CO2 rising

On my walk into work this morning I listened to last week’s Scientific American podcast (something that I thoroughly recommend to anyone who has a general interest in science). The bulk of the episode comprised an interview with Tyler Volk  from New York University discussing his recently published book called “CO2 Rising: The World’s Greatest Environmental Challenge”. The interview provides a useful introduction to the problems posed by increasing levels of carbon dioxide on Earth and the book is certainly one that I will put on my list of future reads (at present it is only available in hardback, published by MIT Press). One of the things he does in the book is to track various carbon molecules on their different routes around the Earth’s carbon cycle , giving each molecule a name and a personality. That might sound a bit “cheesy” but judging from the interview it probably works.