Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lorn Vogelbaum.
Speaker 1: Here in December of eighteen oh two, a small ship
Speaker 1: set sail from sail Peru northward along the South American
Speaker 1: coastline toward Guayaquiel in present day Ecuador, a trip of
Speaker 1: about seven hundred miles or eleven hundred kilometers. One of
Speaker 1: the ship's passengers was a thirty three year old Prussian
Speaker 1: aristocrat by the name of Alexander von Humboldt. A mining
Speaker 1: engineer by training, Humboldt had an insatiable curiosity about nature
Speaker 1: that led him to roam the planet, studying plants and animals,
Speaker 1: as well as phenomena ranging from magnetic rocks to river
Speaker 1: systems and ocean currents. Fresh from studying the value of
Speaker 1: batguano as manore in Kale, Humbolt used the sailing trip
Speaker 1: to investigate a powerful cold current that flowed from the
Speaker 1: tip of Chile to northern Peru, changing from just offshore
Speaker 1: to about six hundred miles off the coast about a
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers. The current's existence had been known for centuries
Speaker 1: to sailors and fishermen, but no scientist had ever systematically
Speaker 1: studied the flow. Humboldt carefully measured the water temperature and
Speaker 1: the speed, and continued on his journey, which eventually would
Speaker 1: lead him to Mexico. Humboldt's work was the beginning of
Speaker 1: scientific understanding of what's now known as the Humboldt Current
Speaker 1: or the Peru Current. The current helps hold warm, moist
Speaker 1: air off the coast, keeping the climate on land cool.
Speaker 1: It also pulls plankton rich water from deep in the
Speaker 1: Pacific to the surface, feeding a vast number and variety
Speaker 1: of fish and birds, and creating the richest marine ecosystem
Speaker 1: on the planet. Its fishing grounds provide about six percent
Speaker 1: of the world's catch. The Homebolt currents nutrients support the
Speaker 1: marine food chain of the Glopagos Islands and influenced its
Speaker 1: climate as well. It helped make possible the archipelago's incredible biodiversity.
Speaker 1: In that sense, the Humboldt Current also shaped the development
Speaker 1: of evolutionary theory. The Galapagos provided the living laboratory for
Speaker 1: another nineteenth century scientist, Charles Darwin, whose paradigm shifting work
Speaker 1: on the origin of the species was published in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, the year of Humboldt's death, Darwin was himself
Speaker 1: inspired by the work of Humboldt. He's not extremely well
Speaker 1: known today outside of his eponymous current, but in the
Speaker 1: early to mid eighteen hundreds, Humboldt was one of the
Speaker 1: most renowned researchers on the planet. Thomas Jefferson corresponded with him.
Speaker 1: Humboldt was the first to investigate the relationship between mean
Speaker 1: temperature and elevation, and came up with the concept of
Speaker 1: maps with isothermal lines that delineate areas with the same
Speaker 1: temperature at a given time. He did important early work
Speaker 1: on the origin of tropical storms. Humboldt altered the way
Speaker 1: that scientists see the natural world by finding interconnections. As
Speaker 1: Humboldt biographer Andrea Wolf wrote, the scientist invented the concept
Speaker 1: of a web of life, what he called this great
Speaker 1: chain of causes and effects. Some consider him to be
Speaker 1: the first ecologist, a thinker who paved the way for
Speaker 1: the likes of Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring helped
Speaker 1: change the way we look at and regulate pesticides. Humboldt
Speaker 1: was ahead of the curve on understanding environmental problems such
Speaker 1: as deforestation and its effect upon climate, which he first
Speaker 1: observed around Lake Valencia and Venezuela back in eighteen hundred.
Speaker 1: Humboldt was also a predecessor to Albert Einstein as a
Speaker 1: scientist with a strong interest in social justice. As Andrea
Speaker 1: Wolf notes, he was a critic of colonialism and supported
Speaker 1: revolutionary movements in South America. He also criticized the US,
Speaker 1: a country he otherwise admired for its institution of sar slavery.
Speaker 1: For the article this episode is based on how Stuffwork,
Speaker 1: spoke via email with Aaron Sachs, a history professor at
Speaker 1: Cornell University an author of The Humboldt Current nineteenth Century
Speaker 1: Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism. He thinks that
Speaker 1: rather than focusing on Humboldt's specific discoveries, it's more important
Speaker 1: to look at the insights and approaches to environmental work
Speaker 1: that have been based upon his research and observations. Sex
Speaker 1: said to me his version of ecology was significant not
Speaker 1: just because he stressed interconnection, but because he combined it
Speaker 1: with a social and ethical perspective. The fact of interconnection
Speaker 1: had certain implications with regard to human responsibilities toward each
Speaker 1: other and the environment. It was a cosmopolitan, open minded ecology.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article who was Alexander
Speaker 1: von Humboldt and what is the Whole Bolk Current on
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