Download or read book The Devil s Element written by Dan Egan and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times best-selling author on the source of great bounty—and now great peril—all over the world. Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.” He describes the race to mine it from the fabled guano islands to the far Pacific to the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. He reports on how our overreliance on phosphorus is today causing toxic “dead zones” in waterways from the Florida Everglades to the Mississippi River Basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. And he explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war.
Download or read book The Devil s Element Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance written by Dan Egan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Yorker Best Book of the Year "Lively…and thought-provoking.” —Robert W. Howarth, Science The New York Times best-selling author on the source of great bounty—and now great peril—all over the world. Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.” The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and “dead zones” in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war. With The Devil’s Element, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time.
Download or read book Phosphorus written by Jim Elser and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-11 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phosphorus is essential to the production of our food, and it also triggers algal blooms in lakes, rivers, and oceans when it slips through our hands. An understanding of this essential resource and how we have used and misused it over the years is crucial to the sustainability of our well-being on our planet. In this book, world authorities on phosphorus sustainability Jim Elser and Phil Haygarth explain this element's involvement in biology, human health and nutrition, food production, ecosystem function, and environmental sustainability. Phosphorus chronicles the sustainability challenges phosphorus both poses and solves in various contexts. The book begins with its discovery over 350 years ago, moving to its basic chemistry and the essential role it plays in all living things on Earth. Chapters go on to explain the rise in the usage of phosphorus in agriculture and how the increase in the mining of rock phosphate in the mid-20th century was essential for the Green Revolution. However, phosphorus emissions from human wastes and detergents triggered widespread algal blooms in the 1960s and 1970s. While such emissions have been brought under better control with wastewater treatment, diffuse emissions from farming continue to cause water quality degradation. The authors explain how these diffuse phosphorus emissions may worsen with climate change. In ten concise chapters, Elser and Haygarth offer engaging explanations of our historical use and abuse of phosphorus, including the phosphorus sustainability movement and new efforts to sustain food benefits of limited rock reserves following the phosphate rock price shock in 2007-2008. Highlighting new approaches for phosphorus, the two "Systems Innovators" turn toward the emerging set of sustainable phosphorus solutions necessary to achieve a sustainable "phosphoheaven" and avoid "phosphogeddon." The book provides an insider's take on this essential resource and why all of us need to wrestle with the wicked problems this element will cause, illuminate, or eliminate in years to come.
Download or read book The Shocking History of Phosphorus written by John Emsley and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over 300 years, the chemical element phosphorus maimed, killed, polluted and burned - yet doctors prescribed it and whole industries were dedicated to its manufacture. This is a history of phosphorus, from its genesis through to its modern-day use in pesticides and household chemicals.
Download or read book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes written by Dan Egan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award "Nimbly splices together history, science, reporting and personal experiences into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative.… Egan’s book is bursting with life (and yes, death)." —Robert Moor, New York Times Book Review The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.
Download or read book A History of Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry from Prehistory to the End of the Classical Period written by Robert W. Boyle and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-05-01 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Mendeleev outlined the modern periodic table in 1869, many new uses have been found for the 92 naturally occurring elements. This book travels back in time to describe the utilization of materials familiar (gold, copper, iron) and arcane (arsenic, boron, red ochre) and their practical history (mining, metallurgy and crafts), with evidence from archaeology and geology. Together with the technological developments, author Robert Boyle portrays the advances in our understanding of materials science which led to modern geological and environmental sciences. It is a source book valuable to students of history and archaeology, mining and metallurgy, as well as to geologists, mineralogists and geochemists everywhere.
Download or read book Lakes written by John Richard Saylor and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Lakes is my favorite kind of natural history: meticulously researched, timely, comprehensive, and written with imagination and verve.”—Jerry Dennis, author of The Living Great Lakes Lakes might be the most misunderstood bodies of water on earth. And while they may seem commonplace, without lakes our world would never be the same. In this revealing look at these lifegiving treasures, John Richard Saylor shows us just how deep our connection to still waters run. Lakes is an illuminating tour through the most fascinating lakes around the world. Whether it’s Lake Vostok, located more than two miles beneath the surface of Antarctica, whose water was last exposed to the atmosphere perhaps a million years ago; Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, the world’s deepest and oldest lake formed by a rift in the earth’s crust; or Lake Nyos, the so-called Killer Lake that exploded in 1986, resulting in hundreds of deaths, Saylor reveals to us the wonder that exists in lakes found throughout the world. Along the way we learn all the many forms that lakes take—how they come to be and how they feed and support ecosystems—and what happens when lakes vanish.
