Thinking Small and Large: How Microbes Made and Can Save Our World: How Microbes Made and Can Save Our World

Written by Peter Forbes

Narrated by Keith Wickham

The environmental crisis will not be solved by battery technology. We are looking for answers in the wrong places.

Life began with the hydrogenation of CO2, and this is the process we must return to in order to heal the planet. Ground-breaking ongoing research into bacterial processes means our knowledge of bacterial processes is ever-expanding, and we can harness this new knowledge to develop 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 at what is possible. To solve the big problems, sometimes you have to think small.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: May 22, 2025
• ISBN: 9781004199549

Peter Forbes

Peter Forbes was the editor of Poetry Review, Britain’s most prestigious poetry magazine, for sixteen years. He is a regular contributor to the broadsheets, including the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times, as well as in a wide spectrum of magazines, including New Scientist, New Statesman and Country Life. In 1999 he edited Scanning the Century: The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Poetry (Viking) and in 2002 Penguin published the paperback of his translation of Primo Levi’s The Search for Roots.