Today (Sept. 14th) is the 250th anniversary of the birth of naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. It's been fun to become aware of Humboldt during his anniversary times (he died 160 years ago last May). As this article indicates, he was the first to develop an understanding of ecosystems, wrote (in the 1830s) about the dangers of deforestation and human-caused climate change, and brought the ancient Greek word "cosmos" into modern usage to describe interrelations on earth and in space, and between physical reality and human art and feeling. He influenced a wide range of people like Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Thoreau, artist Frederic Edwin Church, Walt Whitman, and many others. Thoreau figured out how to write "Walden" after he read Humboldt. Beth and I enjoyed visiting Humboldt University in Berlin this past June.https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/the-forgotten-man-of-science
See my earlier posts about Humboldt: http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/search/label/Humboldt%20%28Alexander%20von%29
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