Description
From the celebrated author of The Ends of the World, an epic biography of the molecule that made - and could now break - everything we know
All life is made from CO2 . It was there at earth's birth, and throughout evolution. It has kept our planet habitable for hundreds of millions of years. It has given us all the splendours of the world we know today. And yet it also holds the potential for life's destruction.
In this gripping adventure through eras and places, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen tells the story of the world's most important molecule. We travel from the beginning of time all the way up to our present reality, witnessing the staggering journey that CO2 has undertaken.
As we watch its movements through the rocks, the air, the oceans and living beings over four billion years, we come to see more clearly what it means for us to be churning through ancient life - in the form of fossil fuels - as we power our industrial world. We are, Brannen shows, performing an unprecedented experiment on our planet. If we are to avoid its catastrophic consequences, we must all begin to deepen our understanding of this curious substance, which has given us everything from the very first life forms on earth to the business titans reshaping our planet today.
About the Author
Peter Brannen is an award-winning science journalist and contributing writer at the Atlantic. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, and the Guardian, among other publications. His first book, The Ends of the World, was published in 2017. Peter was a 2024 visiting scholar at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, and is an affiliate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Reviews
Urgent and astounding ... Brannen weaves together the entire history of Earth, and the origins and tribulations of life over billions of years, with the predicament we find ourselves in today ... Brannen is in a class of his own -- Steve Brusatte * Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs *
As with everything Peter Brannen writes, this is fascinating; deep history brought vividly to life. But it's also crucial--our ability to understand and act on it will determine how the next period in earth's history unfolds -- Bill McKibben * author Here Comes the Sun *
A moving and magisterial tribute to the magic-seeming chemical interplay of air and rock, plant kingdom and ocean expanse, which scientists dryly call the 'carbon cycle.' Upon it, Brannen shows, absolutely all life rests-with growing, and unnerving, precarity -- David Wallace-Wells * New York Times bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth *
A completely new vision of Earth and human history that will change your perspective forever -- Rebecca Boyle * author of Our Moon *
What a brilliant and epic book this is! I study this stuff for a living and still learned so much-how coal nearly froze the planet, why the rocks beneath our feet allow us to breathe, and the origins of our modern industrial world -- Kate Marvel * author of Human Nature *
A grand tour of billions of years of history ... Brannen elegantly moves through the Earth's epochs * Daily Mail *
Book Information
ISBN 9780241631164
Author Peter Brannen
Format Hardback
Page Count 512
Imprint Allen Lane
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 709g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 159mm * 36mm
