How did life first form on Earth? What does entropy have to do with the origins of mammalian life — or the creation of the modern economy? And what chemical process do people, insects, Volkswagens, and coal power plants all share?

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with Peter Brannen, the author of a new history of the planet, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything. The book weaves together a single narrative from the Big Bang to the Permian explosion to the oil-devouring economy of today by means of a single common thread: CO2, the same molecule now threatening our continued flourishing.

Brannen is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Ends of the World, a history of mass extinctions on Earth. He is an affiliate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Jesse is off this week.

Mentioned:

Peter’s book, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything

Lost City Hydrothermal Field

ATP synthase in action

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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What Carbon Dioxide Has to Do With the Meaning of Life

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer

What Carbon Dioxide Has to Do With the Meaning of Life