• Introduces Earth System Science as an important and growing interdisciplinary area of research
• Traces how Earth System Science has emerged as a field in its own right since the 1960s alongside concerns about global change
• Outlines the tipping points that are currently recognised in the Earth system
• Places the Earth system in wider context, including the latest insights into other habitable planets
• Explains how understanding the fragility of the Earth system and its past history can help humanity achieve sustainability

  
When humanity first glimpsed planet Earth from space, the unity of the system that supports humankind entered the popular consciousness. The concept of the Earth's atmosphere, biosphere, oceans, soil, and rocks operating as a closely interacting system has rapidly gained ground in science. This new field, involving geographers, geologists, biologists, oceanographers, and atmospheric physicists, is known as Earth System Science. 
  
In this Very Short Introduction, Tim Lenton considers how a world in which humans could evolve was created; how, as a species, we are now reshaping that world; and what a sustainable future for humanity within the Earth System might look like. Drawing on elements of geology, biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics, Lenton asks whether Earth System Science can help guide us onto a sustainable course before we alter the Earth system to the point where we destroy ourselves and our current civilisation.