Have you ever walked out of a movie screening to discover the entire world looks a little… different? My favorite movies invite me in deeply enough that I sometimes swear I’m experiencing the world through the eyes of a protagonist.
After seeing CARBON: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY I felt this sensation — on steroids. Only in this case, the main character I channeled was the element Carbon herself.
When I exited the special screening sporting my “inner-Carbon” (we are, after all, one-fifth carbon) — to a spectacular day at the Denver Botanic Gardens — I looked around and felt overwhelming pride for the mind-blowing array of diversity of plants and humans and things created by my (Carbon’s) existence.
I am younger than the universe, born in the heart of a star... Your body, your mind, they are born of my collisions. You are made of stardust. So is almost everything else... Without me life would not exist.
—The Voice of Carbon
“How did I come to be the most talked about, but least understood element on earth.”
— The Voice of Carbon
This extraordinary documentary introduces us in a novel way to Carbon (without the current heap of judgment due to her increasing levels in our atmosphere) so we may better relate to her. In this way we may better understand not just her creative role in our existence, but also how critical it is to respect the balance civilization has established while much of the earth’s carbon has been stored safely underground.
As most people who know me are aware, I harbor a squishy-spot brimming with admiration for humans who indulge their obsessions in a relentless thirst for knowledge — and it positively overflows for those who are willing to communicate their enthusiasm with the world.
When you chose a handful of people like this to narrate a story, the result is a treasure trove of scientific wonder and unmitigated delight.
“If I were to fall in love with an element, it would have to be carbon. Carbon is a pretty promiscuous atom. She likes to hook up with just about any other element in the periodic table… she loves to bond with hydrogen… but she goes over to oxygen. She takes nitrogen. She does phosphorous and she’ll go down she’ll bond with iron and nickel and cobalt, zirconium.” — Robert Hazen
“Carbon is the life of the party… Carbon’s our ancestor. She gave birth to us, but she’s also going to outlive us.” — Tamara Davis
The experts who share story come from a wide spectrum of the sciences — astrophysics, geology, paleobiogeochemistry, history, arctic aquatic geology, tribal park guardianship, ecology, materials science, climate science, and carbon capture technology — and their love for the science and story is beyond infectious.
They made me smile openly, laugh heartily, and feel unexpected waves of profound emotion. I felt joy, awe, despair, and then again hope. Animations were powerful and gorgeous (and the story of how a leaf captures CO2 for photosynthesis was the best I’ve ever seen).
“When you’re looking at a tree, what you’re actually looking at is sunlight
– embodied sunlight – because plants have this ability to pull carbon right out of the air and use the energy from sunlight to make it into themselves. So, in this way, trees are the air. Thanks to photosynthesis.” — Dr Carin Bondar
Canadian composer Jonathan Kawchuk wrote a pitch-perfect score, and artist Bruce Alcock provided wildly creative and engaging animations to help make invisible processes visible.
And as you might expect, the film establishes the reason CO2 is THE a hot topic in the conversations around climate change. After letting us fall madly in love and awe with the wonder that is carbon, the narrative brings us to the balance we’ve had with carbon for most of human civilization. It explains the science behind WHY it’s dangerous to keep digging up and burning fossil fuels for our “cheap” energy — that we are threatening not only the balance that permitted the rise and flourishing of human civilization, but the quality of our own lives and possibly and the dire consequences of moving too much CO2 from underground directly into our atmosphere.
“It’s not carbon’s fault!” — Neil deGrasse Tyson
On this morning’s walk I watched, as I do almost every day, trains moving coal from Powder River Basin in Wyoming on their journey to Las Animas for refinement as a power source (as of 2022, two-fifths of Colorado’s energy is still generated from coal, although this is declining as the state moves towards renewables).
Perhaps the greatest gift of this film was that it invited me to see “fossil fuels” as a window into our planet’s ancient history.
Literally, they are fossilized life from the Carboniferous Period — an age before the dinosaurs. It took over half-a-billion years to create these materials, and we are on the verge of wiping them out (over just a few hundred years of our use). They are trees and plants from an age before atmosphere decayed them in death, when instead they were crushed by the weight of each other into the coal (and oil, when crushed in a seabed) that we find buried underground today.
Coal and oil are ancient history. They are the epitome of non-renewable.
And locked within these resources are vast stores of ancient carbon which, when released into the atmosphere are threatening the habitability of the planet by blanketing the globe in a too-warm embrace.
“The carbon cycle shows that we’re all irretrievably connected ... we’re all in this together.” — Suzanne Simard
Respecting the carbon cycle that allows us to thrive is the key to averting the full-blown threat to civilization that we are currently bringing upon ourselves.
When I lived in Telluride I was a staff photographer for the Mountainfilm festival. Every year the festival infused me with overwhelming inspiration and love for the indomitable spirit of humanity. This line has stuck in my head for over a decade,
“Documentaries are weapons of mass construction.” — Louis Psihoyos (director of The Cove)
CARBON — THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY (still running the festival circuit) is one of those films designed to combat destruction… with constructive dialogue and progress. Understanding is crucial to improving.
Until wider distribution is announced, please visit their website for the trailer, great info, quotes, stills and behind the scenes video.
I cannot wait for more people to experience this extraordinary work.
Until next time, keep making those good footprints friends, and feel free to share. Please let me know in the comments if you’ve had a chance to see this and/or have other documentaries to recommend.
Jennifer, thank you for your insightful and detailed thoughts about CARBON. I am looking forward to seeing this film and appreciate your recommendation.
Thank you for this review, Jennifer! I'm looking forward to seeing it after reading your take. The quotes that you have included from the documentary are amazing. I especially love that Robert Hazen personifies carbon as a promiscuous atom, I laughed out loud.