Carbon: The Book of Life

by Paul Hawken

A journey into the vitalizing world of carbon, the most versatile element on the planet, by the New York Times bestselling author of Drawdown and Regeneration

Carbon is the only element in the universe with properties capable of animating every facet of the living world. Despite comprising a tiny fraction of Earth’s composition, our planet is lifeless without it. However, it has been maligned as a leading cause of climate change, reduced to an errant element and blamed as our civilization careens towards its own demise.

In Carbon, Paul Hawken looks at the flow of life through the lens of carbon. Taking a wide view of our world and carbon’s omnipresence, Hawken explores how this essential element extends into every corner of existence, shaping the very fabric of life itself. He charts a course across history, bringing us into the realm of plants, animals, insects, fungi, and more to tell a new story about how to harness the life-giving power and possibilities of carbon.

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 inextricably linked.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Environment, Audiobook, Biology, Climate Change

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2025

About the author

Paul Gerard Hawken is an American environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, economist, and activist.

Reviews

[Kyle Soule · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me begin by saying I really like Paul Hawken and appreciate his unique perspective on climate change.

I should have read the summary of the book because I did not expect "Carbon: The Book of Life" to be a book about climate change. I enjoyed the chapters that focused on carbon but it was exhausting having everything, often forcibly, drug back to climate change alarmism. The book was all over the place. Combined with the short length, it felt like a mess without a clear direction or purpose.

There are better books on most of the topics Hawken writes about. His attempt to tie them all into a single book didn't do any of them justice.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's very interesting seeing Paul Hawken's books evolve over the last several years. I have been an active climate advocated over the past six years and early on I learned about Drawdown and all of what it prescribed in terms of actions to take to reduce carbon dioxide emissions which have directly been messing up our climate. In the following book, Regeneration, Hawkin switches from the viewpoint of actions to reduce emissions more to actions with Regeneration and healing the environment for the long term instead. This next book, Carbon, focuses on view that carbon is getting a bad reputation because the whole element is often getting blamed for carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide's ill effects. Carbon pricing is really for emissions pricing from excessive hydrocarbon use (burning coal, gas and oil for energy). Also oil and gas is used as feedstocks for harmful petrochemicals (including agrochemicals) and plastics. In a nutshell, carbon is an essential element for living systems as we describe them on earth. He does an extensive overview of how carbon is essential for living things. He also digs deep into plant life and how it is essential for us to create food out of the sun and atmosphere. It's a good overview. I was going through this the same time as reading George Monbiot's Regenesis and I think these books make good companions for reading. Both are full of the author's opinions and are well researched.

[Scott Henson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carbon is the rare science book that reads like a travelogue through time. It starts in the furnace of stars and ends in our kitchens, forests, factories, and imaginations—showing how a single element threads through biology, industry, and the climate future we’re busy choosing.

What makes this book outstanding isn’t just the breadth of knowledge; it’s the clarity. The author translates hard chemistry and systems thinking into vivid stories and crisp metaphors, then ties them to decisions that ordinary people, companies, and cities actually face. I came away understanding not only why carbon is everywhere, but how our flows of carbon—soil to sky, product to landfill, forest to furniture—can be redesigned.

A highlight is the practical lens on solutions. Instead of techno-utopian hand-waving, the book spotlights real ventures and materials (like “TrueWood,” a striking re-engineering of wood fibers) to illustrate how substitution, circularity, and better design can cut emissions while improving performance. These case studies are specific enough to feel actionable, yet honest about tradeoffs and scale.

Tone matters in climate writing, and Paul Hawken nails it: clear-eyed about the physics and, but grounded in agency, not doom. The result is energizing. Chapters close with crisp takeaways and questions that linger—in the best way—long after you set the book down.

Who should read this:
• Curious readers who enjoy big-idea nonfiction with real-world applications
• Builders—designers, product managers, policymakers—seeking concrete levers for change
• Book clubs looking for a timely, hopeful pick that sparks great discussion

Bottom line: Carbon is lucid, rigorously researched, and surprisingly uplifting. It made me see the modern world—and its possible futures—with new eyes. Five stars without hesitation.

