tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/anthropocene-2770/articlesAnthropocene – The Conversation2024-03-27T17:06:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2265542024-03-27T17:06:06Z2024-03-27T17:06:06ZThe Anthropocene already exists in our heads, even if it’s now officially not a geological epoch<p>An international subcommittee of geologists recently voted to reject a proposal to make the Anthropocene an official new geological epoch, defined by humanity’s enormous impact on the planet. Assuming some protests do not <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00868-1">overturn the ruling</a>, it will now take another decade for the decision to be reviewed.</p>
<p>That may seem a long time given climate change concerns, but it is of course far less than a blink in planetary terms. The Earth can certainly wait, even if we can’t.</p>
<p>But sometimes big ideas like the Anthropocene take time to find meaning in our lives and perhaps their answer. How do I know? Let me tell you a story.</p>
<p>Nine years ago, I was in Munich visiting friends. We went on a family outing to the Deutsche Museum, a world class celebration of technology and engineering in a vast building on an islet of the River Isar. The entrance was framed on either side by very tall vertical banners, fluttering in the breeze. </p>
<p>Each blue-green banner had an image of the Earth with a thumbprint overlay. And in bold white lettering, variously: “Welcome to the Anthropocene / Willkommen in Anthropozän”. The subtitle read: “The Earth in Our Hands”.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Banner saying 'Welcome to the Anthropocene'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584218/original/file-20240325-10418-iqzb07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Willkommen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kevin Collins</span></span>
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<p>I had to forgo the exhibition because my family wanted to see just about everything else. But even as I stood on the steps at the entrance, with my young son clutching my hand, it struck me as a curious title. </p>
<p>Why would anyone welcome anyone to the Anthropocene? Who would really want to go to that party? The invitation was, well, distinctly uninviting.</p>
<h2>Why ‘welcome’?</h2>
<p>I have thought about this troubling invitation on and off in the intervening years. Was “welcome” being ironic or even cynical perhaps – an invitation of despair and inevitability? But that contradicted the ethos of the museum and the academic Rachel Carson Centre which co-hosted the exhibition, where insight, learning and practical science are celebrated. So my question has remained: why “welcome”?</p>
<p>I finally realised an answer during a recent conversation with my PhD student <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Houda-Khayame">Houda Khayame</a> who is building on work between myself and colleague Ray Ison to explore how systems thinking and acting in the Anthropocene might improve <a href="https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/govan/?page_id=23">governance of our environment</a>. We were talking about how geologists have been searching for a “golden spike” in the mud or soil or Earth’s geological record as <a href="https://theconversation.com/dawn-of-the-anthropocene-five-ways-we-know-humans-have-triggered-a-new-geological-epoch-52867">evidence of the Anthropocene</a> ever since the term was popularised in 2000. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dawn-of-the-anthropocene-five-ways-we-know-humans-have-triggered-a-new-geological-epoch-52867">Dawn of the Anthropocene: five ways we know humans have triggered a new geological epoch</a>
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<p>I found myself advising that the only thing that really matters about the Anthropocene is that it reframes ourselves as a part of the human-earth dynamic. The evidence for the Anthropocene is not in the soil or mud. The golden spike is to be found in our heads. It is in the way we think about our human relationship to the Earth. </p>
<p>As soon as I had said it, I realised I had found the answer to the invitation that had been patiently waiting for a reply many years before in Munich. The invitation was to welcome the Anthropocene in a positive sense because until we do, we will not be in a position to alter our thinking to address the global agendas we face as we change the planet. </p>
<p>To welcome the Anthropocene as an idea is to reframe our relationship with the planet and move away from being recipients to active creators of the world we live in. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584784/original/file-20240327-24-uj15i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Humans are ‘active creators of the world we live in’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/monochrome-interchange-overpasses-mopac-expressway-highway-683338168">Roschetzky Photography / shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>In moving away from geology I would also shift terminology from “golden spike” to “golden thread” since this is both a more pleasing image if we are talking about heads and ideas and is also less dependent on the measurement and graphics of science. Importantly, a thread connects the different parts of our lives and can be extended to connect with others. </p>
