Issue: June 1, 2008
The Carbon Age: How Life's Core Element Has Become Civilization's Greatest Threat.
Roston, Eric (Author)
Jul 2008. 304 p. Walker, hardcover, $25.99. (9780802715579). 577.144.
Carbon atoms lead active lives, as Roston’s investigation into their ubiquitous presence attests. Created by nuclear fusion in stars, strewn through space by supernovas, and collecting on earth as a critical element of life, carbon also exercises a variety of roles in technology. Its natural and artificial guises inspire Roston to balance chapters on carbon’s function in each realm, for example in defense (carbon in shells and Kevlar) or in combustion (carbon in metabolism and in fossil fuels). Such versatility derives from the carbon atom’s atomic structure and chemical behavior, the scientific elucidation of which engages Roston’s capacious curiosity, as it has that of the physicists, geologists, molecular biologists, and chemical engineers whose discoveries he describes. A science journalist, Roston mediates technicalities well for a general-interest reader, impressing in particular how carbon cycles geo- and biochemically through earth’s natural processes, and how the current increase of carbon dioxide is accelerating the atmospheric cycle. If atomic number 6 could ever write its autobiography, the result might resemble Roston’s engaging presentation. [emphasis added--ER]
— Gilbert Taylor