Microbes: The Unseen Agents of Climate Change
David L. Kirchman
Aug 2024 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Tristan Morris
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7 hr 27 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
For billions of years, microbes have produced and consumed greenhouse gases that regulate global temperature and in turn other aspects of our climate. The balance of these gases maintains Earth's habitability. Methane, a greenhouse gas produced only by microbes, may have kept Earth out of a deep freeze billions of years ago. Likewise, variations in carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas released by microbes and other organisms, help to explain the comings and goings of ice ages over the last million years. Now we face a human-made climate crisis with drastic consequences. The complete story behind greenhouse gases, however, involves microbes and their role in natural ecosystems. Microscopic organisms are also part of the solution, producing biofuels and other forms of green energy which keep fossil fuels in the ground. Other microbes can be harnessed to reduce the release of methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture, and geoengineering solutions that depend on microbes could pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. David L. Kirchman introduces a unique and timely contribution to the climate change conversation and the part microbes play in our past, present, and future. He takes listeners into the unseen world behind the most important environmental problem facing society today and encourages us to embrace microbial solutions.
About the author
David L. Kirchman was the Maxwell P. and Mildred H. Harrington Professor of marine studies at the University of Delaware until retiring in 2020. He is the author of over 175 papers and two books, and editor of the "bible" of microbial oceanography (Microbial Ecology of the Oceans)
Tristan Morris is an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator who originally hails from Seattle, Washington. A proud member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors' Equity, he currently lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.
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