<h2>The Anthropocene doesn’t depend on geology</h2>
<p>The geologists’ rejection of the Anthropocene is understandable in their need for scientific evidence. It may seem to be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-anthropocenes-critics-overlook-and-why-it-really-should-be-a-new-geological-epoch-225493">missed opportunity</a>, but it does not really matter because how we live in and experience the world does not depend on a signal in the geology. </p>
<p>Indeed, even in their official rejection, the International Union of Geological Scientists noted the Anthropocene as a concept is <a href="https://www.iugs.org/_files/ugd/f1fc07_40d1a7ed58de458c9f8f24de5e739663.pdf?index=true">part of popular culture</a>, as evidenced by the museum exhibition but also various <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/anthropocene-project">artworks</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever">books</a>.</p>
<p>The extent to which the Anthropocene really exists depends on our recognition and acceptance of the golden thread that we are all in an active back and forth relationship with the Earth. A socio-ecological relationship that has and will continue to shape our human-environment past, present and future.</p>
<p>Although I regretted missing the exhibition, I realise now that I did not need to see it. The banner at the entrance was enough to spark the inquiry. Accepting its welcome offers us the potential to make huge, golden strides in how we think about ourselves and our environment, and how we might live more sustainably.</p>
<p>Welcome, at last, to the Anthropocene.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226554/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea cannot be stopped, even if geologists have voted not to recognise a new epoch.Kevin Collins, Senior Lecturer, Environment & Systems, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254282024-03-26T21:00:42Z2024-03-26T21:00:42ZAnthropocene or not, it is our current epoch that we should be fighting for<p>Has the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Holocene-Epoch">Holocene epoch of the past 11,700 years</a> been supplanted by the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene/">proposed Anthropocene epoch</a> of today? Although it’s broadly accepted that planetary systems have changed as a result of human influence, a panel of experts at the International Union of Geological Sciences answered a firm “no” when they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00868-1">recently voted down recognizing the start of the new epoch</a>. </p>
<p>Does this mean that humans haven’t actually changed the planet? <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anthropocene-is-not-an-epoch-but-the-age-of-humans-is-most-definitely-underway-224495">Not at all</a> and while we may not officially be in a geological Anthropocene, the term will likely persist in reference to human environmental interference in years to come. As such, the wake of this vote is perhaps the best moment to consider a more essential question: what will we do next? </p>
<p>Can we take the official rejection on an Anthropocene epoch as an implicit vote of confidence in our ability to return the planet to Holocene-like conditions? Is climate change reversible?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/crawford-lake-what-the-past-can-teach-us-about-urban-living-today-209764">Crawford Lake: What the past can teach us about urban living today</a>
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<p>As a <a href="https://www.iisd.org/ela/blog/back-to-basics-what-is-a-limnologist/">limnologist</a>, I can share insights from long-term research on lakes. And as one Canadian lake, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-anthropocene-crawford-lake/">Crawford Lake, had been selected as the candidate “golden spike”</a> of the Anthropocene epoch, <a href="https://www.tvo.org/video/hope-in-the-age-of-climate-anxiety">what lakes tell us of human impacts, and recoveries from those impacts, may be worth considering</a>.</p>
<h2>Atomic age?</h2>
<p>There are elements of our future which cannot be undone. Although we can reduce future extinction rates, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.07.040">there is no coming back for the countless species that have disappeared due to human actions</a>. Likewise, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi5502">global human-caused redistribution of species is a permanent symptom of (and evidence for) the Anthropocene</a>. On the other hand, some measures of the Anthropocene seem inherently more ephemeral. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white image of a mushroom cloud." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584464/original/file-20240326-18-rgxkh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An image from the Trinity test at Los Alamos, the first nuclear explosion in human history. The onset of atmospheric nuclear explosions has often been cited as the critical starting moment in the Anthropocene epoch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>The residues of widespread nuclear weapons testing through the 1950s into the 1960s have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">generally been seen as a particularly strong indicator of the Anthropocene</a>. Scientists find evidence of this in lakes around the world in the form of trace amounts of Plutonium and Cesium in the sediments deposited during this period. </p>
