The story of CO2 is the story of everything

The story of CO2 is the story of everything How carbon dioxide made our world

Peter Brannen, 1983-

Book - 2025

"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 hospi...table 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"--

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2nd Floor New Shelf 577.144/Brannen (NEW SHELF) Due Nov 2, 2025
Subjects
Carbon cycle (Biogeochemistry)
Carbon dioxide > History.
Environmental sciences > Social aspects.
Published
New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers [2025]
Language
English
Main Author
Peter Brannen, 1983- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
495 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 451-481) and index.
ISBN
9780063036987
  • 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.
Review by Library Journal Review

Science writer Brannen (The Ends of the World) elaborates on how carbon dioxide, which has kept the planet habitable for hundreds of millions of years, is essential to both life itself and is the driver of the climatological changes that have nearly ended it. His key assertion is that humanity's extraction and use of CO2-freeing fossil fuels will likely trigger a runaway catastrophe on par with the Permian Extinction. What readers will make of his assertions depends to some extent on their opinions on climate change, human nature, capitalism, and the heat death of the universe hypothesis. Brannen's book asserts that there are only complex solutions, and every one of them requires things to get worse before they get better. VERDICT Vividly grim, yet one of the most sweeping attempts yet to make sense of how we got here and where we're (likely) going. A good choice for readers interested in sustainable energy, climate change, and earth systems.--Genevieve Williams

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The "very stuff of life." Carbon dioxide and its energy, says journalist Brannen, author ofThe Ends of the World, have lifted living standards, unleashed new food supplies, lengthened lifespans, and spread literacy worldwide. "Today, as in the beginning, life is still made out of carbon dioxide," Brannen writes. "And the world's problems are made out of carbon dioxide as well." The natural forces that have driven the global carbon cycle for millions of years are now out of whack, governed no longer by volcanism but by economic and geopolitical systems. Today, hundreds of millions of years' worth of energy has been unleashed in a "geological nanosecond." As he walks the floor of Death Valley amid stones that are 120 times older than the Grand Canyon--"a half-billion years [before] the first dinosaur evolved"--the author confronts the fact that all geologists face: "Time is big." He envisions ice four miles thick in places and sea level dropping a mile. What followed was the most extreme of climate catastrophes, much of the chaos still left written in Death Valley. And then, "All hell broke loose, and when it ended--for some reason--the riot of animal life exploded." Eventually, Brannen brings us to "our millisecond tenure on this planet," where we lounge in a time of "extremely misleading stability." Don't get comfortable--this golden age is coming to an end, which pushes us to the urgency to get off fossil fuel use at a time when "we're still going to needlots of energy." But the market cares little about the planet. "In summary," writes Brannen, "we're in deep shit." This book, though, isn't a rant against modernization. It's a rich geological history and an overdue examination of the costs and benefits of what humans have built with our extravagant use of a chemical compound. A thrilling exploration of Earth's tumultuous history, its tenuous present, and a future in grave doubt. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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