[Diane Rutigliano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would’ve given 5 stars for heart, for his great passion for all living things. However, in spite of his excitement over all living things being extremely intelligent and purposeful, he denies an intelligent designer and throws them all to back into the religion of the evolutionary primordial soup, complete with ridiculous assumptions of how they came to be unique beings serving such vital purpose in the intricate relationships of the biosphere. Yes, living beings are intelligent and communicate because our infinitely intelligent Creator communicates and desires a relationship with us. He gave us his Word, his Son, Jesus Christ.

John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

God created it all, in love. What better reason to take care of our earth and to be kind? Yes, his book will help me be more thoughtful in the future about chemicals and the destruction of environments, living things and the food we eat. I am old enough to remember what a peach or a tomato, or a loaf of bread used to taste like before they started messing around with the world of growing food in the US. I mourn continually for that loss. Agree with him there!

Also, I appreciate all that I learned factually about the design and capabilities of the living things that Mr. Hawken was in awe over. Sadly though, I fear he will lead many into confusion and even despair with his senseless theories of their origins.

[INCA GUNTER · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone said ‘scattered but earnest’ and I couldn’t agree more. Someone also mentioned that this is really a new agey climate change book that frequently fetishizes the «  mythical pan-indigenous Nobel savage way of relating the the world » which clocks to me. Basically I’m here just to say to everyone in the comment section that I agree. No opinions of my own here😃💅🏼

[Aditeya Shukla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible read. There’s such a nuanced understanding in this book of what it means to be a conscious entity of the planet. Filled with facts, anecdotes and lessons that’ll stay with me for a long time.

[Sue Lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I wish I’d written. The truth of it has been my life’s work over the last 45 years when I first became aware of the biodiversity crisis the world was heading for. I’m so grateful to Paul Hawken. I initially wrote a long review to explain why it was so important to me and accidentally deleted it. So now I just have to say to everyone this could be the most important book you will ever read.

[Text Publishing]

The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing, publisher of Carbon: The Book of Life:

‘Carbon offers a new way of thinking about planetary crisis, its causes, and solutions. By encouraging us to recover our wild natures, Hawken moves us away from narratives of scarcity and austerity to a vision of Earthly abundance.’
Conversation

‘Paul Hawken invites us to see the connections that bind us to everything else on the planet. Carbon is an enormously hopeful book—hopeful about the creatures we live among and about our innate human capacities.’
Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction

‘5 stars. Carbon takes an unconventional approach, drawing from science with broader perspectives that make human existence enjoyable and profound…A thought-provoking read.’
Good Reading

‘Endlessly, endlessly fascinating! Human beings, over the millennia, have come up with a thousand ways to carefully observe the world around us, and Paul Hawken has managed to collect and synthesise these observations—from the sweat lodge to the satellite—in a way that helps us see what now must be done. There’s information, and then there’s a wisdom—and this book is a compendium of the latter.’
Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

‘Paul Hawken writes beautifully about the situation we face here on our planet. Using carbon, life’s central elements, as a major theme, his eloquence and point of view are insightful, powerful, and important.’
Jeff Bridges, Academy award-winning actor and co-author of The Dude and the Zen Master

‘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

‘Carbon has created what might be termed the first spiritual encyclopaedia of the earth highlighting and blue-printing the myriad umbilical connections between life and non-life, harmonising to make life on this planet the mysterious wonder that it is. That he manages the tour de force—using extraordinary amounts of empirically verifiable data to reveal how nearly every current proposal of “Planet Salvage” is a masquerade shifting power to the extractive and profit-seeking practices that created these problems in the first place—is nothing less than stunning. He demonstrates again and again, with myriad examples, how the earth, herself, is begging us to recreate the original balances we’ve destroyed. With that simple practice, the planet will recover without vast corporate schemes to pump liquid carbon into underground caverns or a “new generation” of nuclear power plants. If you don’t believe he’s pulled this off, poetically, balletically, and with intelligent rigour, read this book and try to prove me wrong.’
Peter Coyote, author, actor and Zen priest

‘Hawken takes his readers on an awe-inspiring adventure through forests, galaxies, and the soil microbiome, reminding us that balancing the carbon cycle is not an abstract question of atmospheric chemistry but the intimate everyday matter of healing relationships with our wondrous kin in this living world.’
Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground and Healing Grounds
 
‘I work on climate solutions, electrification, and the decarbonisation of our energy economy because I had the privilege of being raised on reefs and rivers, farms and fields, mangroves, and bird hides…Carbon endows the climate and environment movement with beauty, magic, majesty, and wonder, not just a carbon budget.’
Saul Griffith, PhD and author of Electrify, An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future