<p>A rapid drop in atmospheric bomb testing in 1963 — upon the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty — has created a unique <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0096340215581357">“bomb pulse” which represents a global, unequivocally human, fingerprint</a>. The bomb pulse was considered evidence for a 1950 Anthropocene epoch start date and was likely the most critical factor in defining the Anthropocene. </p>
<p>However, which global human signal is more important for us to consider today: the fact that humans created and tested nuclear weapons, or that this was just a “pulse” as nuclear-armed states came together globally to change behaviour?</p>
<h2>Tipping points</h2>
<p>The most useful insights from lakes may come from how they experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0797-2">tipping point dynamics</a>, particularly as it relates to <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/eutrophication-causes-consequences-and-controls-in-aquatic-102364466/">eutrophication</a> (the excess growth of plants and algae in a body of water). </p>
<p>The widespread synthesis and application of fertilizers has caused eutrophication on a massive scale and has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1373">taken a huge toll around the globe, particularly on aquatic ecosystems</a>. Past a critical tipping point, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0169-5347(93)90254-M">eutrophication can fundamentally alter lakes</a>, replacing clear waters with turbid (cloudy), algae-dominated conditions <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix106">and impaired ecosystem functions and services</a>. </p>
<p>When seen in this light, it becomes clear that eutrophication is <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00200">a defining characteristic of the Anthropocene</a>. However, it is a characteristic that can be reversed — although restoration is not always straightforward. </p>
<p>Lakes, along with other ecosystems that feature tipping point dynamics, can be hard to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.35.021103.105711">flip back once they’ve passed the critical turbidity threshold</a>. Reducing the loading of nutrients into waterways can effectively improve water quality and there is evidence these efforts are effective. However, it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-024-05478-6">might take decades to re-establish desirable conditions in impacted systems</a>. </p>
<p>In some cases, it might take over a century, or even millennia, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0238-x">for watersheds to recover from human nutrient pollution</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A brief explanation of the process of eutrophication produced by Atlas Pro.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Although the process of full recovery may sometimes be lengthy (at least in human, not geological, timescales), <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.13701">rapid partial recoveries are possible</a>, as is the potential for <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.00194">intermediate lake conditions that fall outside of a simplified clear or turbid binary</a>. </p>
<p>Understanding the role of tipping point dynamics in lakes can provide a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/723892">useful framework for management and restoration strategies</a>, and at least bring us back to something perhaps similar to what was originally lost.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/weaving-indigenous-and-western-ways-of-knowing-can-help-canada-achieve-its-biodiversity-goals-201063">Essential Indigenous knowledge</a> — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13882">alongside natural history museums around the world</a> — can play a key role in retaining knowledge of how things were to help understand how our systems are changing, and what target conditions we might aim for in the near future.</p>
<h2>All is not lost</h2>
<p>This brings us back to our original question. To what degree is climate change reversible? Most world economies have <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition">committed to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions</a>. To date, 2023 featured the highest global carbon dioxide emissions yet, but these emissions likely would have been lower than those in 2022 if not for <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2023">droughts dampening hydroelectricity generation</a>. </p>
<p>To return to and stabilize ourselves within a desired Holocene-like climatic range, we will not only need to achieve net zero, but establish regenerative socio-economic systems that reduce atmospheric GHG concentrations in a sustainably just manner. </p>
<p>However, timing is crucial, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0">as globally connected tipping points</a> may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01333-w">accelerate the natural release of GHGs from oceans</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay1052">on land</a> and in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2795">inland waters</a>. </p>
