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This episode with John Perlin explores the value, importance and role of trees in civilization from time immemorial. For our nature lovers out there, this one is interesting, rich and informative.
About John:
John Perlin began his career at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) 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 at UCSB 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 the University of California, Santa Barbara to embrace the solarization of the campus in which John oversaw the placement of photovoltaics on several of its structures. He led a symposium at UCSB on May 17, 2018 introducing the scientific work of Eunice Foote, the women 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 for the University of California, Santa Barbara based on the symposium which opened on October 28, 2019.
John currently is a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara. John is 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 “One Hundred Books for Every Bookshelf” ever published by the press which includes such scientific luminaries as Stephen Jay Gould and E.O. Wilson.