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In its pure form, carbon appears as the soft graphite of a pencil or as the sparkling diamond in a woman's engagement ring. Underneath the surface, carbon is also the basic building block of the cells in our bodies and of all known life on earth. And at a molecular level, carbon bonds with oxygen to create carbon dioxide--a gas as vital to our life on this planet as it is detrimental at high levels in our atmosphere. As we face the climate change crisis, it's now more important than ever to understand carbon and its life cycle. The Many Lives of Carbon is the story of this all-important chemical element, labeled C on our periodic tables. It's the story of balance--between photosynthesis and cell respiration, between building and burning, between life and death.