The next economy: from dead carbon to living carbon

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Abstract
In the early part of the 19th century, the global economy was largely based on carbon extracted directly or indirectly (via animals) from plants. The infant science of chemistry distinguished between products made from vegetables and those made from minerals, in effect, distinguishing between living carbon and dead carbon. By the mid 19th century, however, chemists had adopted a different terminology. Both dead carbon and living carbon, from that time, were lumped together as organic. During the next century the hydrocarbon displaced the carbohydrate as the fundamental building block of industrial societies. But at the dawn of the 21st century, a combination of technological, resource and political developments encouraged a renewed distinction between living and dead carbon and the emergence of a new carbohydrate economy. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry

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