In this episode from the New Books Network podcast, Stephen J. Pyne is interviewed on his recent book, The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next.
Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins hundreds of millions of years ago and spans the globe. Coal is a captivating narrative about an ordinary substance with an extraordinary impact on human civilization.
Vaclav Smil shows why energy transitions are inherently complex and prolonged affairs, and how ignoring this raises unrealistic expectations that the United States and other global economies can be weaned quickly from a primary dependency on fossil fuels.
Stephen Mosley examines three aspects of Victorian and Edwardian Manchester’s smoke situation: its magnitude and impact on the town, the rhetoric and culture of smoke, and the (unsuccessful) campaigns to control it.
American “Founding Father” and inventor Benjamin Franklin creates an advanced heating system.
In Britain, a large proportion of the soil and groundwater pollution that occurred during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century came from gasworks and coke plants…
Industrialising cities of the 19th century are seen as lax in environmental matters. However, Manchester took a strong stand against air pollution.