Download or read book Dead Zones written by David L. Kirchman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-22 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dead zones are on the rise... Human activity has caused an increase in uninhabitable, oxygen-poor zones--also known as "dead zones"--in our waters. Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe, and it is a necessity for nearly all life on Earth. Yet many rivers, estuaries, coastal waters, and parts of the open ocean lack enough of it. In this book, David L. Kirchman explains the impacts of dead zones and provides an in-depth history of oxygen loss in water. He details the role the agricultural industry plays in water pollution, showcasing how fertilizers contaminate water supplies and kickstart harmful algal blooms in local lakes, reservoirs, and coastal oceans. Algae decomposition requires so much oxygen that levels drop low enough to kill fish, destroy bottom-dwelling biota, reduce biological diversity, and rearrange food webs. We can't undo the damage completely, but we can work together to reduce the size and intensity of dead zones in places like the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and the Baltic Sea. Not only does Kirchman clearly outline what dead zones mean for humanity, he also supplies ways we can reduce their deadly impact on human and aquatic life. Nutrient pollution in some regions has already begun to decline because of wastewater treatment, buffer zones, cover crops, and precision agriculture. More needs to be done, though, to reduce the harmful impact of existing dead zones and to stop the thousands of new ones from cropping up in our waters. Kirchman provides insight into the ways changing our diet can reduce nutrient pollution while also lowering greenhouse gasses emitted by the agricultural industry. Individuals can do something positive for their health and the world around them. The resulting book allows readers interested in the environment--whether students, policymakers, ecosystem managers, or science buffs--to dive into these deadly zones and discover how they can help mitigate the harmful effects of oxygen-poor waters today.
Download or read book Innovations in Green Chemistry and Green Engineering written by Paul T. Anastas and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Processes that meet the objectives of green chemistry and chemical engineering minimize waste and energy use, and eliminate toxic by-products. Given the ubiquitous nature of products from chemical processes in our lives, green chemistry and chemical engineering are vital components of any sustainable future. Gathering together ten peer-reviewed articles from the Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, Innovations in Green Chemistry and Green Engineering provides a comprehensive introduction to the state-of-the-art in this key area of sustainability research. Worldwide experts present the latest developments on topics ranging from organic batteries and green catalytic transformations to green nanoscience and nanotoxicology. An essential, one-stop reference for professionals in research and industry, this book also fills the need for an authoritative course text in environmental and green chemistry and chemical engineering at the upper-division undergraduate and graduate levels.
Download or read book My Quests for Hope and Meaning written by Rosemary Radford Ruether and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is an autobiography tracing Rosemary Radford Ruether's intellectual development and writing career. Ruether examines the influence of her mother and family on her development and particularly her interactions with the Roman Catholic religious tradition. She delves into her exploration of interfaith relations with Judaism and Islam as well. Her educational formation at Scripps College and the importance of historical theology is also a major emphasis. Mental illness has also affected Ruether's nuclear family in the person of her son, and she details the family's struggle with this issue. Finally in this intellectual autobiography, Ruether explores her long concern and involvement with ecology, feminism, and the quest for a spirituality and practice for a livable planet."
Download or read book The Orphans of Davenport Eugenics the Great Depression and the War over Children s Intelligence written by Marilyn Brookwood and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating—and eerily timely—tale of the forgotten Depression-era psychologists who launched the modern science of childhood development. “Doomed from birth” was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two toddler girls at the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Their IQ scores, added together, totaled just 81. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs of the times, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents’ low intelligence and were therefore unfit for adoption. The girls were sent to an institution for the “feebleminded” to be cared for by “moron” women. To Skeels and Skodak’s astonishment, under the women’s care, the children’s IQ scores became normal. Now considered one of the most important scientific findings of the twentieth century, the discovery that environment shapes children’s intelligence was also one of the most fiercely contested—and its origin story has never been told. In The Orphans of Davenport, psychologist and esteemed historian Marilyn Brookwood chronicles how a band of young psychologists in 1930s Iowa shattered the nature-versus-nurture debate and overthrew long-accepted racist and classist views of childhood development. Transporting readers to a rural Iowa devastated by dust storms and economic collapse, Brookwood reveals just how profoundly unlikely it was for this breakthrough to come from the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station. Funded by the University of Iowa and the Rockefeller Foundation, and modeled on America’s experimental agricultural stations, the Iowa Station was virtually unknown, a backwater compared to the renowned psychology faculties of Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton. Despite the challenges they faced, the Iowa psychologists replicated increased intelligence in thirteen more “retarded” children. When Skeels published their incredible work, America’s leading psychologists—eugenicists all—attacked and condemned his conclusions. The loudest critic was Lewis M. Terman, who advocated for forced sterilization of low-intelligence women and whose own widely accepted IQ test was threatened by the Iowa research. Terman and his opponents insisted that intelligence was hereditary, and their prestige ensured that the research would be ignored for decades. Remarkably, it was not until the 1960s that a new generation of psychologists accepted environment’s role in intelligence and helped launch the modern field of developmental neuroscience.. Drawing on prodigious archival research, Brookwood reclaims the Iowa researchers as intrepid heroes and movingly recounts the stories of the orphans themselves, many of whom later credited the psychologists with giving them the opportunity to forge successful lives. A radiant story of the power and promise of science to better the lives of us all, The Orphans of Davenport unearths an essential history at a moment when race science is dangerously resurgent.
