CARBON is the fourth most abundant element in the universe, though strangely it is relatively scarce on Earth. But our world is built on it – and may die of it, too. This is the story of “life’s core element”, from the Carboniferous era to our carbon footprint, and of how we have industrialised the carbon cycle, flushing carbon accumulated by geological processes over millions of years back into the atmosphere in the past century. Roston fits in discourses on bulletproof vests, buckyballs and more, quoting everyone from Hippocrates to Yoko Ono. Carbon neutral it isn’t.
The Carbon Age
