Embracing Earth was the first coffee table, general reader book showing the Earth from space as a system of interrelated spheres. The book’s sections included: Land/Geosphere, Air/Atmosphere, Water/Hydrosphere, Life/Biosphere and Ice/Cryosphere. It also had sections on Human Impacts (deforestation, ozone depletion, farming, war, etc.) and images of the larger beauty of our Home Planet taken from NASA’s Space Shuttle. The famous science writer/TV presenter, James Burke, wrote the Forward. NASA’s Stan Wilson wrote the section “Remote Sensing: Striving For A Global View.”
The book had four foreign language editions (including German and French), received critical acclaim, and was reviewed widely in the US and abroad. Though published in 1992 (and out of print), it remains an early-warning classic, showing the Earth System and many human impacts, which were first being identified by satellites. These remote sensing images showing human impacts have sadly only gotten worse due to global climate change/warming.
