Environmentalist Paul Hawken: ‘We have basically isolated and objectified carbon’

The Two Steps Forward podcast is available on Spotify,  Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and other platforms — and, of course, via Trellis. Episodes publish every other Tuesday.

For more than 40 years, Paul Hawken has been an author, entrepreneur, activist and provocateur in sustainability.

In this interview for the Two Steps Forward podcast, Hawken talks about his latest book, “Carbon: The Book of Life,” with my co-host, sustainability consultant Solitaire Townsend, and me. The book, published in March, explores the element’s role in all living systems rather than viewing carbon merely as a climate pollutant. In it, he criticizes the climate movement for objectifying carbon and advocates for a shift in narrative from fear to possibility. He highlights the limitations of technological solutions such as direct air capture and bioenergy carbon capture systems and encourages a focus on local, grassroots efforts and individual actions, stressing the need for gratitude and wonder in our relationship with the natural world.

Also in this episode, Soli and I discuss the role of neurodiversity in sustainability.

In his 1993 book, “The Ecology of Commerce,” Hawken was credited with the self-described awakening of the southern industrialist, Ray Anderson, whose carpet company, Interface, became a poster child of sustainable business. “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming,” Hawken’s 2007 bestseller, chronicled what he described as a diverse global movement with no charismatic leader that follows no unifying ideology, and is not recognized by politicians, the public and the media.

A new way to talk about carbon

“We have unfortunately had this language of othering the living world,” Hawken told us. He criticized the climate movement for objectifying carbon, using war-like terms such as “fight,” “combat” and “tackle” to address climate change. He explained that carbon is a flow, not a thing to be manipulated, and the importance of understanding carbon as a part of life and the mysteries of physics and chemistry on Earth is key to addressing the climate crisis.

“You have these silly phrases, like ‘carbon neutrality,’ ‘net zero,’ where carbon is a thing, it’s an object. We have basically isolated and objectified carbon.”

Rather, he said, carbon is life. “Carbon is a flow, and the idea that it’s a thing that we can manipulate is a terrible misunderstanding of carbon — what it is, what it does and where it is. What happens on Earth is so mysterious and wonderful.”

In our wide-ranging conversation, Hawken took on Wall Street, direct air capture, fallacies about renewable energy and the problem of shareholder primacy.

Hope on a grassroots level

He also held out hope, especially for the thousands of grassroots organizations that are addressing the climate and biodiversity crises at the local levels around the world — more effectively, he said, than many national governments or multinational corporations.

“The one thing we know about the living world, about nature, it is not a top-down system. But we’re trying to create top-down systems to address the beauty of the thing that we call life. You don’t read about these organizations, you don’t hear about them, they don’t make the news cycle, but they’re growing and rising.”

Two Steps Forward is available on Spotify,  Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and other platforms — and, of course, via Trellis. Episodes publish every other Tuesday.

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