On 11 January 2010, I passed the exam of Earth Sciences, whose program ranged from astronomy to geology, physics, mathematics, and I got to know a wonderful book written by an American naturalist, Paul Krafel , and I was curious and passionate lot, so much to convince me to propose a review, after another long pause.
Initially, to be honest, I was rather reticent, because the book I am about to describe is extremely simple ... only apparent after the humble and linear descriptions, there are scientific rigor and the exciting experience of this character which is reckless Paul Krafel .
primer of NATURE
because the author, Paul Krafel, wanted to write a book so special, and English-language original, was titled: SEEING NATURE - RESOLVED ENCOUNTERS WITH THE VISIBLE WORLD . Who is Paul
Krafel and what advocates in ques
to his book so special?
Before the actual description of the work, it is appropriate to say a few words of introduction.
Before the actual description of the work, it is appropriate to say a few words of introduction.
primer of NATURE is the title used by the Italian publishing house, the Blue Editions in 2004, the year of publication of the work of Krafel in Italy.
The book has been written by the author in 1994, which laid him straight off, and inspiration struck by an interesting scientific theory: the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock .
Originally written just following your instincts, trusting in time and voluntary movement of the players closest to him, the author found no better than to publish at its own expense: the introduction page. 1 Indeed, Krafel explains that when he wrote that he knew "would not have been easy to publish: was too low and difficult to classify.
After the publication, and the author sent it to 40 people, which, according to his knowledge, he knew, they would have liked. In fact, many of them bought several copies which they distributed as gifts to friends, who, in turn, repeated the gesture. The book began to spread so - albeit in a very discreet at first - in a number of copies 30 times more than expected. Until Barbara Damrosch not proposed it to a publishing house, which, after an initial impasse, because no one knew precisely which category they put it, he decided to sell it and disclose it, along with nice pictures of animals gentili come rondini e passerotti, conservate anche nell'edizione italiana SILLABARIO DELLA NATURA .
CHI È PAUL KRAFEL
Paul Krafel , l'autore, è stato per anni ranger e naturalista al National Park Service , oltre ad aver collaborato con il Carter House Natural Science Museum , in California, esperienze, queste, che lo costrinsero a vivere a stretto contatto con la natura più selvaggia e solitaria e che gli they develop a deep interest in the origins and evolution of the Earth and the life cycle, geology, and astronomy. In order to study certain phenomena
Krafel visited magical places like the unattainable and indescribable Sand and Aspen Canyons, where, to observe, was forced to spend time and completely alone, except in some cases, which was accompanied by his wife, Alysia, a valuable supporter, as well as competent staff, especially in the draft later embraced.
Krafel's interest in the life cycle, like any good naturalist, trained in a valid U.S. universities, led him to strongly interested the origins and what has caused the physical and geological phenomena of the planet we live on, visible in the eyes of everyone. For this he turned his interest to discuss what popular-but-now accepted Gaia Hypothesis theorized by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, who in Italy is shown in the volume entitled Lovelock Handbook of Planetary Medicine (Zanichelli, Bologna).
WHAT the Gaia hypothesis
dates back to 1972, the first introduction of the concept of Gaia Hypothesis theorized by biologist Lynn Margulis and Lovelock. The
Margulis was known for his theory of the five kingdoms of living things, the famous classification that subsequently influenced positively all the scientific studies on the biology, but the biologist were reminded, in particular, especially because he believed the result of the eukaryotic cell symbiosis between multiple prokaryotic cells, since, according to this conception of "life or the biosphere, regulates or maintains the climate and atmospheric composition to a state in itself present" (L. Margulis).
As in the past had theorized Hutton, the Margulis sees the planet Earth as a superorganism.
's statement (above) of Earth as a superoganismo , it's just a metaphor that the authors adopted a Lovelock and Margulis mo 'model, to prove, first of all, scientifically. That is why the biologist who is in Lovelock led him to speak of a planetary physiology and medicine, physiology and borrowed the concept of HOMEOSTASIS applied to the planet Earth .