<p>Put simply, while humans absolutely can stop burning fossil fuels, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsci.2023.1170744">we cannot guarantee how quickly our planet will cool</a>. Moreover, we cannot even guarantee that GHGs will decline with these actions — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7950">particularly once our warming exceeds 1.5 C</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A discussion on climate tipping points produced by the New York Times.</span></figcaption>
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<p>If there is anything to glean from the study of lakes, it might be that remediation is most effective before critical tipping points have been crossed. However, even beyond such tipping points, active remediation efforts are always worthwhile, if not outright necessary. </p>
<p>Systems governed by tipping point dynamics might not automatically bounce back, but they can substantially improve in the short term. Indeed, many affected systems can likely even eventually recover fully over decades to centuries if the appropriate rapid actions are taken.</p>
<p>Although none of this changes the recent outcome of the Anthropocene epoch being voted down, it may weigh on how we interpret that decision. The vote in no way implies that our species has not changed the world dramatically. Rather, it can remind us that the epoch we’re in, although perhaps unrecognizable, is not a lost one, and that we should muster all available resources and knowledge to return our planet to Holocene-like conditions as much as possible.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-stay-hopeful-in-a-world-seemingly-beyond-saving-210415">How to stay hopeful in a world seemingly beyond saving</a>
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<p>The challenge lying ahead of us will be to work actively to ensure that our planet remains welcoming, for not just humans but all biodiversity. It is time we abandon any sense of defeatism that might be associated with the Anthropocene and focus on what really matters: saving this epoch before it is too late.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Soren Brothers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent rejection of the start of the Anthropocene epoch reminds us of the paramount importance of preserving what remains of our current Holocene.Soren Brothers, Allan and Helaine Shiff Curator of Climate Change, Royal Ontario Museum and Assistant Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254932024-03-12T19:00:38Z2024-03-12T19:00:38ZWhat the Anthropocene’s critics overlook – and why it really should be a new geological epoch<p>Geologists on an international subcommission recently <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00675-8">voted down a proposal</a> to formally recognise that we have entered the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch representing the time when massive, unrelenting human impacts began to overwhelm the Earth’s regulatory systems. </p>
<p>A new epoch needs a start date. The geologists were therefore asked to vote on a proposal to mark the beginning of the Anthropocene using a sharp increase in plutonium traces found in sediment at the bottom of an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/crawford-lake-anthropocene-1.6902999">unusually undisturbed lake in Canada</a>, which aligned with many other markers of human impacts. </p>
<p>The entire process was <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00675-8">controversial</a> and the two us who are on the subcommission (chair Jan Zalasiewicz and vice-chair Martin Head) even <a href="https://www-riffreporter-de.translate.goog/de/wissen/streit-um-das-anthropozaen-fuehrender-forscher-haelt-abstimmung-fuer-ungueltig?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true">refused to cast a vote</a> as we did not want to legitimise it. In any case, the proposal ran into opposition from longstanding members.</p>
<p>Why this opposition? Many geologists, used to working with millions of years, find it hard to accept an epoch just seven decades long – that’s just one human lifetime. Yet the evidence suggests that the Anthropocene is very real. </p>
<p>Environmental scientist Erle Ellis was one critic who welcomed the decision, stating in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anthropocene-is-not-an-epoch-but-the-age-of-humans-is-most-definitely-underway-224495">The Conversation</a>: “If there is one main reason why geologists rejected this proposal, it is because its recent date and shallow depth are too narrow to encompass the deeper evidence of human-caused planetary change.”</p>
