceans. On land we are destroying a tropical forest the size of Austria every year, and more than a hundred species of wild plants and animals are lost forever each day. When the General Assembly of the United Nations established UNEP it charged us with reporting on the changing state of the world's environment, tracking the underlying causes of change, and working with governments to develop responses to those changes. Every year since 1974, UNEP has produced a State of the Environment report, focusing on one or more emerging environmental issues and always stressing the human factor -the impact of environmental quality on people and society. Three times since its inception (1982, 198 7 and 1992) UNEP has undertaken a more wide-ranging study. The results of the present study are the most disturbing of the three. However, not all the signs are negative. Throughout the 19 70s and into the 1980s, UNEP was able to report progress in some important areas. Environmental monitoring capacity was being rapidly improved in many parts of the world, and Ministries of the Environment were being set up in an attempt to deal with environmental threats in a more coherent way.

Falter

Falter PDF

Author: Bill McKibben

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1250178274

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Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history -- and we’ll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity.