The devil's element : phosphorus and a world out of balance
Dan Egan (Author)
The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. 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 the author harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is 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. This book 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. -- Adapted from publisher's description
Print Book, English, 2023
First edition View all formats and editions
W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 2023
Informational works
xxvii, 228 pages ; 24 cm
9781324002666, 1324002662
1370349936