Skip to main content
Charles Barber on Muck Rack

Charles Barber

As seen in: Bloomberg CityLab, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, The Conversation, Salon, Military Times, World Resources Institute, Connecticut Magazine, CT Insider, Connecticut Post, Hachette Book Group (HBG) and
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work. Claim your profile

Get in touch with Charles

Contact Charles, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.

Learn more about Muck Rack

Actions

Share this page

Is this you?

As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile

Articles

Can humanity regain control over fire?

|
By Charles Barber
| PreventionWeb
Your experience on PreventionWeb Please help us improve PreventionWeb by taking this brief survey. Your input will allow us to better serve the needs of the DRR community. See the survey 15 July 2026 Author(s): Charles (Chip) Barber Martin Snicer/flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0) For millennia, fire was humanity's greatest tool. Today, it’s one of our greatest threats. Recovering control will require learning from the past while confronting the political choices of the present.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Can Humanity Regain Control Over Fire?

|
By Charles Barber
| World Resources Institute
Of all the traits that distinguish Homo sapiens from every other creature on Earth, none has been more consequential than our relationship with fire. We are the only species that can control, sustain and deliberately start fires — and we have been doing so for an extraordinarily long time. Fossil and archaeological evidence suggests that our near-ancestor Homo erectus was already transporting burning material from one site to light fires elsewhere as far back as 1.5 million years ago.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Organized Crime in The Amazon: A Growing Threat to the World’s Greatest Tropical Rainforest

|
By Charles Barber
| World Resources Institute
Brazil once again leads the world in the loss of primary tropical forests. New data shows the country accounted for 42% of global primary rainforest loss in 2024, largely due to widespread fires throughout the nation and in neighboring Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. The 2024 spike in Amazon forest loss was due in large part to one of the worst fire seasons on record. But what’s often missed is the fact that recent fires in tropical primary forests are by no means a “natural” disaster.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?
See all 48 licensed articles (49 Total)