Green Planet

Price (paper): $22.95
Price (cloth): $27.95  
Subtitle: How Plants Keep the Earth Alive
Author: Stanley A. Rice
Subject: Environmental Studies and Ecology
Paper ISBN: 978-0-8135-5354-2
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4453-3
Pages: 272 pages
Publication Date: February 2009

View the Table of Contents

Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Remnants of Paradise
1    An Injured Paradise
2    Plants Put the Oxygen in the Air
3    Greenhouse Earth: Plants Help to Keep the Earth from Overheating
4    Shade: Trees Make Good Air Conditioners
5    The Water Cycle: Plants Prevent Droughts and Floods
6    Plants Feed the World
7    Plants Create Soil
8    Plants Create Habitats
9    Plants Heal the Landscape
10    How Agriculture Changed the World
11    Why We Need Plant Diversity
12    What Can We Do?
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Praise for Green Planet

"The title says it all. Green Planet does for plants what Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses does for our sensory experiences."
—Eldon H. Franz, Washington State University

"The ecosystems of the planet that humans depend on for fresh air, water, and food are increasingly stressed. The fact that green plants are at the functional core of these ecosystems is not generally appreciated, and the point is clearly and concisely made in this book by Rice. This work is notable for its breadth of coverage of not only how plants directly affect humans but also of how plants affect the functioning of the ecosystems that humans need for a range of goods and services." Highly recommended."—Choice, August 2009

Plants are not just a pretty part of the landscape; they keep the entire planet, with all of its human and nonhuman inhabitants, alive. Stanley Rice documents the many ways in which plants do this by making oxygen, regulating the greenhouse effect, controlling floods, and producing all the food in the world. Plants also create natural habitats for all organisms in the world. With illustrations and clear writing for non-specialists, Green Planet helps general readers realize that if we are to rescue the Earth from environmental disaster, we must protect wild plants.

Beginning with an overview of how human civilization has altered the face of the Earth, particularly by the destruction of forests, the book details the startling consequences of these actions. Rice provides compelling reasons for government officials, economic leaders, and the public to support efforts to save threatened and endangered plants. Global campaigns to solve environmental problems with plants, such as the development of green roofs and the Green Belt Movement—a women’s organization in Kenya that empowers communities worldwide to protect the environment—show readers that efforts to save wild plants can be successful and beneficial to the economic well-being of nations.

• Help modulate greenhouse gases
• Produce almost all oxygen in the air
• Create cool shade that reduces energy costs
• Prevent floods, droughts, and soil erosion
• Produce all of the food in the world
• Create and preserve soil
• Create natural habitats
• Heal the landscape after natural and human disasters

Stanley A. Rice is an associate professor of plant biology at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and is the author of the Encyclopedia of Evolution