Peter Brannen

Peter Brannen

Writer

A man with a mustache, wearing a black shirt and beige pants, stands with hands in pockets in front of empty wooden benches in an indoor space.

Peter Brannen is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Ends of the World, about the biggest mass extinctions in Earth’s history. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications.

Book cover of "The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything" by Peter Brannen, featuring themes like fire and human evolution, alongside the text “an excerpt from” on a light blue background. How taming fire made us human
In this excerpt from "The Story of CO2," Peter Brennan explains how changes in the Earth's ecosystem led to fire, which in turn led our ancestors to become the "fire apes."