Elemental
How Five Elements Changed Earth's Past and Will Shape Our Future
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An ecologist explores how life itself shapes Earth using the elemental constituents we all share
It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future.
Taking readers from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life's essential elements--hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. He describes how single-celled cyanobacteria and plants harnessed them to wildly proliferate across the oceans and the land, only to eventually precipitate environmental catastrophes. He then brings us to the present, and shows how these elements underpin the success of human civilization, and how their mismanagement threatens similarly catastrophic unintended consequences. But, Porder argues, if we can learn from our world-changing predecessors, we can construct a more sustainable future.
Blending conversational storytelling with the latest science, Porder takes us deep into the Amazon, across fresh lava flows in Hawaii, and to the cornfields of the American Midwest to illuminate a potential path to sustainability, informed by the constraints imposed by life's essential elements and the four-billion-year history of life on Earth.
About this Author
Stephen Porder is the Associate Provost for Sustainability and the Acacia Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology, and Environment and Society at Brown University. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Time magazine, the American Scientist, and other leading publications. He is cofounder of Possibly, which airs on The Public's Radio and provides practical advice on sustainability to a general audience.
Reviews
"Brown University ecologist Porder debuts with a probing exploration of how carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorous have shaped life on Earth. . . . It's an illuminating account of how these elements and the organisms that rely on them have influenced the course of life."
"[Porder] takes the time to explain considerable data to skeptics. . . . And this scientific information is made even more accessible because of Porder's engaging storytelling and views of different milieus like farms to illustrate what more sustainable alternatives could look like."---Joseph S. Pete, Foreword Reviews
"Porder writes with precision, style, clarity and logic. . . . [He] offers a way forward, filled with optimism and driven by consumers of energy, by regular folks, by you and me."---David Gascoigne, Travels with Birds
"An original take on geology and evolution focusing on the role of five of life's essential elements."
"The biogeochemistryof the C, N, H, O, and P combines into the various compounds that make up life-forms. [This book] shows the need to more completely understand the roles these elements play in everyday life and be better stewards."---J.L. Hatfield, Choice
"Porder's clear and concise writing is perfect for teens interested in ecology, climate science, and chemistry."---George Kendall, Booklist
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