""New tools have emerged to allow us to precisely describe the atmospheric conditions, the earths temperature and climate, and how plants and animals interacted with these over four billion years of earth history. Not only have geoscientists conducted an enormous amount of new research on atmospheric evolution and climate change, but the importance of the intimate connection between climate and life has become much better understood and ppreciated. The idea for this book came from Dons teaching a course called "Blue Planet" for a college class of both geology majors and non-majors. There are several textbooks out there for this market, but they are much too detailed and technical for the average undergraduate, especially the undergraduate who is not a geology major. By teaching this course for a general audience of undergraduate non-science majors, Don has learned how to tell the incredible story of earths climatic evolution, and the amazing interactions between climate and life that make the earth unique among planets, without going too far into the technical details of geochemistry and biochemistry and atmospheric science. This book focuses on the interaction between climate and life. It is written for the general lay reader with minimal training in geochemistry or atmospheric science. As with previous books in this informal ""the story of x in 25 discoveries"" series, this one also introduces the personal stories of the important scientists who made these discoveries, and the remarkable circumstances under which they were made.

Each chapter begins with an anecdote of an important scientist, or an individual historical discovery, that led to the ideas discussed in the chapter. The book concludes with the Ice Ages, the climate of the Holocene, and finally the last 50 years of anthropogenic climate change-why we know its real and human-caused, and what we can do about it.""--.