<p>It’s an oft-repeated argument. But it completely misses the point. When Paul Crutzen first proposed the term Anthropocene in a moment of insight at a scientific meeting in 2000, it was not from realisation that humans have been altering the functioning and geological record of the Earth, or to capture all their impacts under one umbrella term. He and his colleagues were perfectly aware that humans had been doing that for millennia. That’s nothing new.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/415023a">Crutzen’s insight</a> was wholly different. He said that the Earth system – that is, the really fundamental things like atmospheric composition, climate, all ecosystems – had recently sharply departed from the stability that they had shown for thousands of years during the Holocene epoch, a stability which allowed human civilisation to grow and flourish. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Huge cloud above city coming from large industrial chimney" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581347/original/file-20240312-24-8p7qxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humans have destabilised the Earth system in many ways.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">mykhailo pavlenko / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It makes no sense, Crutzen said, to use the Holocene for present time. He conceived the Anthropocene as the time when human impacts intensified, suddenly, dramatically, enough to push the Earth into a new state. The science journalist Andrew Revkin (who thought up the name “Anthrocene” even before Crutzen’s inspiration) aptly called it the “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/great-debate-over-when-anthropocene-started/587194/">big zoom</a>”.</p>
<h2>Flesh on bones</h2>
<p>We’re part of the <a href="http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/">Anthropocene Working Group (AWG)</a> that has been gathering evidence to put geological flesh on the bones of Crutzen’s concept. The AWG had a mandate: to assess the Anthropocene as a potential geological time unit during which “human modification of natural systems has become predominant”. Thus, not just any impact but a decisive one. </p>
<p>There’s now no doubt about this decisive change – nor that it has left <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20530196221136422">sufficient marks in recent geological layers</a> to justify the description of the Anthropocene as a geological time unit (for such a unit must be able to be read in layers of rock millions of years from now, and not just sensed as a change in conditions). These layers abound in fallout from nuclear bomb tests, microplastics, pesticides, <a href="https://neilr053.wixsite.com/gloscape">fly ash</a>, the shells of invasive species and much else.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dawn-of-the-anthropocene-five-ways-we-know-humans-have-triggered-a-new-geological-epoch-52867">Dawn of the Anthropocene: five ways we know humans have triggered a new geological epoch</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But how can one show the difference between Crutzen’s idea and the “age of humans” Ellis wrote about, which he, with others, has proposed to call an “<a href="https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2021/021029">Anthropocene event</a>” extending over 50,000 years or more? We can use the very diagram they used:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How various human activities have affected the planet over the millennia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3416">Philip Gibbard, et al., 2022</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s a nicely laid out, easy-to-understand picture that summarises the changes caused by human activity over the last million years. All these things certainly happened. But what is lost here is any sense of the quantified rate and magnitude of change, other than by a little shading. Looking at it, you’d wonder what the fuss was all about.</p>
<p>That’s because there’s no Y-axis (the vertical one). It only has the X-axis, that of time. The Y-axis is what scientists use to show the magnitude of measurements such as temperature and mass. It’s absolutely crucial to get an objective, number-based understanding of <a href="https://www.episodes.org/journal/view.html?doi=10.18814/epiiugs/2022/022025">what really is happening</a>.</p>
<p>Now let’s see how things look when a Y-axis is added. This just shows the last 30,000 years, that includes all the Holocene, but doesn’t use a logarithmic scale (that is, it doesn’t squash up the big numbers) so it more clearly shows how things relate to time.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphs showing greenhouse gas and temperature change over last 30,000 years" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581344/original/file-20240312-22-ieabja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Global atmospheric concentrations from ice core records of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) and global temperature over the past 30,000 years. There is a sharp, unprecedented uptick in values in the Anthropocene.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2023/023025">Adapted from Zalasiewicz et al al (2024)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The speed and magnitude of recent change jumps out at you. The sharp upturns are essentially Crutzen’s Anthropocene, representing the last 72 years of what has been called the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019614564785">great acceleration</a>” of population, consumption, industrialisation, technical innovation and globalisation (a more detailed way of expressing the “big zoom”). </p>
