Green Planet The Story Of Plant Life On Earth

Take a lively look at the biology of plants on Earth—and their vast importance to our planet—with this wide-ranging exploration from an award-winning team. This tree doesn’t look like it’s doing very much. It just stands there in the sunlight, big and GREEN. But in fact, this tree is busy . . . On land and in the seas, green plants make the oxygen and food that many living things—including us—need to survive. Covering the evolution of the first plants billions of years ago, the secret, microscopic workings of trees and leaves today, and the role of plants in both creating fossil fuels and combating climate change, this book is a lush and fascinating introduction to the science of plants that goes well beyond photosynthesis. Nicola Davies and Emily Sutton, the acclaimed team behind Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes, Many: The Diversity of Life on Earth, and Grow: Secrets of Our DNA, have crafted a hopeful exploration of green life that will encourage readers to treasure the flora of Earth’s many ecosystems.

Plants are not just a pretty part of the landscape; they keep the entire planet, with all of its human and nonhuman inhabitants, alive. Stanley Rice documents the many ways in which plants do this by making oxygen, regulating the greenhouse effect, controlling floods, and producing all the food in the world. Plants also create natural habitats for all organisms in the world. With illustrations and clear writing for non-specialists, Green Planet helps general readers realize that if we are to rescue the Earth from environmental disaster, we must protect wild plants. Beginning with an overview of how human civilization has altered the face of the Earth, particularly by the destruction of forests, the book details the startling consequences of these actions. Rice provides compelling reasons for government officials, economic leaders, and the public to support efforts to save threatened and endangered plants. Global campaigns to solve environmental problems with plants, such as the development of green roofs and the Green Belt Movement—a women's organization in Kenya that empowers communities worldwide to protect the environment—show readers that efforts to save wild plants can be successful and beneficial to the economic well-being of nations. Through current scientific evidence, readers see that plants are vital to the ecological health of our planet and understand what can be done to lead to a better—and greener—future Benefits of plants: Help modulate greenhouse gases Produce almost all oxygen in the air Create cool shade that reduces energy costs Prevent floods, droughts, and soil erosion Produce all of the food in the world Create and preserve soil Create natural habitats Heal the landscape after natural and human disasters

Praise for The Green Planet (BBC One) 'David Attenborough's gobsmacking, awe-inspiring return' The Guardian 'The Green Planet reveals the secret lives of plants in the same way The Blue Planet opened our eyes to the oceans' New Scientist There's something new under the sun Plants live secret, unseen lives - hidden in their magical world and on their timescale. From the richest jungles to the harshest deserts, from the snowiest alpine forest to the remotest steaming swamp, Green Planet travels from one great habitat to the next, showing us that plants are as aggressive, competitive and dramatic as the animals on our planet. You will discover agents of death, who ruthlessly engulf their host plant, but also those that form deep and complex relationships with other species, such as the desert cacti who use nectar-loving bats to pollinate. Although plants are undoubtedly the stars of the show, a fascinating new light will be shed on the animals that interact with them. Using the latest technologies and showcasing over two decades of new discoveries, Green Planet reveals the strange and wonderful life of plants like never before - a life full of remarkable behaviour, emotional stories and surprising heroes.

This is our Green Planet: a hidden world where plants care for other plants and can smell, taste, touch, hear and even . . . 'talk'. In the world of plants, time passes more slowly, but if we speed months into minutes we can peer into this hidden world and realise: it's a battleground. Plants are working to thwart their enemies, and to trick animals into working for them. Right under your feet, and all around you, is a secret world you've probably never noticed. Until now. Let's explore our Green Planet: a secret world of plants that might change how you see plants forever . . . Discover all there is to love about our astonishing Green Planet, the stories of its inhabitants, and the challenges it faces. In collaboration with BBC Earth, this illustrated non-fiction book captures the intrigue, drama, and beauty of the groundbreaking new BBC TV series: The Green Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Over 7 billion people depend on plants for healthy, productive, secure lives, but few of us stop to consider the origin of the plant kingdom that turned the world green and made our lives possible. And as the human population continues to escalate, our survival depends on how we treat the plant kingdom and the soils that sustain it. Understanding the evolutionary history of our land floras, the story of how plant life emerged from water and conquered the continents to dominate the planet, is fundamental to our own existence. In Making Eden David Beerling reveals the hidden history of Earth's sun-shot greenery, and considers its future prospects as we farm the planet to feed the world. Describing the early plant pioneers and their close, symbiotic relationship with fungi, he examines the central role plants play in both ecosystems and the regulation of climate. As threats to plant biodiversity mount today, Beerling discusses the resultant implications for food security and climate change, and how these can be avoided. Drawing on the latest exciting scientific findings, including Beerling's own field work in the UK, North America, and New Zealand, and his experimental research programmes over the past decade, this is an exciting new take on how plants greened the continents.

Earth is dominated by plants, which outweigh all other life - from tiny duckweed floating in our ponds to giant sequoia trees towering above us. It's easy to take plants for granted, but we depend on these light-eaters, oxygen-generators, and rain-makers for every breath of air and mouthful of food we take. But that's not all. In the world of plants, time passes more slowly, but if we speed months into minutes we can peer into this hidden world and realise- it's a battleground. Plants are working to thwart their enemies, and to trick animals into working for them. Right under your feet, and all around you, is a secret world you've probably never noticed. Until now. Let's explore our Green Planet- a secret world of plants that might change how you see plants forever. Discover all there is to love about our astonishing Green Planet, the stories of its inhabitants, and the challenges it faces.

Plants have profoundly moulded the Earth's climate and the evolutionary trajectory of life. Far from being 'silent witnesses to the passage of time', plants are dynamic components of our world, shaping the environment throughout history as much as that environment has shaped them. In The Emerald Planet, David Beerling puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth's history, and in helping us to predict its future. His account draws together evidence from fossil plants, from experiments with their living counterparts, and from computer models of the 'Earth System', to illuminate the history of our planet and its biodiversity. This new approach reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how plants played a starring role in pushing oxygen levels upwards, allowing spectacular giant insects to thrive in the Carboniferous; and it strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. Along the way, Beerling introduces a lively cast of pioneering scientists from Victorian times onwards whose discoveries provided the crucial background to these and the other puzzles. This understanding of our planet's past sheds a sobering light on our own climate-changing activities, and offers clues to what our climatic and ecological futures might look like. There could be no more important time to take a close look at plants, and to understand the history of the world through the stories they tell. Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.