What Carbon Dioxide Has to Do With the Meaning of Life

S3E1 - What Carbon Dioxide Has to Do With the Meaning of Life

Published: September 3, 2025

Duration: 59:27

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 singl...