Paul Hawken: Carbon, Climate, and Humanity

Join us live for a journey into the world of carbon, the most versatile element on the planet. Your tour guide is New York Times bestselling author Paul Hawken

Carbon is the only element that animates the entirety of the living world. Though comprising a tiny fraction of Earth’s composition, our planet is lifeless without it. Yet it is maligned as the driver of climate change, scorned as an errant element blamed for the possible demise of civilization.

In his new book Carbon, Paul Hawken looks at the flow of life through the lens of carbon. Embracing a panoramic view of carbon’s omnipresence, he explores how this ubiquitous and essential element extends into every aperture of existence and shapes the entire fabric of life. Hawken charts a course across our planetary history, guiding us into the realms of plants, animals, insects, fungi, food and farms to offer a new narrative for embracing carbon’s life-giving power and its possibilities for the future of human endeavor.

Hawken will illuminate the subtle connections between carbon and our collective human experience and ask us to see nature, carbon and ourselves as exquisitely intertwined—inseparably connected.

SPEAKERS

Paul Hawken, Environmentalist; Author. Carbon: The Book of Life; X @PaulHawken

Lesley McClurg, Science Reporter, KQED

5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in
6–7 p.m. program
7 p.m. book signing

Host or Publisher The Commonwealth Club