Homeostasis is a characteristic of living organisms and is in their ability to maintain their internal environment, even with changes in the external environment. In practice, our body temperature adjusts itself if we ormoni in numero sufficiente per riscaldarci.
L'Ipotesi Gaia portò una ventata di novità nel periodo in cui fu proposta, perché dopo un lungo arco di tempo, durante cui tutto il sapere geologico era stato spezzettato, proponeva una teoria del pianeta Terra come sistema complesso e integrato da cinque componenti fondamentali: litosfera, idrosfera, criosfera, atmosfera e biosfera, al cui interno e nel suo insieme, presentano evidenti caratteristiche di omeostasi e auto-organizzazione.
Questo sistema ha alle spalle una lunga storia evolutiva, mai predeterminata, costellata da catastrofi e una cieca autonomia, che ha portato questo sistema a pensare solo a sé stesso, al fine di mantenersi in buona salute e in funzione dei its subsystems, showing, therefore, as a being endowed with a large self. It is expected that Gaia Hypothesis, a close relation between the living and the nonliving, which is attained through a negative feedback, which is essential to maintain stability (Lovelock, 1991).
According to this theory, therefore, evolution is realized by means of transformations (lens) and catastrophe, which diversify quickly, the effects will be.
is evident here the interaction of the parties in order to achieve something. In fact, in the model Lovelock, living and nonliving, thanks to a multipart system of feed-back, who accompanies them, are able to maintain a balance stable in the biosphere, which guarantees the continuous alternation of the life cycle: the life and death happens so on.
The name Gaia is, indeed, chosen to represent this cycle by Lovelock alternation: Gaia, in ancient Greece, was the goddess of the Earth. And the Earth as a planet, life together, form a single living entity!
Long ago, tells Krafel page. 165, UV light made it impossible for life on Earth, which, by contrast, was rather fruitful under water to spawn and oxygen plants.
oxygen, in turn, being able to spread beyond the water barrier, ie the atmosphere, constantly increasing in number, began to create the ozone layer, magical gas that can filter some of the radiation. Therefore, the life, no longer require so much water, invaded the nearby area, where different types of plants took root, which increased and increased ozone, which is contrary to the passage of ultraviolet rays, allowing life to flourish more than .
"This spiral of change, writes Krafel page. 166," at the end
made life possible on Earth. "And the spiral of change, for him, can only be called Gaia. For if the living species consumes more of As the planet is able to recreate its environment and s'impoverirà this species in the long run, will not survive and will die out, fueling what the author defines downward spiral .
can be remedied?
Gaia, whose life is now continuously and seriously put at risk by pollution and exploitation of wild and reckless man, Gaia, from where he received his life, according Krafel can be saved.
How? In two simple ways for everyone:
1) or minimizing power consumption and slowing down, consequently, the downward flow;
2) or using the resources we already have in order to produce other, reversing in this way, the downward flow.
Change is therefore possible, according Krafel, starting from the smallest limited, because it is these which, when accumulated, they acquire a significance that will produce clear effects. These effects, if aligned, can not do anything but increase the welfare of the person and the increase in personal satisfaction, without, therefore, to harm another human being.
E 'clear, here, the proposal for sustainable development, by Krafel, which aims at cooperation between households, government and economy, namely the market, also called for cooperation from Earth Charter, drawn up by' UN to establish common principles and guidelines for the future of the planet.
A primer of NATURE book is clearly an environmentalist - as well as full of suggestions for the welfare of all living beings, who, thanks to its plain language, we read willingly and quickly.
There are also many examples from the experiences carried out by the author, who, in a fast and direct, placing the reader in a position to understand the concept immediately referenced, as well as having performed in unique and wild, some of such world-famous, which serve as a pleasant setting for rigorous scientific theories, explained in a seemingly innocent words to make people understand, even in the deepest, meaning they want to allude.