‘Carbon is mind bending—the book carbon deserves. In his paradigm-shifting Book of Life, Paul Hawken is a one-man “wisdom dome”—brimming over with insight, hope and, perhaps surprisingly, joy. For this dome to replicate and scale worldwide, Carbon must become a keystone text for tomorrow’s change makers and leaders.’
John Elkington, author of Tickling Sharks: How We Sold Business on Sustainability

‘Carbon is astonishing. Read it, and you’ll never see, hear, feel or understand out world in the same way. Set aside the life-destroying orthodoxies of established science and economics. Embrace iconoclasm and Indigenous wisdom, as Paul Hawken tracks the dance and flow of carbon through the fullness of life on earth. And breathe in a different kind of hope through the innately regenerative and healing power of Nature.’
Sir Jonathon Porritt, environmentalist and writer

‘Recently I asked a number of people what they thought of when I mentioned the word carbon. “Carbon credits” said one, though he didn’t know what they were. “Coal and charcoal”, said another. “Diamonds?” queried a third. Yes, and so much more. Paul Hawken, writing with his usual clear and often poetic style, explains that without carbon our planet would be a dead moonscape, devoid of life. Carbon, the Book of Life is absolutely fascinating, and I urge you to buy and read it.’
Jane Goodall

‘A book you’ll find yourself quoting and reading aloud to anyone who will listen. Hawken tells the beautiful story of carbon’s role in our world—as our lifeblood, our synthesis with all living things, our planet’s protector—with the grace and fluency of a deep, compassionate thinker. A masterful, urgent, powerful book.’
Isabella Tree, conservationist and author of Wilding

‘Paul Hawken’s Carbon is a profound exploration of the most essential element of life and its impact on the planet. This book is not just about the science of carbon; it's a call to action and a vision for how we can shift our thinking to embrace a regenerative, life-affirming path. With a deep understanding of ecology, economics, and the interconnectedness of all living systems, Paul masterfully illustrates how carbon's journey through our biosphere is both a warning and an opportunity. For anyone passionate about the health of our planet and our collective future, Carbon is an essential read that will inspire and empower you to become a steward of the earth and a champion for change.’
Mark Hyman, MD, author of Food Fix and host of The Doctor’s Farmacy Podcast

‘Carbon offers the heart and wisdom we need to live and love and repair our world in these wild times. Brilliant, scientific, poetic, warm and caring, visionary and tender, this is truly good medicine and nourishing food for our lives and the earth!’
Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart

‘Paul Hawken's powerful new book mirrors the profound beauty that can save our world. Most books view carbon as a culprit. Hawken reminds us that carbon is the source of all planetary life. If you are looking for hope—for a way past climate denial and despair—Carbon is a must-read.’
Van Jones, CNN Host and New York Times bestselling author of Beyond the Messy Truth

‘Deep into Carbon: The Book of Life, I felt that Paul Hawken has created a perfect balance between HUGE planetary blessings and HUGE planetary threats. I've loved all of his books, but this one is a bible for survival I'm finding so desperately needed that the writing strikes me as beyond belief, transcendent, and dazzlingly poetic because Mother Earth and her miracle element, carbon itself, are dazzlingly poetic. This work left me bursting with fresh hope.’
David James Duncan, author of The River Why and The Brothers K

‘The life-giving element carbon moves ceaselessly between the biosphere and the atmosphere. It can either unravel civilization or renew it. If one form of carbon, fossil fuel emissions, are not rapidly curtailed, our way of life will collapse. The must-read Carbon: The Book of Life describes how the climate crisis invites us to change our behaviour, reject business as usual, and restore the health of our astonishing planet.’
Michael E. Mann, author of Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from the Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis

‘Carbon is the invisible thread that binds all living things. With lyrical prose and deep insight, Hawken reframes our relationship to nature and charts a path toward planetary healing.’
Christiana Figueres, author of The Future We Choose

‘Sustainability needs to go beyond its stories of doom and apocalypse vs salvation and winning. Hawken eloquently gives a deep reframing of our current predicament: either modern humans start to understand the flows and stocks of carbon, or we don't. Seen through the lens of carbon, humanity's future pathways become obvious and less divisive.’
Per Espen Stoknes, author of What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming

