#221 | Age Of Fire: Humanity's Long Relationship With The Shapeshifter Element w/ Stephen Pyne

Intro: 11:12 | Outro: 1:04:42

In this episode, I speak with Stephen Pyne, environmental historian and author of ‘Fire: A Brief History.’

In this discussion with Stephen, I ask him to elaborate on humanity's long, deep, and complex relationship with fire. He explains how this relationship has informed everything from how our bodies have evolved to the impact this has had on our global environment up to the present moment. As Stephen has framed it, we have entered into an age of fire, which he has dubbed the Pyrocene (instead of Anthropocene); just as the Earth has passed through numerous ice ages, the industrialization of our relationship with fire (such as our use of fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine) has warmed the planet to such a degree as to completely disfigure and disrupt the planetary climate system, leading to a phase shift so large as to be barely grasped or comprehended at all. Fire and its crucial role in this shift must be not only examined in a scientific sense, but contextualized within a broader historical scope, which Stephen has provided for many years.

As Stephen has expressed in his excellent article ‘The Fire Age’: “The species that won biggest was ourselves. Fire changed us, even to our genome. We got small guts and big heads because we could cook food. We went to the top of the food chain because we could cook landscapes. And we have become a geologic force because our fire technology has so evolved that we have begun to cook the planet. Our pact with fire made us what we are. We hold fire as a species monopoly. We will not share it willingly with any other species. Other creatures knock over trees, dig holes in the ground, hunt – we do fire. It’s our ecological signature. Our capture of fire is our first experiment with domestication, and it might may well be our first Faustian bargain.” (http://bit.ly/2Oc93hF)

Steve Pyne is an emeritus professor at Arizona State University. He has published 35 books, most of them dealing with fire, but others on Antarctica, the Grand Canyon, the Voyager mission, and with his oldest daughter, an inquiry into the Pleistocene. His fire histories include surveys of America, Australia, Canada, Europe (including Russia), and the Earth.

Episode Notes:

- Learn more about Stephen and his work: http://www.stephenpyne.com

- Learn more about and purchase ‘Fire: A Brief History’: http://bit.ly/2qBLNRe

- Read the referenced articles ‘Winter Isn’t Coming. Prepare for the Pyrocene’ and ‘The Fire Age’: http://bit.ly/37txhLP / http://bit.ly/2Oc93hF

- The song featured is “Julie and Candy” by Boards of Canada from the album Geogaddi.