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We then move from plants which are mostly above the ground down, through the roots, into the soil, and into the domain of fungi. “Fungi are the connective tissue of the planet.” If plants have been around hundreds of millions of years, fungi have been around for a billion. They are composters of all organic…
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Possibly one of my favorite chapters, because it talks about one of my favorite topics: plants. Every amazing species of plant described in the first paragraph deserves to be looked up in DuckDuckGo (yes, ditch the monopolizing search giants), and marveled at. The latter half of the opening also accurately describes my despair about the…
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SEVEN Bucky and Bing This to me is the most confusing chapter. The majority of the chapter is devoted to ideas and discoveries arising out of Buckminster Fuller’s observations. Fuller discovered that a bubble, or a dome could withstand the greatest load and contain more space, and require less material than any other structure. In…
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This chapter continues along the food and health perspective. The author recounts the story of being diagnosed as asthmatic in childhood, and (re)discovering clear breathing through a strange diet of rice and tea – of course, it wasn’t so much what he ate on that diet, but what he didn’t that was important. This hits…
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We are carbon-based life forms, living on a carbon-based planet, eating carbon to nourish ourselves. Carbon thou art to carbon returnest. The fact that Hawken nonchalantly inserts a couple of lines about the inhuman horrors Columbus committed on the Taino people caused me gut-wrenching despair. It absolutely blows my mind how the God of Catholicism…
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This chapter starts with Hawken talking about his love for the natural world as a child, and how school and science class taught competition, while he seemed to see cooperation in nature. I personally see both. Cooperation seems to me to be at the core of life, but I see plenty of competition – squirrels…
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I would have called this chapter “Cosmic” or something, but I guess Firmament is more poetic? Ancient? Religious? The entire chapter is about how and where in the universe Carbon could possibly have been created and a brief account of the scientist, Fred Hoyle, who first hypothesized about it and the ones who validated it.…
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This chapter starts with Carbon, the element in the periodic table and its unique capacity to form molecular chains and, in turn, the underlying structure of all life on Earth. It then goes on to provide a brief history of all the scientists starting in the nineteenth century that predicted global warming: It then goes…
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My take Although the chapter is titled Carbon, I can only interpret the name of the chapter as simply introducing the book of the same name, because it’s more about world views around climate change, and the global economies, industry, and entrepreneurs apparently accepting the current reality, but proposing fixes that don’t go anywhere near…
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Overview I just started reading “Carbon: The Book of Life“, Paul Hawken’s latest offering. I’m capturing things that stood out to me – language, facts, concepts and squirrels! – in the various chapters. There are 15 chapters in all, so a short post for each chapter: Overall, the writing waxes poetic and is chock-full of…