‘An impassioned call for a return to traditional environmental stewardship…Hawken sees reasons for hope that we will reverse our heedlessly destructive ways, even in the current political climate…Profound cultural scope deepens Hawken’s exceptional science writing.’
Kirkus Reviews

‘Hawken gifts us a new way of seeing the element that created life, changing the optics of carbon forever.’
Toby Kiers, Executive Director, Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and Professor of Evolutionary Biology, VU Amsterdam

‘Carbon is a deep poetic immersion into the science of life on Earth, a love letter to the natural world, an urgent invitation to wake up and honour all living beings.’
Daniel Siegel, author of Mindsight and Brainstorm

‘Carbon is a masterpiece, a candle in the darkness and everyone must read it.’
Mary Reynolds, author of We Are the Ark

‘Brought me—an old activist and atheist—back to wonder, even to reverence, at a whole new level. The poetry in [Hawken’s] prose has given me a new appreciation of how beauty is part of the healing, and how there will always be so much more to learn…This book is a good pause. It simply reminds the reader of what our work can be serving.’
Vivian Hutchinson, author of How Communities Awaken

‘Hawken synthesises knowledge across disciplines with a lyrical fluency that is as intellectually invigorating as it is emotionally resonant…Carbon becomes not merely a chemical element, but a metaphor for interconnectedness, for the sacred choreography of life…This is a book that nourishes both the intellect and the spirit—a rare achievement in environmental literature.’
Chris Reed, NZ Booklovers

[Israel Golden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hawken aims high in this somewhat sprawling ‘spiritual encyclopedia’ of carbon - and mostly pulls it off. So much of the book reminds me of this famed Dylan Thomas poem, I'm surprised he didn't include it somewhere:

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm."

[Vanessa S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as singularly focused on carbon as one might assume from the title, but a great read! The world is so alive and interconnected and magical and we are disrupting its processes so brutally. The earth and all its inhabitants are family; let’s take care of one another.

[Andrew Pixton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of neat insights but feels like a lot of blurring the lines of science and spirituality in a way I grow weary of, cliched lines, science is often wrong etc. Correction: Science is a method, not a set of conclusions.

[Kateryna Maw · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most fascinating and inspiring reads about life itself!!

For instance, throughout the years of school, it is this book that explained how elements are formed, and that eventually supernovas release them into space when exploding; so we are stardust as astrophysicists say! It was an interesting perspective to see the Big Bang as one of the pulsations of the Universe (how else can we explain the fully formed galaxies seeing by the James Webb Telescope 13.5B years into the past with the age of the Universe predicted at 13.8B years total!).

At first, I read the book as another overwhelming climate crisis book (doom and gloom) but then, I saw hope in the author's writing where small, but influential actions can be taken by anyone, including myself.

As we are destroying mycelium (can store an amount of carbon that the US + China emit in 1 year; fungi stores the amount of carbon in 19 minutes that the currently being built DCA plant can do in 1 year and that costs to operate at a third of a million dollars per year!), insects and therefore, ourselves, the outlook and perspective shifts are essential. We simply can not continue this way if we were to abide by the Great Law known well by Indigenous people (action taken today and its effect on 7 generations in the future!).

The book is an invitation to see that we, humans, are not the only sentient species and that we might never understand the intelligence of other species but yet, we can not overlook their importance. Humans are not here to "save" the world (it can heal itself) but if we want to continue living on this planet, we must take courageous actions (e.g., Knepp farm in UK) and take a closer look at what's on our plates rather than looking up in the sky and thinking of all that carbon being pumped into. Our actions every day are what determine what our planet will be for our children and future generations.

[Rich Johnson]

Audio

[Robert Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up at Powerhouse Books on 8th ave in Park Slope Brooklyn, I was motivated into buying it since it had an Elizabeth Kolbert recommendation on the front cover, whose book “Sixth Extinction” I loved.

The book is 15 chapters - 200+ pages - a quick read for me - took maybe two or three days. I enjoyed the scientific data points and thinking, a scientist musing on his curiosities, his life experiences and evolving scientific theories and explanations, the book was less evangelistic towards climate activism than factual and explanatory. On a second browse thru I found the book a little disappointing due this.

