A Hopeful View of our Living Earth

A Review of Carbon: The Book of Life, by Paul Hawken, 2025, Viking, New York

By John Bradley

‘Carbon’s increase in the atmosphere moves in tandem with the loss of the living world.  The Book of Life encircles what has always regulated climate, the pulsing, living mantle we call Earth.’  (p2)

Paul Hawken’s recently published book, Carbon: the Book of Life is a compelling discussion of the life and earth sciences that underlie the breakdown of our planet’s living ecosystems, resulting in our climate crisis, and why we need to restore nature for a sustainable living planet. His bestseller Drawdown (2017) was a comprehensive plan to reverse global warming.  Carbon: the Book of Life takes us on an orderly path through the many ways carbon flows through all life forms on the planet and helps us see ‘the connections that bind us to everything else on the planet’ and how these life forms comprise an interconnected living whole that can regulate a stable and sustainable Earth. 

The nature of life and lifeforms’ interconnectedness is a key theme, along with their degradation and regeneration. Hawken paints a vivid picture of the flow of carbon through plants, animals, insects,  fungi, mycelial networks, and soil. He explains how each life form functions, contributing to the mutual interdependence of life, and in the next breath he describes the forces that degrade both the life form and the ecosystem for which its contributions are critical. There is an ongoing contrast between the exquisite giving of life and destruction by human activity of the ecosystems. These processes underlie the massive disruption of the climate as well as impacts on public health and the economy.  He consistently returns to the role of regeneration of ecosystems as the path out of this existential crisis.

The story of carbon often circles back to food systems, soil, its degradation, and the human activities on land. In the chapter on soil titled ‘Dark Earth’, Hawken highlights the Green Revolution of mid-late 20th century as a pivotal development for the environment. While it was a ‘triumph that got more food from the land’, it also changed agriculture in drastic ways. Monoculture agriculture required more machinery, fossil fuels, herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals, and it disturbs the soil with more tillage and plowing. The extensive use of chemicals destroyed the soil’s ‘complexity and fecundity’ created by the rich interactions between fungi, soil creatures, and microbes.  And the disruption of the soil released the carbon stored in the soil, releasing greenhouse gasses.

Farmers were not the beneficiaries of the higher yields. Food corporations benefited from lower commodity prices and ag manufacturing sold more equipment and other inputs. Seed breeders developed seed to tolerate the chemicals. Another outcome was that ‘over 160 countries in the world have chosen to ban American bread, corn, candy, beef, pork, and other foodstuffs because they contain ingredients considered toxic (p70)’. He notes the connection between depleted industrial soils and climate change: ‘Climate change and conventional agriculture are in a vicious circle. Each degrades the other.’(p165) He laments that ‘plant breeders have spent a century creating seed varieties that grow in impoverished soils when they should have focused on soil restoration.’(p168)  

Hawkens digs into many areas of Earth sciences and ecosystems, integrating new scientific understandings to illustrate the interconnections among life forms and subsystems. He reviews areas of intelligence and communication in living systems: how some plants use sound as well as chemicals to communicate; trees signal with pheromones and fungal networks; and in the deep ocean, most creatures use bioluminescence in various ways. (p45). 

In the chapter on insects, titled ‘Paper Eyes,’ he ties together the themes of interconnectedness, degradation, and regeneration: Over one million species of insects have been identified of which 10% are moths. Ninety percent of birds feed on moths. With insect populations down 30-70% in the past four decades, the bird population’s food supply is also threatened. Insects perform irreplaceable ecological services. In addition to being a food source of birds, fish, reptiles and other animals, they pollinate thousands of crops and plant species. They assist with the decomposition of leaves and wood, break down waste, aid soil formation, water purification and carbon sequestration. In short, they are indispensable to ecosystems. If the insect population collapses, other species will also collapse, quickly. According to Hawken, some scientists believe the insect crisis may be as severe a threat to humanity as the climate crisis. He says the answer to restoring insect populations is to plant many diverse, colorful, edible, blooming plants that change farmland ecosystems. Conventional farmers are surprised that these techniques make farms more resilient, profitable, and self-sustaining.

The last few chapters are uplifting, and with some useful advice. In all, a good read for me.

- NOTES-

Goodreads Review

Book Passage Bookstore “Conversations with Authors” with Paul Hawken