- The scientific explanation for global warming depends on carbon
- Carbon is found everywhere, including in living organisms
- Carbon atoms are built to attach to other atoms and can form various structures
- Carbon's ability to grab on to other atoms is causing problems
- The series will explore how carbon bonds are made and broken, how carbon makes us rich, and how carbon contributes to warming

NPR's Robert Krulwich and Odd Todd, in partnership with Wild Chronicles, present an animated cartoon series on the atom at the heart of global warming: carbon.

To get to the heart of the global warming story, the very heart of it, You've got to look past lonely polar bears, and past melting glaciers, and past the changing climate, because behind the scary news and the very scary Hollywood movies, it turns out that The scientific explanation for global warming depends to a very large degree on 1 particular atom.

The more you know about this atom, the more you're going

The lead, we call lead in the pencil, it's not lead, it's...

You are mostly water, but if I squeeze you like a sponge...

Great, carbon's great, but can I have my everything else back?

Yes, carbon is the central element of life.

So much so that everything that is alive, and I mean everything, from an amoeba to a whale, from a dandelion to a redwood tree,

in fact, Inside every cell, in every creature bar none, you will find carbon.

Because as the science writer Natalie Angier says, carbon is the duct tape of life.

Carbon atoms are built to attach, to grab on to other atoms.

They have, as you see, 4 points of attachment, and they love attaching.

They are very social, which is why they are so suited to living things.

Living things, after all, come in all kinds of shapes, and carbon can make them all.

But it's carbon's special ability to grab on, to grasp other atoms that is now getting us in trouble.

What starts down at the atomic level can, if we're not careful, lead to big, and I mean very big, problems.

And in this series, we're gonna show you how.

So stay tuned for part 2, making carbon bonds, part 3, breaking carbon bonds, part 4, how carbon makes us rich, and part 5 how carbon makes us warm.


Speaker 0: To get to the heart of the global warming story, the very heart of it, You've got to look past lonely polar bears, and past melting glaciers, and past the changing climate, because behind the scary news and the very scary Hollywood movies, it turns out that The scientific explanation for global warming depends to a very large degree on 1 particular atom. The atom that we call...

Speaker 1: Carbon? Hi. The more you know about this atom, the more you're going

Speaker 0: to know about global warming. Uh-huh. First of all, it's everywhere. The lead, we call lead in the pencil, it's not lead, it's...

Speaker 1: Carbon!

Speaker 0: Diamonds?

Speaker 1: Carbon! You? Me? Yeah, you. You are mostly water, but if I squeeze you like a sponge...

Like a... AGH! Your dry weight, what's left of you? You're about two-thirds carbon. Great, carbon's great, but can I have my everything else back?

Please?

Speaker 0: Yes, carbon is the central element of life. So much so that everything that is alive, and I mean everything, from an amoeba to a whale, from a dandelion to a redwood tree,

Speaker 1: in fact, Inside every cell, in every creature bar none, you will find carbon. And why? Yeah, why?

Speaker 0: Because as the science writer Natalie Angier says, carbon is the duct tape of life. It stitches living things together. Carbon atoms are built to attach, to grab on to other atoms. They have, as you see, 4 points of attachment, and they love attaching. They can form jungle gyms.

This is the inside of a diamond. They form sheets. This is graphite in a pencil. They form spheres. They are very social, which is why they are so suited to living things.

Living things, after all, come in all kinds of shapes, and carbon can make them all. But it's carbon's special ability to grab on, to grasp other atoms that is now getting us in trouble. What starts down at the atomic level can, if we're not careful, lead to big, and I mean very big, problems. And in this series, we're gonna show you how. So stay tuned for part 2, making carbon bonds, part 3, breaking carbon bonds, part 4, how carbon makes us rich, and part 5 how carbon makes us warm.

Yeah, like, too warm. All starring...

Speaker 1: Potassium!

Speaker 0: What? Yoink! All starring...

Speaker 1: Carbon? Hi. You

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Episode 1: Global Warming, It's All About Carbon | Krulwich Wonders | NPR