Elemental: How Five Elements Changed Earth’s Past and Will Shape Our Future

by Stephen Porder

Photosynthesis captures roughly as much carbon from the air in a day as volcanoes emit in a year.

Plants make up more than 80 percent of all the living matter on Earth. Bacteria make up 12 percent. Humans? About one-hundredth of one percent.

The richest 10 percent of people on this planet are responsible for over half of all greenhouse gas emissions.