A Beautiful Planet calls Earth's atmosphere "a delicate cocoon of air that shields us from our star's radiation." Of course, the atmosphere doesn't completely block electromagnetic radiation from the Sun; without some sunlight reaching the surface, plants could not harvest the Sun's energy, and practically no life as we know it could exist. The atmosphere's ozone layer does filter out much of the harmful ultraviolet light (or "UV rays") produced by the Sun. UV rays can cause skin cancer, and catastrophic damage to the ozone layer may have contributed to Earth's most extensive mass extinction of species ever, the End-Permian extinction (also known
Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil a simple observation about natural resources. He described "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil" in "The New York Times" as "a book that is more powerful for being brief -- takes a detour to explain some of the basics of energy budgets, thermodynamics and entropy, and it does so with the clarity and gentle touch of a master teacher". Raeburn concluded about Goodstein's book: "Publishers Weekly" commented on the book: Brian Braiker described the book in "Newsweek" as an "important one" where Goodstein gives the explanation of the science behind his prediction. Out of Gas: The