The First and Last Bank: Climate Change, Currency, and a New Carbon Commons

A groundbreaking approach to currency and community that may allow us to seize carbon from the atmosphere—and offer a new tool in the fight against climate change.

Through the ages, currencies have been based on all manner of objects—from tobacco leaves to salt to gold to collateralized debt obligations. The only thing that this odd assortment of objects shares is the communal belief that these objects could harness and direct economic growth—that they are, in a sense, fertile. In The First ...