Josep peñuelas

Just like a sunrise, the emergence of leaves in spring is one of nature’s poetic, awe-inspiring moments. It reminds us of the phases of nature, inexorable and punctual. However, that punctuality is being influenced by climate change, which is causing plants to come into leaf earlier and earlier each year. That, in turn, has consequences for trees, as well as global effects on the carbon cycle and climate change itself. 

For millions of years, nature has basically been getting by with just a few elements from the periodic table. Carbon, calcium, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur, magnesium and potassium are the building blocks of almost all life on our planet (tree trunks, leaves, hairs, teeth, etc.). However, to build the world of humans — cities, healthcare products, railways, aeroplanes and their engines, computers, smartphones — we need many more chemical elements.