Book: Physical Geography, A Self-Teaching Guide
It has been eons since I last posted to this site. Sorry. I've been busy with life and other projects.
If we are to live sustainably in the future, without the use of fossil fuels ("ancient sunlight"), then we need to live within the means of the Earth. That means knowing about Earth-Sun-Moon relationships, incoming solar energy (insolation) and its interactions with the atmosphere and the Earth's surface, seasonal and daily cycles of insolation, the atmospheric water cycle, the runoff cycle, groundwater, soil fertility, climatic variations and its affect on the formation of soils, growing seasons, how landforms are formed (through weathering, glaciation, rivers and streams, coastal forces), and so on.
These all are part of what is academically known as the discipline of "Physical Geography," my geographic specialty besides geographic information systems.
If you wish to begin teaching yourself these basics, one book I might recommend is Physical Geography: A Self-Teaching Guide, by Michael Craghan and published by John Wiley & Sons, 2003 (ISBN 0-471-44566-5). Here is a link to the publisher's web page on the book, with table of contents and an excerpt: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471445665.html
While this is not the specific book I would have chosen if I was still teaching a college-level course in physical geography (there are more complete books by the Strahler's, Oberlander and Mueller, Harm de Blij, to name a few authors), this is nonetheless a decent starting point. And it is low-cost to boot - my copy, purchased last fall, cost $18.95 plus tax from the local Borders store, in stock on the shelf. (No doubt you can get it cheaper through Amazon - what can't you get through Amazon?)
The important thing is for everyone to begin realizing that in order to live without accessible oil (and will become inaccessible at some point - it is a finite resource), we must live within the means of what is provided by Sol, our Sun. It is also a fixed amount, but one that comes continuously, to one part of the Earth or another at all times. It is the energy source that drives everything that we depend on - heat, winds, water, waves, rain, weathering of rock into soil, energy for plants to absorb, etc. Sunlight is a great energy source that previous generations, before widespread dependence on ancient sunlight (coal, and then oil), knew much more about than we do today. Our industrial revolution sidetracked us from this knowledge that was previously known through trial-and-error and otherwise cultural knowledge.
You can begin to reclaim this previous knowledge by studying the topics of physical geography, such as through this book.
More to come I hope....
Kevin Anderson
If we are to live sustainably in the future, without the use of fossil fuels ("ancient sunlight"), then we need to live within the means of the Earth. That means knowing about Earth-Sun-Moon relationships, incoming solar energy (insolation) and its interactions with the atmosphere and the Earth's surface, seasonal and daily cycles of insolation, the atmospheric water cycle, the runoff cycle, groundwater, soil fertility, climatic variations and its affect on the formation of soils, growing seasons, how landforms are formed (through weathering, glaciation, rivers and streams, coastal forces), and so on.
These all are part of what is academically known as the discipline of "Physical Geography," my geographic specialty besides geographic information systems.
If you wish to begin teaching yourself these basics, one book I might recommend is Physical Geography: A Self-Teaching Guide, by Michael Craghan and published by John Wiley & Sons, 2003 (ISBN 0-471-44566-5). Here is a link to the publisher's web page on the book, with table of contents and an excerpt: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471445665.html
While this is not the specific book I would have chosen if I was still teaching a college-level course in physical geography (there are more complete books by the Strahler's, Oberlander and Mueller, Harm de Blij, to name a few authors), this is nonetheless a decent starting point. And it is low-cost to boot - my copy, purchased last fall, cost $18.95 plus tax from the local Borders store, in stock on the shelf. (No doubt you can get it cheaper through Amazon - what can't you get through Amazon?)
The important thing is for everyone to begin realizing that in order to live without accessible oil (and will become inaccessible at some point - it is a finite resource), we must live within the means of what is provided by Sol, our Sun. It is also a fixed amount, but one that comes continuously, to one part of the Earth or another at all times. It is the energy source that drives everything that we depend on - heat, winds, water, waves, rain, weathering of rock into soil, energy for plants to absorb, etc. Sunlight is a great energy source that previous generations, before widespread dependence on ancient sunlight (coal, and then oil), knew much more about than we do today. Our industrial revolution sidetracked us from this knowledge that was previously known through trial-and-error and otherwise cultural knowledge.
You can begin to reclaim this previous knowledge by studying the topics of physical geography, such as through this book.
More to come I hope....
Kevin Anderson
posted by Kevin Anderson K9IUA at 5:32 PM
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