For most of human history, fire has been a pervasive presence in human life, and so also in human thought. This essay examines the ways in which fire has functioned intellectually in Western ...civilization as mythology, as religion, as natural philosophy and as modern science. The great phase change occurred with the development of industrial combustion; fire faded from quotidian life, which also removed it from the world of informing ideas. Beginning with the discovery of oxygen, fire as an organizing concept fragmented into various subdisciplines of natural science and forestry. The Anthropocene, however, may revive the intellectual role of fire as an informing idea or at least a narrative conceit.
This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.
Fire in the Earth System Bowman, David M.J.S; Balch, Jennifer K; Artaxo, Paulo ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
04/2009, Letnik:
324, Številka:
5926
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Fire is a worldwide phenomenon that appears in the geological record soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants. Fire influences global ecosystem patterns and processes, including vegetation ...distribution and structure, the carbon cycle, and climate. Although humans and fire have always coexisted, our capacity to manage fire remains imperfect and may become more difficult in the future as climate change alters fire regimes. This risk is difficult to assess, however, because fires are still poorly represented in global models. Here, we discuss some of the most important issues involved in developing a better understanding of the role of fire in the Earth system.
Over vast expanses of time, fire and humanity have interacted to expand the domain of each, transforming the earth and what it means to be human. In this concise yet wide-ranging book, Stephen J. ...Pyne--named by Science magazine as "the world's leading authority on the history of fire"--explores the surprising dynamics of fire before humans, fire and human origins, aboriginal economies of hunting and foraging, agricultural and pastoral uses of fire, fire ceremonies, fire as an idea and a technology, and industrial fire. In this revised and expanded edition, Pyne looks to the future of fire as a constant, defining presence on Earth. A new chapter explores the importance of fire in the twenty-first century, with special attention to its role in the Anthropocene, or what he posits might equally be called the Pyrocene.
Pyrocene Park Pyne, Stephen
American scientist,
05/2023, Letnik:
111, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Stand at Glacier Point and you'll instantly understand why it is one of North America's iconic overlooks. The great trough of Yosemite Valley in California fills the foreground below and, with almost ...gravitational pull, carries the eye eastward to the crest line of the Sierra Nevada mountains. With its sheer granite walls, waterfalls that plunge hundreds of meters, and uniquely sculpted stone monoliths (such as El Capitan and Half Dome), words such as monumental hardly do justice to the scene. It's a landscape shaped by Pleistocene ice that widened and deepened valleys, rounded exposed granite, cached boulders and soils, and scoured routes for runoff that eventually became rivers and waterfalls. Pivot south, however, and you'll see a scene as aesthetically bland as Yosemite Valley is gripping. The eye passes over it as fast as a stone skimming across a lake.
As Stephen Pyne reveals in his biography, few other scientists can match Grove Karl Gilbert's range of talents. A premier explorer of the American West who made major contributions to the cascade of ...new discoveries about the earth, Gilbert described two novel forms of mountain building, invented the concept of the graded stream, inaugurated modern theories of lunar origin, helped found the science of geomorphology, and added to the canon of conservation literature.Gilbert knew most of geology's grand figures--including John Wesley Powell, Clarence Dutton, and Clarence King--and Pyne's chronicle of the imperturbable, quietly unconventional Gilbert is couterpointed with sketches of these prominent scientists. The man who wrote that "happiness is sitting under a tent with walls uplifted, just after a brief shower,", created answers to the larger questions of the earth in ways that have become classics of his science.
Fire has existed on Earth since the Devonian, after marine life had plumped the atmosphere with oxygen and terrestrial life began establishing itself. Its patterning obeys rhythms of wetting and ...drying. Conditions have to be wet enough to grow combustibles, and dry enough to allow them to burn.
An interview with Stephen J. Pyne, emeritus professor of environmental history at Arizona State University, is presented. Among other things, Pyne talks about the history of fire management in the US ...and the possibility of analogous approaches to managing wildfires and pandemics.
The world has known three great ages of exploration-the circumnavigation of the globe, with its attendant discovery of new lands; the traversing and cataloguing of the newly-found continents; and the ...exploration of the uninhabited regions of Antarctica, the deep ocean basins and outer space. The author points to the culturally and historically determined nature of discovery, which has thus far been largely a Western phenomenon, but emphasizes the qualitatively different character of space which takes the Earth, rather than any particular part of it, as its starting point, and which sets forth to chart regions that are most probably abiotic.
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