| International Standard Book Number |
9780063036987 hc.
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| International Standard Book Number |
0063036983 hc.
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| Personal Name |
Brannen, Peter, 1983- author.
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| Title Statement |
The story of CO2 is the story of everything : how carbon dioxide made our world / Peter Brannen.
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| Edition Statement |
First edition.
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| Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, and Copyright Notice |
New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2025.
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| Physical Description |
495 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 24 cm.
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| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 451-481) and index.
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| Formatted Contents Note |
Introduction -- Part I. CO2, the stuff of life -- The great CO2 freakout and the end of eternity -- Fossil fuel goes down, oxygen goes up -- CO2 and the great age of coal -- CO2 and the age of extinction -- Part II. The fall of CO2 and the rise of the modern world -- The rise of the new metabolism -- The long fuse -- The start of the supereruption -- The CO2 supereruption -- Energy, CO2, and civilization -- The future of CO2 -- Acknowledgments -- Bibliography -- Index.
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| Summary, Etc. |
"Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by putting gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. But CO2 isn't merely the by-product of burning fossil fuels--it is also fundamental to how our planet works. All life is ultimately made from CO2, and it has kept Earth bizarrely habitable for hundreds of millions of years. In short, it is the most important substance on Earth. But how is it that CO2 is as essential to life on Earth as it is capable of destroying it? In The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen reveals how carbon dioxide's movement through rocks, air, water, and life has kept our planet's climate livable, its air breathable, and its oceans hospitable to complex life. Starting at the dawn of life almost 4 billion years ago, and working all the way up through today's global climate crisis and beyond, he illuminates how CO2 has been responsible for the planet's many deaths and rebirths, for shaping the evolution of life, and for the development of modern human society. And he argues that it's only by reckoning with this planetary-scale history that we can understand the cosmic stakes of our current moment on Earth--and how dangerous our experiment with the climate really is. Drawing on groundbreaking research and with a clear-eyed perspective, Brannen shows how a deep exploration of the carbon cycle can shed light on the way forward for humanity as we try to avert environmental catastrophe in the future. And it all begins with a richer understanding of the critical role of CO2 in our world"-- Provided by publisher.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Carbon cycle (Biogeochemistry)
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Carbon dioxide History.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Environmental sciences Social aspects.
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