The idea is carbon enables life, and life takes millions and millions of years to evolve, we live on a mother nature created spaceship, called earth that flies around the sun. When we give nature space and allow its natural biodiversity to express itself, it creates sustainable ecosystems. This reclaiming and regeneration is the authors focus with multiple linkages with the atom of carbon.

We are still scientifically mining Earth’s mysteries, we have let to discover the full systems knowledge of earths fungi systems, human digestive systems, plant bioacoustics systems, etc we still are theorizing how the first reproductive cells evolved.

We have tried to isolate and innovate and engineer new crops, new food production systems, new pesticides but our short term thinking and capitalistic extraction time frames have done more damage than good. Embracing a more long term thinking model say 1000 year outlooks and treating nature as a living things is essential to humans future, nature will reclaim and regenerate even if we eliminate our own livability zone.

[chris field · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hawken goes deep in his effort to give readers an opportunity to pause and appreciate our integrated reality as humans living on earth. He asks us to listen to the wisdom earned not by increasing stockholder value, but from generations of communities who learned to live with the earth instead of trying to extract dominion over it. For me, this was a deeply reflective read from which i could not possibly absorb all that the author wishes to share in merely one reading. I hope to recommend and share it.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited about this book, but I eventually DNFed it. It needed better editing and direction - it was kind of all over the place and I never felt like I knew what exact point the author was trying to make or what his purpose was. I liked the first few chapters which were more what I was looking for - how carbon has shaped our world and its role in climate change. But halfway through the book there started to be chapters on things like fast food, grievances with modern healthcare systems, evils of pesticides and capitalism, and horror stories of colonialism with no real tie back to carbon. I agree with the author on these topics, but was confused as to what they were doing in this book. My favorite science books are ones that tie molecular level information to everyday lives and history, but this missed the mark in my opinion - it just felt like angry ranting with no call to action or scientific revelations.

However, I have stuck with other books with cohesiveness issues before. What made me feel compelled to stop is that it felt like this book was being paid for by the word. Almost every sentence is like he opened a thesaurus and wrote down every word separated by commas. I was listening to the audiobook and it just became unbearable.

One excerpt:

“Grazing and chomping can create a more vigorous plant, which is why we prune. You would have no success sowing a claw, tail, or ear, but a new plant can be created using a cutting, leaf, or root. We are individuals, which means “not divisible.” Plants comprise colonies and systems that thrive because they are divisible. That doesn’t mean they can’t touch, talk, taste, hear, or smell. They can. Weddings, bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, and funerals would be incomplete without the symbolic presence of lilies, roses, peonies, and daisies.”

Instead of getting to the point, he seemed compelled to list out examples of EVERYTHING. This really needed an editor to come in and take away commas! The entire book is like this.

The audiobook narrator was also stressful to listen to in my opinion. There was an angry undertone to his narration, like I was being yelled at constantly, and it was very monotone, especially when listing out all the things in these sentences, over and over again. I couldn’t do it!

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

There seems to be a growing sub-genre of nonfiction written by people who have dedicated decades of their lives earnestly warning against our ruinous behavior regarding the environment, offering alternate paths which would have been less lethal and less quickly, and now coping with the realization that it has been largely for not. It is devastatingly, horribly fascinating to see how these activist authors are dealing with it as they choose to continue to write.

Think the rage of Bill McKibben’s Falter. Or the doomed Active Hope of Joanna Macy. Or the smoldering Lorax-like backward glance silence from Vice President Al Gore. To this collection comes Paul Hawken’s book, Carbon.

I also don’t like editors/publishers too lazy to put superscript endnote numbers in the text. The references and sources are back there, but don’t let’s bother with them. Facts, just get in the way anymore, don’t they?

[Canon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boomer entrepreneur’s TED Talk anthology. The only principle organizing the book’s disparate elements is the author’s expectation that you will be interested in whatever he wants to talk about. The chapter on language, “Parlance,” is especially irksome.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty scattered but earnest book about the interconnectedness of all life on earth. I loved the chapter about soil, and thought the structure of the chapters was clever, zooming in and zooming out.

