Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet

Product Details

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.

Customer Reviews ::

from chloroplast to global warming: the history of green things - R. M. Williams - tucson, arizona USA
popular science tends to be written by one of two types of people. scientists who have decided that telling the world about science is as important as working in their lab and writers, usually journalists from magazines that got interested in some aspect of science, wrote a longish piece and then thought enough to make it into a book. this author is the second type but he writes, especially the first 1/3 of the book, on chlorophyll like a passionate scientist. good stuff.

the first part reminded me of _crystal fire, another popular science book that approached the topic both historically and by making the people come alive as in a good novel, coupled with good science. neat trick, rarely done well, which makes my first reading recommendation any of the first 3 chapters, to decide if you want to pursue the whole thing. it's on the higher side of science, potentially a bit of a slough for some, stick with it, finish one chapter before you give up.

the second 1/3 of the book is the level up from chlorophyll, the plants and how they interact with the environment. a lot less science, a lot more speculation and i must admit my enthusiasm waned a bit here. however i could see his big idea and really wanted to understand the whole thing. for this reason, if you decide to read the whole book, read it front to back, some of the meaning is in the relationships built up sequentially, which you'll miss jumping around as i often read.

the last roughly 1/3 is about global warming plus. unfortunately somewhere here my attention continued to wane and reading became looking a words on paper and lost that absorption that was so present earlier. if the author releases another edition it would be nice to see if this could be rewritten to the same level as the first 3rd. what imho is lacking is that person story structure he uses so effectively in part 1. the structure is him walking and thinking about his place and though interesting not as convincing as the interplay of personalities before.

it's a good book. important and timely topic, but best of all it is a good jumpoff point to recommend to get everyone up to speed on these crucial issues: mankind and our effects on our environment. i could see it as a textbook or reading group choice.

note:
fitting together as well as acorns and their shells or a couple spooning. he has a novelist's command of word pictures.

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