Carbon: The Book of Life

A journey into the world of carbon, the most versatile element on the planet, by the New York Times bestselling author Paul Hawken

Carbon is the only element that animates the entirety of the living world. Though comprising a tiny fraction of Earth’s composition, our planet is lifeless without it. Yet it is maligned as the driver of climate change, scorned as an errant element blamed for the possible demise of civilization.

Here, Paul Hawken looks at the flow of life through the lens of carbon. Embracing a panoramic view of carbon’s omnipresence, he explores how this ubiquitous and essential element extends into every aperture of existence and shapes the entire fabric of life. Hawken charts a course across our planetary history, guiding us into the realms of plants, animals, insects, fungi, food, and farms to offer a new narrative for embracing carbon’s life-giving power and its possibilities for the future of human endeavor.

In this stirring, hopeful, and deeply humane book, Hawken illuminates the subtle connections between carbon and our collective human experience and asks us to see nature, carbon, and ourselves as exquisitely intertwined—inseparably connected.

“Imagine putting on a pair of glasses that suddenly revealed the world as a fabric woven of miracles. Carbon reads like an extended love poem about life’s most basic chemical. Here, ‘Carbon’s dance of life does not take sides; it is never right or wrong.’ In Paul Hawken’s telling, carbon might just be the sexiest element, ‘available, loyal, and fickle in its versatility.’ In Hawken’s hands and in these pages, the chemistry is always right.”—Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel and Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe