Video Guide, How Earth Made Us – Fire
1. Explain the statement that for over 90 percent of the Earth’s history, there was no fire.
How long ago did fire first appear on Earth?
Why was there no fire before then?
What is needed for fire?
What changes on Earth allowed fire to occur?
2. How is fire influenced by humans?
3. How is human history linked to fire?
5. What is the significance of carbon to fire and humans?
6. Explain photosynthesis and its significance to the existence of fire.
7. At approximately what temperature do normal wood fires burn? ________
8. What happens when wood burns in a low oxygen environment? What is produced and at what temperature does it
burn? Why is that substance valuable?
9. What were some results of making metals? What effect did the production of metals have on forests?
10. What other alternative to wood is derived from wood? And, how is it formed?
11. During what geologic period was the earth covered with so many trees that the process of transforming wood was
common?
12. Explain what is meant by the statements: “Coal is a source of carbon from the earth’s past” and “Coal is an immense
store of fossilized sunshine”.
13. What country identified in the program had an abundance of coal? ______________________
14. What problem, described in the program, plagued coal miners as they tried to extract coal from the ground and what
solution was devised to overcome that problem?
15. What was the ultimate result of the development of the technology described in number 13?
Describe the relationship between coal and steam engines.
16. Explain what is meant by the statement: “Think of the industrial revolution as the rise of carboniferous capitalism”.
17. What other countries have abundant coal deposits?
18. When did China begin its industrial revolution and what was, and remains, the primary source of energy for it?
19. What other source of stored carbon is used today and how does it form? How does the energy content of this
material compare to the energy content of coal?
20. Where (in what country) did the first commercial production of oil take place? _______________________
21. Why do some places have massive oil deposits while others don’t? How do most large oil deposits form?
And, what material is usually found along with or near to oil deposits?
22. What is meant by the term “oil trap”? How does it form?
23. Why does Iain Stuart claim that our relationship with oil is past its peak?
How long does it take the earth to produce, naturally, the amount of oil consumed by people in one year?
24. What problem are we facing as the result of our burning of carbon based fuels?