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Science and Ideas Group - A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization
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RSVP: Joseph Evinger (jdevinger@comcast.net)
When: Every 2nd Thursday of the month, 3:00-4:30 pm
Where: Zoom (click "Zoom" to join event)
Meeting ID: 848 0146 1083
Passcode: science
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Meeting ID: 848 0146 1083
Open to: All
Science and Ideas:
A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization
Presenter: John Perlin
Description: The great Roman poet Ovid wrote that during the “Golden Age,” before civilization began, “even the pine tree stood on its own hill.” But with the advent of civilization, Georgius Agricola, the medieval author of On the Nature of Metallurgy, observed, “Woods and groves are cut down. And when the woods and groves are felled, then are exterminated the beasts and bird.” This occurred for a simple reason: Trees have been the principal fuel and building material of almost every society for over the millennia. Without vast supplies of wood felled from forests, the great civilizations of Sumer, Assyria, Egypt, China, Knossos, Mycenae, Classical Greece and Rome, Western Europe, and North America would never have emerged; and without charcoal, metallurgy would have never arisen. Wood, in fact, is the unsung hero of the technological revolution that has brought us from a stone-and-bone culture to our present age.
John Perlin began his career at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) in the Department of Classics in 1979 as a result of his pioneering research regarding the use of solar energy in antiquity. He joined the Physics Department there in 2002 tasked by Nobel Laureate Dr. Walter Kohn to develop a colloquium on global warming for the university’s science departments. The following year, John was hired by the physics department to collaborate with Dr. Kohn and fellow Nobel Laureate Dr. Alan Heeger on the film, The Power of the Sun: The History of the Evolution of the Science of Light and Photovoltaics. The film inspired UC Santa Barbara to embrace the solarization of the campus, which John oversaw. On May 17, 2018 he led a symposium introducing the scientific work of Eunice Foote, the woman who in 1856 discovered that carbon dioxide is the principal cause of Global Warming and that more of that gas in the atmosphere would lead to a hotter earth. He was also the lead curator of an exhibit based on the symposium in Fall, 2019.
John is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Physics, UC Santa Barbara, and the author of four highly acclaimed books on solar energy and forestry: A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology; A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization; From Space to Earth: The Story of Solar Electricity; and Let It Shine: The 6000 Year Story of Solar Energy. Harvard University Press has chosen A Forest Journey as one of its “One Hundred Books for Every Bookshelf” ever published by the press, which includes books by such scientific luminaries as Stephen Jay Gould and E.O. Wilson. Harvard University Press also honored the book by designating it as a “Harvard Classic.” Patagonia recently published an updated and enlarged edition of “A Forest Journey.” He has finished a manuscript on the scientific and feminist work of Eunice Foote and is currently searching for a publisher.
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