Fig. 2
From: Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating to Non-technicians
Primary producers (photosynthetic plants and cyanobacteria; green cog) rely on the conversion of directed high energy (low entropy) sunlight (yellow arrows) into dispersed low energy (high entropy) infrared light (red arrows) to synthesize and store their own chemical energy (glucose and ATP). Glucose and ATP are used to maintain an organism’s lower entropy state compared with its environment. The thermodynamically “downhill” conversion of sunlight from low to high entropy is more than sufficient to not only turn the cog of life but to drive the thermodynamically “uphill” evolution of complex multicellular life from relatively simpler single-celled ancestors