This chapter explores the evolving understanding of carbon and sustainability since the 18th and 19th centuries. Relevant applications of influential ideas are then identified with respect to knowledge, innovation, policy, and meta-level change. More than 100 years ago, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius hypothesized about the onset of ice ages and interglacial periods by considering high latitude temperature shifts (NASA Earth Observatory, n.d.). Applying an energy budget model and ideas of other scientists, like John Tyndall, Arrhenius argued that changes in trace atmospheric constituents, particularly carbon dioxide, could significantly alter the Earth’s heat budget (Arrhenius, 1896, 1897; NASA Earth Observatory, n.d.). Today, science indicates that the global, average surface temperature has continued to rise alongside the increase in greenhouse gases. Among global GHGs, CO2 emissions have increased by more than a factor of 1,000 in absolute terms since 1800. During that time, global carbon emissions found in the primary energy supply increased by roughly 6% per year (Grubler, 2008a). This growth in carbon emissions from energy is significant because CO2 from fuel combustion dominates global GHG emissions (IEA, 2015a and 2015b; IPCC, 2013). As noted earlier, 68% of the global GHGs that are attributed to human activity are linked to the energy sector; namely, fuel combustion and fugitive emissions (IEA, 2015a). Within this share, 90% consisted of CO2 (IEA, 2015a). In contrast to the rise in absolute numbers, carbon emissions per unit of output in the global primary energy supply has decreased 36% overall or by slightly less than 0.2% per year over the past two centuries (Grubler, 2008a). This subtle decarbonizing pattern in the energy mix is explained by the faster growth rate of energy use in relation to the rate of carbon emissions from that use. The delinking of energy utilization and carbon emissions occurred in part with the introduction of less carbon-intensive fossil fuel sources, like natural gas, in which a higher hydrogen-to-carbon ratio is evident (Gibbons and Gwin, 2009; Grubler, 2004, citing Marchetti, 1985).