Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet - Softcover

Morton, Oliver

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007163657 ISBN 13: 9780007163656

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2009

Synopsis

Wherever there is greenery, photosynthesis is working to make oxygen, release energy, and create living matter from the raw material of sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. Without photosynthesis, there would be an empty world, an empty sky, and a sun that does nothing more than warm the rocks and reflect off the sea.

Eating the Sun is the story of a world in crisis; an appreciation of the importance of plants; a history of the earth and the feuds and fantasies of warring scientists; a celebration of how the smallest things, enzymes and pigments, influence the largest things, the oceans, the rainforests, and the fossil fuel economy. Oliver Morton offers a fascinating, lively, profound look at nature's greatest miracle and sounds a much-needed call to arms—illuminating a potential crisis of climatic chaos and explaining how we can change our situation, for better or for worse.

About this title

From the Publisher:

"A vast, elegant synthesis of biology, physics and environmental science that can inform our discussions of urgent issues"
- Publishers Weekly

"Meticulous but always engaging account of photosynthesis, the process that makes life possible...Top-notch popular-science writing."
- Kirkus Reviews

"Everything you could possibly want from a popular science book. There is wonder here, and intellectual excitement; clear explanation and lyrical writing; and much new insight into how the world works, linking the very small and very large...Research funders should feel a duty to take heed. Everyone else can read Morton's fascinating book for pleasure."
-- The Independent

"A book that may re-order the way you think about the world...[Eating the Sun] is a refrain in praise of photosynthesis, the Earth's energy and order currency-exchange market. It is also an entertaining history of how the subject arrived where it is today--and an illuminating insight for the non-scientist."
-- The Economist

"Highly original....Brilliant and beautifully written....Morton is as compelling and eloquent in describing the evolution of landscape as he is at describing the evolution of life itself."
-- The Sunday Telegraph

"A rare delight....Oliver Morton writes so engagingly that [Eating the Sun] reads as a well-crafted biography of the earth on behalf of the plant kingdom."
-- Prospect Magazine

"I enjoyed this book as much for the crazed asides as for the upsetting insights."
-- Sunday Times (London)

About the Author:

Award-winning science journalist Oliver Morton is the author of Mapping Mars, a contributing editor at Wired, and a contributor for The New Yorker, Science, and The American Scholar. He lives with his wife in Greenwich, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0007163657
• ISBN 13: 9780007163656
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 460