Download or read book Disappearing Ink written by Travis McDade and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2015-09-07 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable true story of the document heist that shocked the world. Like many aspiring writers, David Breithaupt had money problems. But what he also had was unsupervised access to one of the finest special collections libraries in the country. In October 1990, Kenyon College hired Breithaupt as its library’s part-time evening supervisor. In April 2000, he was fired after a Georgia librarian discovered him selling a letter by Flannery O’Connor on eBay, but that was only the tip of the iceberg: for the past ten years, Breithaupt had been browsing the collection, taking from it whatever rare books, manuscripts, and documents caught his eye—W. H. Auden annotated typescripts, a Thomas Pynchon manuscript, and much, much more. It was a large-scale, long-term pillaging of Kenyon College’s most precious works. After he was caught, the American justice system looked like it was about to disappoint the college the way it had countless rare book crime victims before—but Kenyon, refused to let this happen . . .
Download or read book The 13th Element written by John Emsley and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible ""glowing"" history of the ""Devil's element ""phosphorus Discovered by alchemists, prescribed by apothecaries, exploited by ninth-century industrialists, and abused by twentieth-century combatants, the chemical element phosphorus has fascinated us for more than three centuries. It may even be the cause of will-o'-the wisps and spontaneous human combustion! Now John Emsley has written an enthralling account of this eerily luminescent element. Shining with wonderful nuggets-from murders-by-phosphorus to a match factory strike; from the firebombing of Hamburg to the deadly compounds derived from phosphorus today-The 13th Element weaves together a rich tableau of brilliant and oddball characters, social upheavals, and bizarre events.
Download or read book A Toxic Inconvenience written by Nicholas G Penniman IV and published by Barringer Publishing/Schlesinger Advertising. This book was released on 2019-12-26 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is intended to inform and create a call to action by politicians and regulatory agencies before the problem overwhelms the economy of Southwest Florida.
Download or read book The Devil s Footprint written by Carl Abrahamsson and published by Trapart Books. This book was released on 2020-10-23 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God proposes the challenge of the millennium: if Satan sorts out the ever growing human mess on Earth, God will lovingly take him back to Heaven as his favorite Archangel. Satan accepts, and sets out on a massive operation to balance out over-population, pollution, corruption, and other severely Satanic headaches - many of which he originally helped create... Easier said than done!Satan's love of the ambitiously mischievous humans is challenged as his own "Team Apocalypse" fervently sets to work. But as the world begins to change quickly and dramatically for the better, a new question arises: can God and his suspicious Archangels really be trusted in this cataclysmic, cosmic undertaking? (Size 5 x 8", 190 pages.)
Download or read book Phosphorus written by Mikhail Butusov and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book starts with depiction of the phosphorus role in life creation and evolution. Then it outlines in which vital processes different phosphates participate in life of all flora and fauna, from DNA molecules till body tissues. Crucial function of phosphates was noticed long ago, but only in XIX century discovery of mineral fertilizers made it possible to sustain the needs of growing global population, thus initiating a “green revolution”. Though, for many decades after it, the complexity of interactions “fertilizer-soil-plant roots” was underrated, causing massive damages, such as soil destruction and eutrophication of waters. Still, mining of exhausting natural phosphate reserves continued worldwide. Lessons of what happened in XIX century due to scarcity of phosphates were ignored. In the meantime, production of phosphates reached its peak few years ago. Immediate implementation of phosphate recycling technologies from municipal wastes can help avoid imminent global disaster.
Download or read book The Bible of the Adversary 10th Anniversary Edition written by Michael W Ford and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bible of the Adversary "Adversarial Flame" 10th Anniversary Edition is both a philosophical introduction to Luciferian Magick. Published originally in 2007, The Bible of the Adversary provided a modern unification and clarification of the Left Hand Path initiatory power recognized as "The Adversary" and Luciferianism. The Adversarial Flame edition presents a completely re-edited and expanded edition which begins with the 11 Points of Power and the philosophical foundations; guiding the reader into the depths of darkness and by using Will, Desire and Belief, illuminating the Black Flame or Light within. Features: - Philosophy of Luciferianism from the 11 Points of Power to the Laws of Belial. - Symbols and Sigils of Lucifer, Satan, Lilith, Samael and Lilith explained. - Techniques of strengthening the Mind via Meditation, Discipline and focus of Will. - Ceremonies and Rituals of Luciferianism which focus on Liberation, Illumination and Apotheosis.
