"The book is a history of carbon dioxide's complicated and vital role in shaping life on Earth, told across many millions of years. It is only during the very last bit of that span when humans had the chance to start messing around with everything, and while we talked about that part, a lot of this first segment was spent with Drew and I asking Peter very basic questions about carbon dioxide, and him giving very interesting and detailed answers."
"We learned of a rising theory about the role that deep sea hydrothermal vents, and the carbon dioxide they emit, played in shaping life on Earth; how impossibly inhospitable Earth was for the first 4 billion years it existed; and considered life as the result of a disequilibrium in the Earth's carbon chemistry. If the numbers are hard to parse, the fact of it is plain enough: Too little carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and we freeze to death;"
Carbon dioxide has played a central role in Earth's temperature regulation and biological history across millions of years. Deep-sea hydrothermal vents likely supplied CO2 and chemicals that helped shape early life. For roughly the first four billion years Earth remained largely inhospitable, with habitability emerging as carbon chemistry moved out of equilibrium. Atmospheric CO2 levels control climate extremes: too little causes global freezing, too much causes dangerous warming. Human activities have rapidly altered atmospheric CO2 only in the very recent span of geologic time, creating risks for ecosystems and climate stability. Interpreting precise numbers can be difficult, but the qualitative balance of CO2 is decisive for planetary habitability.
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