Here are just here as an example, a few pages.
LIVING UNKNOWN (pp. 16-18)
"One evening I saw the earth turn. I had always seen the sun set over a fixed horizon. But when I saw the sun disk, it was my horizon at the sun rising in the first perspective is that the Sun moves. The second is my world. My eyes see the same thing: the space between the sun and the horizon that narrows even more. But that What is moving? My mind has to assume something. Changing that assumption means to change the world I see. I tried my new vision of insrgnare sunset two kids, but they already saw the earth that takes us away from the sun and releasing it. It amused to exaggerate the effect of pushing, tilting while watching the horizon rise before the sun Maybe I, too, when I was a child, I could see the earth turn and push back. The expression sunset but has influenced my perceptions and I began to see the sun instead of lowering myself away from the Sun We become one in which we practice and I have practiced a planet to live on property and passive, where the changes take place far from my world. In most of the sunset of my life I've only watched the spectacular colors above the western horizon. But this feeling of falling backwards prompted me to turn around to look into what I was falling. In the pink sky in the east shortly after sunset, the horizon stands a dark purple. And 'the Earth's shadow that breaks the atmosphere. I had never noticed that the Earth, like any other object exposed to sunlight, casting a shadow. The shadow rises on the eastern horizon at the same speed with which the Sun "sets" behind the West ... The sunset is the time when I am engulfed by the shadow. The trees, tall buildings and mountains above me still shine in the golden light of the sun because they rise above the shadow, but even they will soon descend. Even the sky above me is turning into shadow, but because the atmosphere extends upward for miles, his night shift to take a long time. Our thick atmosphere diffuses much of the sunlight passing through. This scattered light forms a bright haze of blue light that we see as a blue sky. (On the Moon, which has no atmosphere, the sky is as black as the day of the night). The lower layers of the atmosphere, moving shadows, they lose their luster blue. Higher ones are still immersed in the sunlight above, they are also less dense and reflect only a tiny fraction of the light passing through them. The bright blue sky day retreats to a glowing blue, far away, transparent enough to allow us to see the stars. At the end of the whole atmosphere comes over me in the shadows. Sunlight still flows over my head, but spends hundreds of km from the atmosphere and does not bounce back up to my eyes. The blue haze of the day is lost and I can see the black space forever. Look at the atmosphere that changes down the shadows of the night is more than just time. The night is a place. The night is a journey. The night is a step slow and twisting through a shadow constantly flowing away from the sun The rising sun is our emergence on the other side of the shadow. The change is happening right under my feet. Space is not far away, living in space. How would our culture if we are looking at the Earth rotates, so that every time the sun rises and sets us remember that we live on a planet round, turning, and thus is not infinite? We need the best expressions of sunset and sunrise . If you can think of the most beautiful and accurate, please let me know. "(Pp. 16-19).
READ OR NOT THIS WORK THEN 'Natural' PAUL KRAFEL?
SI Absolutely, I say!
E 'in these pages as peeping, with an apparent simplicity of language, the scientific rigor of certain phenomena such as rotation and revolution of our Earth, just to give you an example. But even more compelling descriptions of the former is full of the book. For this, dear readers, I am confident that, long after the exam, not happy, I bought another copy to give to my friend Frank, a great and enlightened mind, which he liked very much reading this for his birthday ferragosto , because, knowing her well, I already knew that he would have appreciated and enjoyed in the right way, it finally did.
And you read it and wanted to give as Krafel?
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON PAUL KRAFEL
Krafel Paul currently lives in Cottonwood, Calif., with his wife Alysia and her two daughters. By Alysia
founded Chrysalis, a school in which prefer the naturalistic studies and where he still teaches.
This is his website where you can learn about his life and his fascinating discoveries, as well as learn more about his special school:
http://www.chrysalischarterschool.com/Paul/index.html
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"Provo un'umile gratitudine verso la vita che mi ha preceduto e quella che mi circonda" (pag. 167).
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