PSYCHE

We are all made of carbon, as is everything around us. It forms the backbone of our DNA, is key to life maintaining processes like photosynthesis and respiration and drives our industries. Our ability to control and manipulate carbon—whether as charcoal, oil, carbon nanotubes or buckyballs—has revolutionised every aspect of the way we live. From medicine and machinery to architecture and art—the sooty fingerprints of carbon are visible on almost everything humanity has built.

A critical ingredient to life and living—carbon has been at the centerstage of earth's history. The evolution of human society in particular is not just fuelled by carbon but also tracked and traced through radioactive carbon. Today carbon has been placed at the centre of a global crisis—one for which we do not seem to have an immediate solution. There is an urgent call to “decarbonise” by sinking and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, which we have relentlessly pumped into it in the name of development. This kind of a public discourse, however, marginalises the vital role carbon plays in the relationships around practically all life and non-life forms in the environment.