Earth's Amphibious Transformation

Stefan Huebner is Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore, President of the Society of Floating Solutions (Singapore) and Deputy Chair of the International Scientific Committee of the World Conference on Floating Solutions.

• 1. Earth's amphibious transformation; 2. Asia's oceanic Anthropocene: how political elites and global offshore oil exploitation moved Asian marine regions into the new epoch; 3. Oceans and orbits: verticality at sea from seadromes to rocket launches and light islands; 4. Terrestrial mindsets and the origins of sea surface urbanization in Tokyo Bay; 5. Ocean-to-land globalization: communication, navigation, and Earth's production centers; 6. Environmentalisms clashing: Buckminster Fuller, floating structures, and US urban waterfronts since the late 1960s; 7. Economies and ecologies of energy generation on islands: Hawaiian metabolism's alternatives to fossil fuels; 8. Dual habitats above and below the surface: Japanese mariculture research, plastics, and the global concentration of marine biomass and nutrients; 9. The invasive threat of slowly traveling ecosystems: artificial islands and biosphere integrity in the oceanic Anthropocene; 10. A paradigm shift: Earth's amphibious transformation and the oceanic Anthropocene.

'Prepare to be disoriented: this innovative, ambitious book takes us below the waves to understand the world's oceans in their full vertical complexity. Revealing the startling range and environmental impact of 'artificial islands' – from offshore oil rigs to futuristic floating homes – Stefan Huebner fundamentally shifts our perspective on the accelerating human transformation of marine space.' William M. Tsutsui, Chancellor and Professor of History, Ottawa University