[Neil Pasricha · Rating 5 out of 5]

First up, ignore the title. Ignore the title of this book! I think it could easily have been called “One Of The Wisest Elders On Planet Earth Tells Us Everything He Knows About This Place And Our Relationship With It.” That’s what it felt like to me. I loved this book and I think you will, too. I first 'met' Paul Hawken via his ​2009 University of Portland commencement speech​. The title of the speech was “You Are Brilliant And The Earth Is Hiring” and I was blown away by his ​Feyman​-like ability to distill complex truths down to their simplest innards. Like how he puts his thesis within fifteen seconds of that speech's opening: “Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.” Everything Paul says is written in disarmingly simple prose—tenth grade essay in September styles—but then, upon inspection, it's not. Tricked you! Hiding under his words are so much wisdom from a huge mind and heart. This is an “enormously hopeful book”, according to ​Elizabeth Kolbert​ (‘​The Sixth Extinction​’). And, I guess yeahhhhh, Liz, I hear you. If you can see it that way—which is really, really hard to do—then I guess you could say it's hopeful? But that’s a tough place to land when every single living system on earth is declining. Birds? Declining! Clean water? Clean air? Healthy soil? You know the answers. We all do. That’s why it’s hard. But I believe a big part of things is understanding. We don’t know what’s going on so we don’t know how to talk about it so we don’t know what to do. Enter P-Hawk, master illuminator. First he clarifies the state of things on Page 3: “Earth’s climate is not breaking down as some would have it”—phew, thanks P-Hawk, Earth’s gonna be fine guys, relax!—“However, it is changing faster than humans can adapt.” Oh shit! Vintage Hawken. You think this? You’re close! But it's really that. From Page 5: “In all of Earth’s multibillion-year history, that which did not work, that which did not serve life, was discarded.” We won’t be discarded. Our kids won’t be discarded. But their kids’ kids’ kids? Could be a tough go! But we can change things. We will change things! ​We are changing things​. But we have to go back to go forward. On Page 8 Paul tells us how we got here: “Western science became the dominant basis for classifying the living world in the Age of Enlightenment. Plants were things, forests were cellulose, fungi were food, soil was dirt, animals had no feelings, and nature was there to be extracted, commodified, and sold. It was a profound failure of imagination and perception.” Every chapter here begins with a little epigraph like Chapter 2 “Elements” which begins with ​Werner Heisenberg​ (“Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”) or Chapter 12 “Primevel” with ​Mary Oliver​ (“For me, the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”). Paul tells us that “Life-giving communities are smaller, submerged, and unnoticed by mega-institutions” (Page 6), he re-tethers us to ancient wisdom and zooms us out to our micro-time with mind-expanding paragraphs like this: “Compared to Western cosmologies, ancient teachings propose unimaginable time scales wherein the universe expands and contracts repeatedly during millions of maha kalpas. The mythical duration of a maha kalpas is how long it would take for a mountain three times higher than Everest to be worn down to dust by a dove flying above and rubbing a silk cloth over the peak every 100 years, approximately 311 trillion years.” (Page 22). And he points us to simple truths that are right in front of us but which are hard to see like: “There are an estimated three hundred thousand edible plants, but less than two hundred are commonly used by humans … Today, twelve plants and five animals provide 75 percent of the human diet.” (Page 48). One provocative point he mentions near the end of the book on Page 190 is that “Einstein famously said that the most essential question for humanity is whether the universe is friendly or not.” That has been rolling around my head like a marble since. It feels like the wisdom of our species speaks to us through this book and I loved it and I felt it and I needed it. A gorgeous book from a sage of sages.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again a book has appeared on my “to read list” which I cannot remember how it got there. I’m pretty sure that Carbon: The Book of Life was recommended in an author’s blog and the title caught my interest.

The majority of books that I read are either science fiction or science so a book about carbon seemed logical. I did not ace chemistry in high school so I hoped the book would help me fill in a little knowledge of the periodic table. It turns out that, while this book definitely centers around the element carbon it is anything but a dense and difficult science tome.

As Paul Hawken writes, carbon “is the courier coursing through every particle of our existence.” In fact it is a pretty interesting element. Carbon is a real party animal in that it can form chains with nearly everything. It is in trees and gases and human bodies and ocean reefs and rhinoceros’ horns. All of life on our planet depends on carbon.

In fifteen chapters Hawken teaches us about carbon through topics as diverse as; food, agriculture, wildlife, religion, insects, science, and even language. I found each chapter incredibly interesting and informative. I learned things about Mayans, language, industrial chemistry, and then a huge amount about both flora and fauna.

