eBook - ePub
Engineering the Environment
Phytotrons and the Quest for Climate Control in the Cold War
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Engineering the Environment
Phytotrons and the Quest for Climate Control in the Cold War
About this book
Promising an end to global hunger and political instability, huge climate-controlled laboratories known as phytotrons spread around the world to thirty countries after the Second World War. The United States built nearly a dozen, including the first at Caltech in 1949. Made possible by computers and other novel greenhouse technologies of the early Cold War, phytotrons enabled plant scientists to experiment on the environmental causes of growth and development of living organisms. Subsequently, they turned biologists into technologists who, in their pursuit of knowledge about plants, also set out to master the machines that controlled their environment.
Engineering the Environment tells the forgotten story of a research program that revealed the shape of the environment, the limits of growth and development, and the limits of human control over complex technological systems. As support and funding for basic science dwindled in the mid-1960s, phytotrons declined and ultimately disappearedâuntil, nearly thirty years later, the British built the Ecotron to study the impact of climate change on biological communities. By revisiting this history of phytotrons, David Munns reminds us of the vital role they can play in helping researchers unravel the complexities of natural ecosystems in the Anthropocene.
Engineering the Environment tells the forgotten story of a research program that revealed the shape of the environment, the limits of growth and development, and the limits of human control over complex technological systems. As support and funding for basic science dwindled in the mid-1960s, phytotrons declined and ultimately disappearedâuntil, nearly thirty years later, the British built the Ecotron to study the impact of climate change on biological communities. By revisiting this history of phytotrons, David Munns reminds us of the vital role they can play in helping researchers unravel the complexities of natural ecosystems in the Anthropocene.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Engineering the Environment by David P. D. Munns in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Biology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Prelude: The World of Trons
- Introduction: The Age of Biology
- 1. âThe Awe in Which Biologists Hold Physicistsâ: Building the First Phytotron at Caltech
- 2. At Work in the Caltech Phytotron
- 3. The Climatron
- Coda I. The Finale of Frits Went
- 4. The Postcolonial Science of the Australian Phytotron
- 5. The Twin Phytotrons of the Triangle between Duke and North Carolina State
- 6. Big Biology in the Biotron
- Coda II. The Passing of the Age of Biology
- Conclusion: The New Age of Climate
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index