Rather than blaming carbon, Paul Hawken argues we should recognise its role in animating life. This way, we can heal the planet

Rather than blaming carbon, Paul Hawken argues we should recognise its role in animating life. This way, we can heal the planet

Teo Tarras/ShutterstockPaul Hawken’s Carbon is about a decade in the making. Perhaps the book’s long gestation is why it feels so familiar, Other recent carbon-centred works include ecologist Dag Olev Hessen’s The Many Lives of Carbon, astrobiologist Robert Hazen’s Symphony in C and a biography of carbon from French philosophers of science, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Sacha Loeve. Not long ago, an “unauthorised biography” of carbon screened …