Carbon dioxide has been in the news a lot as it directly relates to global warming. It turns out that back in 1856 Eunice Newton Foote did experiments proving that a buildup of carbon dioxide would lead to warmer temperatures worldwide. Of course, it is not carbon’s fault that we just ignored this danger. Hawken has some very serious views and news about global warming and how we have misused the planet which he shares by educating the reader about the importance of carbon.

Carbon makes quite the book topic but Hawken really digs into humans and how we have damaged our very planet. Modern humans have seen themselves as above, rather than a part of the world. We want plants and animals to follow our lead, rather than seeing that nature was already doing a much better job of it.

Hawken sees the way forward to restoring the Earth is not a repair job but a transformative one. He believes that how we experience ourselves and the world around us needs to change. He notes ecologist Monica Gafliano’s suggestion that we stop playing God and instead play midwife. The planet can save itself but first we need to change our way of interacting with it.

[Ryan Schrader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carbon: The Book of Life is a timely and poetic reminder of how precious life is in all of its innumerable forms -- from lions to ladybugs and fungi to ferns. The book consists of fifteen bite-sized chapters filled with research and anecdotes from people and places around the world with a particular focus on Indigenous voices and perspectives. Each chapter focuses on a certain form of life, such as plants, fungi, insects, forests, and soil, as well as aspects of being alive, such as food and language. Hawken does a remarkable job painting vivid images in the mind's eye helping readers visualize the many manifestations of life on our planet. A core message of the book is that it is urgently critical that humans see plants, animals, and other forms as fellow intelligent beings that we can learn from and collaborate with instead of seeing them as resources to be used and dominated. Dramatically scaling back our impact on the planet will allow life to regenerate, will slow and then reverse global warming, and indeed will allow our own societies to flourish. I recommend this book to everyone -- those who have power and those who don't; city dwellers and folks living in rural areas; workers in the public and private sectors; government officials and business leaders. We all deserve a reminder of how special and beautiful life is and how it is our collective responsibility to be good stewards of our planet for ourselves, future generations of humans, and all other life on Earth.

[STEPHEN PLETKO!! · Rating 3 out of 5]

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THERE IS LITTLE MENTION OF CARBON IN THIS BOOK

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"These pages [in this book] are a journey into the realm of plants, the cosmos of insects, labyrinths of fungi, droves of mammals, spinneys of trees, and convocations of human brilliance.

The flow of carbon is a sacred dance that entwines and weaves through all [the] stories [presented]."

The above quote (in italics) comes from this interesting book by Paul Hawken. He is an author, lecturer, and environmentalist.

This is a book that discusses a variety of subjects. Besides the subjects mentioned in the above extract, the author talks about other topics such as cosmic history, the dangers of processed foods, light pollution, and even noise pollution. Climate change and the climate emergency figures prominently throughout.

The writing is quite good and accessible.

Finally, this book tends to meander and, as mentioned, discusses a wide variety of interesting subjects. The element carbon, hardly discussed at all, is supposed to be the unifying force that ties all these topics together. But I found this gave the book an overly broad scope. The result for me is that all these different topics fail to cohere into a distinct unified narrative.

In conclusion, although the varied topics in this book are interesting, as a collective, they fail to make a distinct point.

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(15 chapters; main narrative 195 pages; acknowledgments; notes; index)

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[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind o New Agey, mixed with touting the mythical pan-indigenous person.

In reality, contra Hawken? Pre-Columbian contact American Indians did indeed starve at times. Ever hear of the collapse of the Anasazi world? Second, most melons are originally “Old world” plants, not New.

As for the environment? Utes drill for oil and even do their own refining.

On the New Agey? No, not all great religions descriptions of god or gods are that much alike.

On the mix of New Agey, pan-Indigenous and just gullible? If you really believe a Yup’ik woman’s claims that her people predicted weather two years in advance? (It’s unclear whether he really believes his pronouncements to her about how difficult predictions are 2 weeks ahead for modern weather satellites and computers, as he then turns to the 1861-62 California flood winter and anecdotes of American Indian peoples telling the whites the flood waters would reach so high.)

Also, per Gertrude Stein, there’s no “there” there. The chapters are basically separate essays; the only connections are New Ageism and the pan-Indigenous Roussellian noble savage, if you will. Certainly carbon, as in climate worries, is not a connecting theme.

