Thread by @DrLimnology

Thanks to all for the good wishes about the appearance of the new book #Phosphorus. I thought I’d post a thread giving more info about the book's contents and its intended audience. Please RT.

So, #Phosphorus: Past & Future is:
-Non-technical, written for “general” audience
-Intended readership are curious folks interested in food, water, environment, nutrition, farming
-Good choice for first-year college seminars looking at complex issues facing society.

The book has 10 chapters & some catchy illustrations by @giada528. Each chapter ends with suggestions for further reading. I wrote chapters 2-4, 8, and 9; Phil wrote 5-7, and together we wrote 1 and 10, plus the slightly silly Epilogue.

The preface is where we express thanks to SO MANY who contributed to making this book possible. Especially to colleagues who read and checked various chapters along the way. We also thank the protons.

Chap 1 gives an overview of the book, of the P cycle, and of the role P plays in daily life.

Chap 2 describes the history of P, both its discovery 350 years ago by alchemist Hennig Brand and its physical history in the universe after its formation in stellar nucleosynthesis. We also see the structures of the P atom and of phosphate molecules.

Chap 3 deals with the central role of P in biology – in DNA, RNA, phospholipids, ATP, and, for us vertebrates, bone.

Chap 4 covers how we get P into our body- fr our diets (incl a trip to the phosphorus grocery store where we review the P content of food items) – and how we get it out of our body (via kidney). We also discuss the health impacts of having too little, or too much P, in our diet.

Chap 5 sketches the history of agriculture to bring us to our modern agricultural system in which P is mined from ancient geological deposits and added to fields as fertilizer, some of which is acquired from soil by crops to enter the food system.

Chap 6 discusses what happens when P slips out of our hands and enters water bodies where is leads to algal blooms and dead zones. Here we trace a transition from P as a “point source” pollution problem (detergents, sewage) to a “diffuse” pollution problem (agricultural losses).

Chap 7 covers the emerging global phosphorus sustainability movement, which arose in response to the massive price shock for phosphate rock that took place in 2007/2008 when folks became concerned about possible shortages of P for fertilizer production.

Chap 8 describes emerging ideas about how to transition to a more sustainable phosphorus system by improvements in the efficiency with which P is used in the food system (touching on farm practices, crop improvement, food waste, diet, etc).

Chap 9 engages the other dimension of P sustainability: how to move away from mining of finite P rock reserves towards a circular P economy in which P is recycled from various “wastes”: crop waste, food waste, animal waste, human waste.

Chap 10 brings the book’s themes together to point readers towards a duality of possibilities for future P: a "phosphogeddon" in which massive amounts of P continue to be unleashed into the environment, possibly leading to eventual deoxygenation of the global ocean, or ...

“phosphoheaven”, in which a P-efficient food system coupled to P recycling sustains abundant food and clean water for future generations. (shout out to C Mann's great book)

The Epilogue is a light-hearted description of how Phil & I ended our endeavor, w a classic road trip from Phoenix to San Diego to present the book to our colleagues in a special Soil Science Society of America symposium marking the 350th anniversary of Brand’s “discovery” of P.

It is our hope that the book raises public awareness of phosphorus so that the very hard work of building a better phosphorus future can be accelerated. Our lives, and those of our descendants, very much depend on getting that right.

You can buy the book on Amazon or via @OUPAcademic website. There is also an @AmazonKindle version where you can see color versions of the figures!

global.oup.com/academic/produ…