Peter Brannen at BioMed Realty

Harvard Book Store and BioMed Realty welcome Peter Brannen—contributing writer at The Atlantic and author of The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions—for a discussion of his new book The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World.

There are two ticket options available for this event.

Free General Admission Ticket: Includes admission for one.

Book-Included Ticket: Includes admission for one and one hardcover copy of The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.

Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by putting gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. But CO2 isn’t merely the by-product of burning fossil fuels—it is also fundamental to how our planet works. All life is ultimately made from CO2, and it has kept Earth bizarrely habitable for hundreds of millions of years. In short, it is the most important substance on Earth. But how is it that CO2 is as essential to life on Earth as it is capable of destroying it?

In The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything, award- winning science journalist Peter Brannen reveals how carbon dioxide’s movement through rocks, air, water, and life has kept our planet’s climate livable, its air breathable, and its oceans hospitable to complex life. Starting at the dawn of life almost 4 billion years ago, and working all the way up through today’s global climate crisis and beyond, he illuminates how CO2 has been responsible for the planet’s many deaths and rebirths, for shaping the evolution of life, and for the development of modern human society. And he argues that it’s only by reckoning with this planetary-scale history that we can understand the cosmic stakes of our current moment on Earth—and how dangerous our experiment with the climate really is.

Drawing on groundbreaking research and with a clear- eyed perspective, Brannen shows how a deep exploration of the carbon cycle can shed light on the way forward for humanity as we try to avert environmental catastrophe in the future. And it all begins with a richer understanding of the critical role of CO2 in our world.

Peter Brannen is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Ends of the World, about the biggest mass extinctions in Earth’s history. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications.

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

The BioMed Realty Discover Here Author Series is an engaging collaboration between BioMed Realty and Harvard Book Store. The series features thought-provoking talks by authors of recently published books on a variety of topics, including science, mental wellness, AI, history, and more. Each event includes an insightful discussion or presentation, followed by light refreshments and a book signing by the author. The series is open to both tenants of BioMed Realty and the general public.

Host or Publisher Harvard Book Store