Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3403229 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"We will," the authors promise, "make sure that you find more than dust to drink here, because one cannot ... recognise the significance of a scientific truth without the context provided by a story." And the story is a remarkable and frightening one. Mars may have been much more alive than we previously thought; and the extinction of life on that planet has dreadful lessons for us as we load our oceans with carbon dioxide and deplete our atmosphere of free oxygen.

This is ecological siren sounding on a cosmological scale, pitched at the non-scientist. The tricksy, first-person narrative style irritates at times, and the authors' rather naïve model of what we can reasonably expect of science is risible. Once, the authors contend: "Science wasn't a detached professional pursuit. It wasn't just about technology or specialisation. It was about question ... The domain of science was populated by gifted, driven amateurs who found the inquiry into the nature of the universe as compelling as life itself." (Not true: science has always been a trade much like any other, as Lisa Jardine's recent Ingenious Pursuits has so well demonstrated.) But if, less controversially, it is a writer's job to enquire about the world, then Brandenburg and Paxson have a considerable success on their hands: a timely and very frightening book, but one so engaging, it is more likely to inspire us to help save the planet than sink us--as more sober works too often do--into a cynical and useless despair. --Simon Ings

Synopsis
A scientific discussion about the past of planet Mars and how this may affect planet Earth. We know that there was once life there; the question is, how did it die? Both authors are specialists in astronomy and give a compelling account of the deadly connection between the two planets.

Customer Reviews

INTERESTING EXCURSION AVOIDS BECOMING HARD HITTING EXPOSE
DEAD MARS, DYING EARTH by John E. Brandenburg and Monica Rix Paxson, follows in the footsteps of R. Buckminster Fuller. Among Fuller's final writings, his 1978 OPERATING MANUAL FOR SPACESHIP EARTH (reissued September 2000(...)) sounded dire warnings for sustaining life on Earth. Fuller's thesis was that Earth is a spaceship carrying us around the sun. While mankind increasingly exploits Earth's resources, global catastrophe will surely follow our collective failure to correct ongoing damage to Earth's delicately balanced environment. Not mincing words, Fuller warned of the descendents of the "Great Pirates," blinded by their ambition and greed,who seek to control Earth's economy at the cost of our natural environment in Spaceship Earth.

Brandenburg and Paxson tangentially refer to the seminal 1998 book on global warming THE HEAT IS ON: THE CLIMATE CRISIS, THE COVER-UP, THE PRESCRIPTION by Pulitzer Prize journalist Ross Gelbspan ((...)). In addition to reviewing the data leading to recent recommendations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, investigative reporter Gelbspan exposes the misinformation campaign by the three trillion dollar per year fossil fuel industry which has effectively confused the public. Brandenburg and Paxson stick more closely to science than to politics in discussing Earth's environmental degradation.

In a less critical and hard hitting message than Fuller's and Gelbspan's, Brandenburg and Paxson review data from Mars and Earth at the turn of the millennium by updating what is known from scientific experiments conducted in space, in Earth's atmosphere and on the ground. Brandenburg worked as a geophysicist on several Mars space probe projects while Paxson concentrated on Earth's atmospheric changes. They do not speculate that Mars once supported life similar to Earth's, and that it destroyed itself. Rather, Mars is presented as a laboratory in which presently well defined conditions are a harbinger of what Earth's environment can rapidly evolve into under mankind's influence.

Adding to the book's interest are anecdotes from Brandenburg's and Paxson's personal scientific experiences. Their experiences support their underlying hypothesis that earth can become like Mars if nothing or too little is promptly done globally to stop the process. From time to time, the anecdotes cause the book to meander, risking losing the reader. Yet the authors manage to bring us back to the central thread of their thesis of this usually complicated subject. Here and there, a few errors should have been corrected during copy editing of this book. For example: page 147 and on

By and large, DEAD MARS, DYING EARTH is a good and interesting book. It contains many solidly scientific examples in making its case that unless Earth's citizens take collective action for correcting current trends, our planet will very rapidly in geo-astronomical terms become a dead planet resembling Mars. But if it had also provided specific politically practical ways in which to accomplish Earth's rescue mission, Brandenburg and Paxson may have possibly provided us with a great book. Nevertheless, DEAD MARS, DYING EARTH is an important book for those trying to visualize where our planet is heading, and who meanwhile can acquire up to date scientific information in layman's terms of what is known about our neighboring, dead planet Mars.

Amazon.co.uk Review
Reviews Amazon.co.uk "We will," the authors promise, "make sure that you find more than dust to drink here, because one cannot ... recognise the significance of a scientific truth without the context provided by a story." And the story is a remarkable and frightening one. Mars may have been much more alive than we previously thought; and the extinction of life on that planet has dreadful lessons for us as we load our oceans with carbon dioxide and deplete our atmosphere of free oxygen. This is ecological siren sounding on a cosmological scale, pitched at the non-scientist. The tricksy, first-person narrative style irritates at times, and the authors' rather naïve model of what we can reasonably expect of science is risible. Once, the authors contend: "Science wasn't a detached professional pursuit. It wasn't just about technology or specialisation. It was about question ... The domain of science was populated by gifted, driven amateurs who found the inquiry into the nature of the universe as compelling as life itself." (Not true: science has always been a trade much like any other, as Lisa Jardine's recent Ingenious Pursuits has so well demonstrated.) But if, less controversially, it is a writer's job to enquire about the world, then Brandenburg and Paxson have a considerable success on their hands: a timely and very frightening book, but one so engaging, it is more likely to inspire us to help save the planet than sink us--as more sober works too often do--into a cynical and useless despair. --Simon Ing

A Great Book
Dead Mars, Dying Earth is one of the most inspiring, scary and, ultimately, energizing books I've ever read--a sort of boot camp for planetary transformation. Not just another boring science book, Dead Mars, Dying Earth reads like a Hollywood script: One compelling, true story after another draws you further and further into the recognition of how planets live and die and of why our Earth is in so much trouble. Then, after plunging into the dark night of Earth's possible future, authors Brandenburg and Paxson pick you back up, tell you a couple wonderful stories and leave you stoked to manifest its eminently sensible solutions-- solutions which show how we can reverse our current global warming crisis with both planet AND economy intact.

Pick up Dead Mars, Dying Earth and let its ringing message spur you toward the great work ahead. After all, what could be more satisfying than safeguarding this beautiful, living planet and all you know and love?