Understanding the climate crisis is all about understanding the carbon cycle.  Natural process work at their own speed. For example, from a human perspective, respiration is immediate but the deposition that makes rocks (including coal and oil) is geologically slow.  Natural processes are impacted by people, initially impacts were limited but began to increase as more people affected habitats and species across the globe (for example through fire and the hunting of large mammals). A step change in these impacts occurred in the nineteenth century with the discovery and widespread exploitation of ‘fossil fuels’, releasing long stored carbon from the earth into the atmosphere. The industrial revolution that followed has created our modern global society with all its benefits. The challenge now is to live without fossil fuels, leave those that remain in the ground, and find a way that works with and not against natural processes. Climate change impacts do not fall equally, in particular poorer people in UK and across the world suffer the most, so climate justice is a serious challenge. 

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A beautiful short story by Primo Levi, in his autobiographical collection ‘The Periodic Table’ tells the tale of a carbon atom moving through the carbon cycle, illustrating the complexity of our relationship with this life giving element.