Revolutions that Made the Earth

Tim Lenton is a Professor at the University of Exeter. His research focuses on understanding the behaviour of the Earth as a whole system, especially through the development and use of Earth system models. After gaining a BA in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, he investigated what regulates the nutrient balance of the ocean and the oxygen content of the atmosphere as a PhD student of Andrew Watson. He also worked closely with James Lovelock developing the Gaia theory and trying to reconcile it with evolutionary theory. Moving to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh, he focused on understanding the feedbacks between the carbon cycle and the Earth's climate. Having returned to the University of East Anglia in 2004, his work identifying climate tipping points won the Times Higher Education Award for Research Projects of the Year 2008. He holds a number of other awards and fellowships.Andrew Watson holds a Royal Society Research Professorship at the University of East Anglia. His career has spanned planetary and atmospheric sciences, oceanography, and climate, giving him a strong interest in the evolution of the Earth system as a whole. After obtaining a BSc in physics from Imperial College, he investigated the history of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere as a PhD student of James Lovelock. He worked on NASA's Pioneer Venus space mission at the University of Michigan. Returning to England and the marine research laboratories in Plymouth, he developed a new method of tracing large scale water movements. He became a professor at the University of East Anglia in 1996, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003, and became a Royal Society Research Professor in 2009. He holds a number of other fellowships and awards.

Lenton and Watson have written a remarkable and timely book which is both entertaining and impeccably researched from the beginning I felt both engaged and enlightened... With its academic rigour and, at the same time, its accessibility, the authors have clearly succeeded in their aim of writing scholarly popular science. As such, it should inspire us to learn from how the Earth system has evolved in the past and face up to the final question: Are we as yet sufficiently grown up to take responsibility for a whole planet? One thing is for sure: Over the next century we will find out.

• Preface ; PART I - INTRODUCTION ; 1. Origins ; 2. Carbon and oxygen ; 3. Russion dolls ; 4. The revolutions ; PART II - THEORY ; 5. The anthropic Earth ; 6. The critical steps ; 7. Playing Gaia ; PART III - THE OYGEN REVOLUTION ; 8. Photosynthesis ; 9. The trial of the oxygen poisoners ; 10. The Great Oxidation ; PART IV - THE COMPLEXITY REVOLUTION ; 11. Life gets an upgrade ; 12. When did eukaryotes evolve? ; 13. The not-so-boring billion ; 14. The Neoproterozoic ; PART V - INTERLUDE ; 15. Animals and oxygen ; 16. The grand recycling coalition ; 17. Rolls of the dice ; PART VI - A NEW REVOLUTION? ; 18. Climate wobbles ; 19. The origins of us ; 20. Review ; 21. Where next?