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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. For thousands of years the pristine Great
Lakes were separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the roaring Niagara
Falls and from the Mississippi River basin by a "sub-continental
divide." Beginning in the late 1800s, these barriers were
circumvented to attract oceangoing freighters from the Atlantic and
to allow Chicago's sewage to float out to the Mississippi. These
were engineering marvels in their time-and the changes in Chicago
arrested a deadly cycle of waterborne illnesses-but they have had
horrendous unforeseen consequences. Egan provides a chilling
account of how sea lamprey, zebra and quagga mussels and other
invaders have made their way into the lakes, decimating native
species and largely destroying the age-old ecosystem. And because
the lakes are no longer isolated, the invaders now threaten water
intake pipes, hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure across
the country. Egan also explores why outbreaks of toxic algae
stemming from the overapplication of farm fertilizer have left
massive biological "dead zones" that threaten the supply of fresh
water. He examines fluctuations in the levels of the lakes caused
by manmade climate change and overzealous dredging of shipping
channels. And he reports on the chronic threats to siphon off Great
Lakes water to slake drier regions of America or to be sold abroad.
In an age when dire problems like the Flint water crisis or the
California drought bring ever more attention to the
indispensability of safe, clean, easily available water, The Death
and the Life of the Great Lakes is a powerful paean to what is
arguably our most precious resource, an urgent examination of what
threatens it and a convincing call to arms about the relatively
simple things we need to do to protect it.
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.
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.
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