Thinking Small and Large
How Microbes Made and Can Save Our World
Published on 22. May 2025
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-83773-170-1 (ISBN)
Description
The environmental crisis will not be solved by battery technology alone.
Thinking Small and Large reveals the ingenuity of microbes at key stages in life's 4 billion year history and highlights their developing role in resolving our deepest problem: climate change that is flooding and burning our world more menacingly every year. Ground-breaking ongoing research with some of the most ancient bacteria is leading to a parallel carbon economy using engineered bacteria for fuel, food and materials. This would enable rewilding on a vast scale, with the small land footprint of bacterial technologies solving the current conflict in land use between farming and fuel and materials production.
In this fascinating and illuminating book, Peter Forbes shines a light on this crucial technology and offers a tantalising glimpse of what is possible. To solve the big problems you have to think small.
Thinking Small and Large reveals the ingenuity of microbes at key stages in life's 4 billion year history and highlights their developing role in resolving our deepest problem: climate change that is flooding and burning our world more menacingly every year. Ground-breaking ongoing research with some of the most ancient bacteria is leading to a parallel carbon economy using engineered bacteria for fuel, food and materials. This would enable rewilding on a vast scale, with the small land footprint of bacterial technologies solving the current conflict in land use between farming and fuel and materials production.
In this fascinating and illuminating book, Peter Forbes shines a light on this crucial technology and offers a tantalising glimpse of what is possible. To solve the big problems you have to think small.
Reviews / Votes
A powerful exploration of the machinery of life and the 'gigantic infinitesimal' world of the microorganisms essential for the survival of our ecosystem. In this beautifully written book, Forbes restores microbes to their rightful place in the history - and, importantly, the future - of our planet. A must for any science-savvy or science-curious reader. * Alice Sherwood, author of Authenticity: Reclaiming reality in a counterfeit culture * A fascinating account of both the deep-time evolution of life on our planet and how microbes have moulded the world we live in. This is the gripping story of how the tiniest creatures can have the mightiest effects, and offer hope for solving some of the gravest problems of climate change today. * Prof. Lewis Dartnell, author of Being Human: How our Biology Shaped World History * The book's intellectual range is impressive ... a tone that's accessible without oversimplifying the underlying concepts. * Nature *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Duxford
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 219 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
385 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-83773-170-1 (9781837731701)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Peter Forbes is a science writer and journalist writing mainly on life sciences and natural history. He read chemistry and worked for the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and in natural history publishing before becoming a freelance writer. He lives in London and teaches the Narrative Non-Fiction course at City St George's, University of London
His first full-length non-fiction book, The Gecko's Foot: How Scientists are Taking a Leaf from Nature's Book, a ground-breaking introduction to the new field of engineering and materials solutions inspired by nature, was longlisted for the Royal Society/Aventis Prize. He followed this with Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage, which won the Warwick Prize for Writing.
His first full-length non-fiction book, The Gecko's Foot: How Scientists are Taking a Leaf from Nature's Book, a ground-breaking introduction to the new field of engineering and materials solutions inspired by nature, was longlisted for the Royal Society/Aventis Prize. He followed this with Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage, which won the Warwick Prize for Writing.