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Light to Life

The Miracle of Photosynthesis and How It Can Save the Planet

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Light to Life

By: Raffael Jovine
Narrated by: Simon Slater
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About this listen

In Light to Life, biologist Raffael Jovine takes us on a journey of discovery into the intricate, beautiful and often surprising processes that convert energy from the sun into life and how all-important these are to our survival.

Despite the unprecedented challenges the Earth faces from global warming, habitat loss, air pollution and population growth, Jovine shows us that there is hope to be found. Photosynthesis is the very source of life: it has the power not just to produce food but to reshape continents, drive biogeochemical cycles, stabilise the climate and regulate weather.

In this exciting, revelatory book, Jovine unveils a blueprint for the future: greening the desert, bringing the ocean on land, planting mangrove forests and oyster banks, growing algae for animal feed, human food and soil carbon.... He demonstrates how by harnessing photosynthesis we can regenerate the planet and revise the way we human beings interact with it.

This book will help you to see the world in a different way, in all its wonderful detail - through the photosynthetic pigments in your eyes.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Raffael Jovine (P)2021 Octopus Books Biological Sciences Biology Environment Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Conservation Solar System Pollution

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I never expected a book on photosynthesis to make me laugh or cheer me up. Raffael Jovine is a natural storyteller (and perhaps a more glamorous incarnation of Professor Branestawm). With roasting temperatures in the Arctic Circle and flash floods killing nearly a hundred people this week in Germany the reality of global climate change is undeniable. But Jovine’s genius is that he takes the reader’s (in my case, ignorant) hand and takes us on a guided tour of everything you ever wanted to know about photosynthesis and never even knew that you did. With pitstops along the way about the idiosyncratic scientist who unravelled photosynthesis for us, the centrality of photosynthesis for all life, including ours, and fuel for everything on the planet (I for one never used to think of fossil fuels as products of photosynthesis, but there we are), the abundance of photosynthesizing life forms and their possible utility, the untapped power of photosynthesis to clean and rebalance the planet, the challenge ahead in rebalancing the world, and because it is the only thing that will make people listen the monetary value of photosynthesis via the NPP or Net Primary Productivity which ‘is about as emotive as a bag of sand’ (p.161) or Jovine’s preferred ViU for Vitality Unit i.e. life giving unit. And then he concludes with suggestions of what we can do.
This is the first ‘science’ book that I have read since the Desmond Morris’ Naked Ape a half century ago, which despite my interest was a slog. Yet this was a joy. I learned a lot and it did not send me scuttling back under a rock on the seashore to hide but made me realise that there is a lot I and everyone can do to turn the tide, through small acts and changes in policy, manufacturing and lifestyle. Now when I dig a hole for my garden I am conscious of it as a environmental imperative, we can all green our world in little ways, Jovine’s book argues forcefully for the necessity and the ease of capturing that solar energy through the brilliance of biological processes: photosynthesis.
Most people probably take photosynthesis for granted, we should not, we should be nurturing it. If everyone read this book and acted on it, the world really would be a better place.

Important, funny guide to what we all depend on.

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