Comments on: Book review – Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption

By: Book review – The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next | The Inquisitive Biologist

Mon, 09 May 2022 10:32:29 +0000

[…] First, Pyne discerns three types of fire. First-fire is the oldest, its history stretching back some 420 million years. The study of fossil charcoal shows that lightning sparked fires as soon as plants developed on land. Second-fire was wielded by our hominin ancestors. It has long been considered our first tool, allowing us to cook our food which resulted in lasting morphological changes. Pyne argues it could also be considered our first domesticate. Unlike a tool, “it could not be put on a shelf and ignored until it was next needed. Once kindled, it had to be tended” (p. 60). This is the fire that indigenous people, whether Native Americans or Aboriginal Australians, used for millennia to shape the landscapes they inhabited. Third-fire is the much more recent burning of fossil fuels that powered us through the Industrial Revolution into today’s global capitalist economy. […]

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By: Book review – A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations | The Inquisitive Biologist

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 13:09:31 +0000

[…] grower in Denver. The latter felt a bit incongruous given the vast electricity consumption of e.g. the steel and aluminium industry. He furthermore discusses the consequences of extended blackouts on hospitals, plus a range of […]

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By: Book review – Our Biggest Experiment: A History of the Climate Crisis | The Inquisitive Biologist

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 15:07:16 +0000

[…] climate change. There are also no data or graphs that show how our climate has changed, or how fossil fuel consumption has increased to drive civilization. Lastly, this is not a book that proposes solutions, though by the end I was […]

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By: Book review – Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment | The Inquisitive Biologist

Sun, 10 Jan 2021 21:29:19 +0000

[…] consequences that are both unavoidable and unpredictable. Some examples discussed here are climate change resulting from the generation of energy, the unknown effects of most synthetic chemicals, the pollution accompanying industrial activities, […]

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By: Book review – Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities | The Inquisitive Biologist

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 12:21:36 +0000

[…] Before discussing artefacts and complex systems, Smil first gives an in-depth treatment of energy converters as “the history of civilization can be seen as a quest for ever higher reliance on extrasomatic energies“. In particular, civilizations have come to rely on ever power-denser fuels, from wood to coal to oil to nuclear. This is easily the most technical chapter of the book, rich in engineering details on the growth in both capacities and efficiencies of the machines we use to generate energy. It provides a more solid foundation than Rhodes’s book Energy, though it focuses on generation capacities rather than consumption of fuel reserves. […]

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By: Book review – Energy: A Human History | The Inquisitive Biologist

Book review – Energy: A Human History | The Inquisitive Biologist — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 12:50:21 +0000

[…] is barely spoken of – to the point that there is little overlap with Pirani’s recent book Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (the two complement each other nicely as a […]

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