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Title How Earth Made Us: Fire - Ep 4 of 5 / Director: Colville, Charles
Published Australia : ABC, 2010
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Description 1 online resource (streaming video file) (59 min. 11 sec.) ; 357495827 bytes
Summary As Australia and New Zealand have recently witnessed, the Earth has immense power. Yet that influence is rarely mentioned in history books. Scottish Professor, Iain Stewart, is dead keen to change that in this enthralling series.He's been looking at four ways the power of the planet has shaped history. According to the good professor, the Deep Earth provided the raw materials for the conquest of the planet; Wind influenced the rise and fall of empires; while Water, and the struggle to control it, defined the character of civilisations.Tonight it's Fire - deadly, yet a driving force behind human progress.For all its danger fire is compelling, almost hypnotic. The paradox of fire is that it's lethal and yet we depend on it completely. Fire generates our electricity. It drives our machines. We use it every day.But the history of mankind's relationship with fire reveals how the Earth has exerted enormous power over the fate of peoples and nations.It's strange to think that for 90% of Earth's history, there simply was no fire. Ours was a barren planet of dust and rock. There was nothing to burn. Not until relatively recently, about four hundred million years ago, did fire first appear. The key to this transformation was vegetation and when the first land plants began to appear they provided fuel for fire. But plants did something else as well. Vegetation supplied a second crucial ingredient for fire - oxygen. All that was needed then was a spark.Humans have always been drawn to fire. Flames have long been a symbol of a spirit far greater than ourselves, almost a divine presence. To this day the eternal flame is still a potent symbol for the world's great religions. PRODUCTION DETAILSBBC Worldwide. Series Producer: Jonathan Renouf; Executive Producer: John Lynch
Event Broadcast 2011-03-29 at 20:30:00
Notes Classification: G
Subject Core of the Earth.
Fire.
Nature -- Effect of human beings on.
Plants -- Effect of carbon dioxide on.
Plants -- Effect of fires on.
Form Streaming video
Author Colville, Charles, director
Stewart, Iain, host