And so, it's not shelved on a subject-matter bookshelf.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected a more technical book based on the title, one that explains the chemical and physical properties of the element carbon, but turns out only a couple of chapters covered those. Being an environmentalist, Hawken wrote broadly about many nature related topics in this book, from plants and forests to fungi, insects and our food system. There are parts that I would argue are not that relevant, for instance a chapter about lost languages. This all leads to an ending that leaned heavily towards the emotional and spiritual aspects of our planetary crises of climate deterioration and wildlife loss. While trying to be uplifting by offering hope and pleading for awareness of our connection to all life, he is vague on specifics, calling instead for a ground up movement and change in societal attitudes that I highly doubt will happen, at least not in time. There are too many people just struggling to get by daily to care.

The book contains a fair amount of pretty astounding statements that made me pause. For sure the author had extensive notes to back them, but it was frustrating not to have them numbered and easily cross referenced with the main text (in the ebook version). All in a somewhat odd ball collection of loosely related environmental and nature topics.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It felt like if Braiding Sweetgrass and Omnivore’s dilemma had a baby that was a biologist. I can see how others felt like it was all over the place. I do agree it attempted to cover a large swath of loosely carbon related topics in a short amount of pages. Personally I liked it though. He was really trying to drive home the interconnectedness of all things on earth through the flow of carbon, and tying that to climate change and carbon footprints etc makes a lot of sense. As always with books like this, I find it both fascinating and infuriating how much of a role the processed food industry/commercial farming plays in these issues. They are inextricably linked with the military industrial complex, and western colonial worldviews in general, which is a lot to explain in 194 pages. I would recommend! I thought it was a great read. And the chapter about insect loss led me to let a moth trapped in my house outside instead of killing it :) so any book that drives one to make a change like that is worth reading!!

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of very interesting information on carbon and presents a holistic approach to healing the planet.
What is lacking is a recognition of the role of protest in bringing about change. Protest has arguably brought about significant positive change throughout human history. The book really only seems to talk about actions to take that foster life firms on Earth rather than making a frontal attack on those maintaining the status quo for their own benefit. What seems to be increasingly clear is our world is being driven over the cliff by oligarchs. Each of us allowing the weeds to growing our gardens, I would argue, is not enough to address the threat represented by oligarchs. Aggressive counter attacks directed at oligarchic interests are essential to stop our March to our collective end because these oligarchs are incapable of controlling their greed. Only force will contain them, and planting weeds is not going to do that job.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carbon: The Book of Life is a masterful and deeply reflective exploration of the element that connects all living things. Paul Hawken, with his signature clarity and reverence for nature, reframes carbon from being a symbol of crisis to a source of creation, resilience, and renewal.

Through poetic science and grounded wisdom, Hawken reveals how carbon is not the villain of our age but the thread that binds the universe together. He leads readers on an enlightening journey from soil to sky, from microbe to mammal demonstrating how this element sustains every form of life.

Each chapter glows with Hawken’s unwavering optimism and sense of stewardship, urging us to move beyond fear and toward understanding. Carbon: The Book of Life is not only a scientific revelation but a meditation on existence itself a book that transforms the way we see the world and our place in it.

[Robert Yokoyama · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ubiquity and malleability of carbon is what is most insightful about this book by Paul Hawken. Carbon can be found in so many places like my body, the trees and soil in my yard, and the beef that I eat. I can lessen my carbon footprint by eating less meat. I will strive to have a greater respect for trees and all aspects of nature because of the presence of carbon.

I learned that carbon is malleable and it can be formed into tubes. These tubes can be fashioned into the exercise fit bit strap that I use. Carbon can used as a component in the jackets I wear and the LED batteries I use. I hope to use a future computer built with nanotubes because it should be faster. Nanotubes have the ability to conduct electricity which makes the computer to work faster. I learned so much about this abundant element.

[Gnaeus Agricola · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not about climate pessimism. It is about hope for the future. While Paul certainly puts the climate crisis into perspective as a truely terrible event, he always offers hope. The book starts with the unlikely creation of the element carbon in the heart of a star. It then follows the myriads of forms of life carbon creates from plants, fungi, to animals. He does a particularly good job of explaining how interconnected the life on the planet (I hesitate to use the word nature as he points out it seperates us from it). While he can use very flowery language at times, which personally I dislike as it seems to force emotional response, I find the content of the book by far makes up for it. Overall, I am inspired and cannot wait to get out into wilderness, silent and observant.