Carbon Dioxide: Earth's Thermostat
Decouple22 Sep 2025

Carbon Dioxide: Earth's Thermostat

This week, award-winning science writer Peter Brannen returns to Decouple to explore the 4.5 billion-year story of carbon dioxide on Earth. Grounding our discussion is his new book, The Story of CO2 Is The Story of Everything. From the alien world of the Hadean eon to humanity's emergence as the "pyromaniac ape," Brannen reveals how this trace gas has shaped every aspect of our planet's evolution, through Snowball Earth, mass extinctions, and the rise of complex life, culminating in humanity's unprecedented ability to burn fossil fuels.

We talk about:

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Episoder(321)

No Risk, All Reward

No Risk, All Reward

This week, we look beyond the physical infrastructure supporting our lives to the owners taking over that infrastructure: asset managers. Brett Christophers, an author, professor, and economic geograp...

20 Mai 20251h 9min

Hellbrise

Hellbrise

In the wake of Europe's largest blackout in decades, commodities investor Alexander Stahel helps us to understand the physics of power grids, and how Spain's celebrated renewable transition became its...

13 Mai 20251h 5min

The Iberian Blackout

The Iberian Blackout

This week, we cover the recent blackout on the Iberian peninsula. Guillem Sanchis Ramirez, a Spanish nuclear engineer and advocate, walks us through the event that plunged over 50 million people into ...

6 Mai 202551min

Cycles of Life

Cycles of Life

This week, we take a break from nuclear power to talk about larger systems: those of Planet Earth. Professor Andy Knoll, renowned Harvard geologist and author of A Brief History of Earth, reveals how ...

29 Apr 202556min

Hard Lessons with Hot Helium

Hard Lessons with Hot Helium

This week, we talk High Temperature Gas Reactors, or HTGRs, with a Decouple favorite: reactor designer and nuclear historian Nick Touran (What Is Nuclear | X). From the first conceptual sketch of an H...

22 Apr 20251h 16min

The Machines Behind The Machines

The Machines Behind The Machines

This week, we talk tools. With precision machinist Noah Rettberg, we explore a facet of modernity as important as energy, for it is the technology that energy powers and the technology that makes that...

8 Apr 20251h 15min

Respect the Rads

Respect the Rads

This week, we talk radiation—the elephant in the room during many conversations about nuclear power. Nick Touran, a reactor designer and nuclear historian, helps us along. While nuclear advocates have...

1 Apr 20251h 21min

Pass the Salt

Pass the Salt

Molten Salt Reactors are often portrayed as nuclear’s great missed opportunity, promising unparalleled safety, efficiency, and fuel sustainability. But are these promises reality or hype? Nick Touran,...

25 Mar 20251h 8min

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