Becoming Earth

April 1, 2024
Science journalist Jabr debuts with an enlightening examination of how living organisms have influenced their environments. According to Jabr, mammoths likely helped permafrost, and the carbon sequestered therein, stay frozen by digging it out from under “heat-trapping layers of snow” while rummaging for food. The arrival of land plants produced enough oxygen to thicken the ozone, which provided protection from ultraviolet radiation and enabled the emergence of the first terrestrial animals. Microbes have had a massive impact on the planet, Jabr contends, describing how ocean-dwelling microorganisms possibly “helped create the continents” by producing wet clay that “effectively lubricat” the ocean crust, promoting the process by which rock slips into the Earth’s mantle, melts into magma, gets expelled by volcanoes, and then solidifies as new land. Lamenting humanity’s outsized ecological footprint, Jabr notes how homo sapiens have acidified the oceans, stymied fire’s role in regulating forest ecosystems, and generated vast amounts of plastics that are killing wildlife. The science highlights the complex ways in which the planet has been shaped by its inhabitants, and Jabr’s sobering look at the harm wrought by humans finds some hope amid the gloom, suggesting that innovating carbon capture technology and cultivating oceanic kelp forests constitute promising strategies for sequestering atmospheric carbon. The result is an edifying and holistic view of life on Earth.