Creating The Twentieth Century

Vaclav Smil

Oxford University Press

We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us simply don't understand how our world really works. Professor Vaclav Smil is not a pessimist or an optimist, he is a scientist, and this book is a much-needed reality check on topics ranging from food production and nutrition, through energy and the environment, to globalization and the future. For example, the carbon footprint of meat is well known, but did you know that the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel fuel goes into the production of each greenhouse-grown, medium-size, supermarket-bought tomato? The gap between belief and reality is vast.\nDrawing on the latest science, tackling sources of misinformation head on and championing a rational, fact-based approach, in How the World Really Works Smil shows, for example, why the planet isn't 'suffocating' (even burning all the planet's fossil fuels would reduce oxygen levels by just 0.25 per cent) and that globalization isn't 'inevitable' and nor should it be (the stupidity of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020).\nUltimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary masterpiece finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future.

How the World Really Works: How Science Can Set Us Straight on Our Past, Present and Future

VIKING

Size

Size is the most fundamental structural variable of the universe. Neither bacteria nor empires are immune to its laws. Measuring it is challenging, especially where complex systems like economies are concerned, yet mastering it offers rich rewards: the rise of the West, for example, was a direct result of ever more accurate and standardized measurements.\nGrounded in history and drawing on the latest science, with much recourse to art and classic literature, Size explains the regularities - and peculiarities - of the key processes shaping life (from microbes to whales), the Earth (from asteroids to volcanic eruptions), technical advances (from architecture to transportation), and societies and economies (from cities to wages). We learn, for example, the rules behind beauty, why a biosphere needs diversity, how to predict the size of a country, why bigger animals need proportionately less food and how a particular level of wealth inequality is inherent.\nIs bigger better? Can something keep growing indefinitely, or be too big to fail? To answer any of the most important questions of our age, and secure our future, we must understand size. Vaclav Smil tackles a goliath subject and it is no exaggeration to say that this tour de force will change the way you look at absolutely everything.

VIKIN

How to Feed the World

Business & Money

Industries

* THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *'Another masterpiece from one of my favorite authors . . . If you want a brief but thorough education in numeric thinking about many of the fundamental forces that shape human life, this is the book to read. It's a tour de force' BILL GATES __________ We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check - because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, making their complete and rapid elimination unlikely. Drawing on the latest science and tackling sources of misinformation head on - from Yuval Noah Harari to Noam Chomsky - ultimately Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? __________'Very informative and eye-opening in many ways' HA-JOON CHANG, author of 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism'If you are anxious about the future, and infuriated that we aren't doing enough about it, please read this book' PAUL COLLIER, author of The Future of Capitalism

How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future

Penguin Books, Ltd.

Size: How It Explains the World

Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing (MIT Press)

Biography & History

The MIT Press

tions is not possible without first putting the problem into a wider con text. Consequently, before proceeding with detailed critical topical cov erage of individual biomass energy sources, uses, and effects, I will extend this preface with a few pages of rather personal reflections (I will use the same device in closing the book: after providing concise topical summaries in Chapter 8, I will conclude with some essayistic musings on renewable energetics, plants, people, and a scientist's responsibility). Interest in biomass energies is just a part of a broader global trend toward renewable energetics, a trend which has evolved speedily after the crude oil price escalation started in 1973. Yet one must be reminded that for the rich countries fossil fuels are, and for a long period shall remain, the foundation of an affluent civilization, while throughout the poor world the reliance of most people on biomass energies for everyday subsistence has brought many damaging environmental and social ef fects; that the reality of sharp price rises for crude oil (actually not so sharp once adjusted for inflation) should not be misconstrued as an "energy crisis"; that the rise of renew abies and the claims made on their behalf by countless enthusiasts look so much better on paper than in reality; and that the potential of biomass energies, an essential ingre dient of renewable scenarios, has been judged more with proselytizing zeal than with critical detachment.

Biomass Energies: Resources, Links, Constraints

Science & Math

Chemistry

Springer

Energy In World History

Taylor & Francis Group

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Books by Vaclav Smil