<p>Similar graphs can be drawn for species extinction and invasion rates, or the production and spread of fly ash, concrete, plastics, and a host of other things. They show that Crutzen’s Anthropocene is real, evidence based, and represents an epoch-scale change (at least). The significance for us all, of course, is that the near-vertical recent trends in these graphs are still, for the most part, rising, zooming us into a new kind of planet. The repercussions cannot fail to last for many thousands of years – and some will change the Earth for ever.</p>
<h2>Epoch vs event</h2>
<p>So the Anthropocene as an epoch is very different from the “event” of Erle Ellis and others, which encapsulates all human influence on the planet (and so is about a thousand times longer than the epoch, and differs in many other ways). They’re both valid concepts of course, and have some overlap, just like a mouse in some ways overlaps with a blue whale (they’re both mammals, and share a good deal of their genetic code). But they’re different. </p>
<p>It’s absurd, therefore, to give them the same name: to take Crutzen’s term and appropriate it for a wholly different purpose, and in doing so obscuring the real meaning of his insight and its significance. Under a different name (the Anthropolithic, perhaps?), it could perfectly well complement an Anthropocene epoch.</p>
<p>Humans have had a long and complex impact on the planet, true. For almost all that time, they left their marks on Earth – but did not utterly overwhelm it. Less than a century ago, processes that began during the Industrial Revolution swung into overdrive. That’s the Anthropocene as an epoch. It’s real, it’s already made geology, and it won’t go away. Best to acknowledge it, to help us cope with its consequences. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225493/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Turner is Secretary of the Anthropocene Working Group.
Simon Turner received funding (2020-2023) from Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW, Berlin) as Scientific Coordinator for 'Evidence & Experiment' and 'Anthropocene Curriculum' programmes (<a href="https://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org">https://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org</a>). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Waters is Chair of the Anthropocene Working Group. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Zalasiewicz is affiliated with Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (Chair) and
Anthropocene Working Group. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Head is part of the Anthropocene Working Group and the Quaternary Subcommission.</span></em></p>Geologists recently voted down a proposal to formally recognise the Anthropocene.Simon Turner, Senior Research Fellow in Geography, UCLColin Waters, Honorary Professor, Department of Geology, University of LeicesterJan Zalasiewicz, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of LeicesterMartin J. Head, Professor of Earth Sciences, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244952024-03-05T21:19:45Z2024-03-05T21:19:45ZThe Anthropocene is not an epoch − but the age of humans is most definitely underway<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580004/original/file-20240305-26-j0m1i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C180%2C5727%2C3599&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Human influence on the climate started even before the Industrial Revolution.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/factoryscape-in-the-potteries-smoke-from-chimneys-in-the-news-photo/1036135896?adppopup=true">Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When people talk about the “Anthropocene,” they typically picture the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-anthropocene-a-very-short-introduction-9780198792987?cc=us&lang=en&">vast impact human societies are having</a> on the planet, from <a href="https://www.ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment">rapid declines in biodiversity</a> to <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/">increases in Earth’s temperature</a> by burning fossil fuels.</p>
<p>Such massive planetary changes did not begin all at once at any single place or time.</p>
<p>That’s why <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-anthropocene-start-in-1950-or-much-earlier-heres-why-debate-over-our-world-changing-impact-matters-209869">it was controversial</a> when, after over a decade of study and debate, an international committee of scientists – <a href="http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/">the Anthropocene Working Group</a> – proposed to mark the Anthropocene as an epoch in the <a href="https://stratigraphy.org/chart#latest-version">geologic time scale</a> starting precisely in 1952. The marker was radioactive fallout from hydrogen bomb tests.</p>
<p>On March 4, 2024, the commission responsible for recognizing time units within our most recent period of geologic time – the <a href="http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/">Subcommission on Quarternary Stratigraphy</a> – rejected that proposal, with 12 of 18 members voting no. These are the scientists most expert at reconstructing Earth’s history from the evidence in rocks. They determined that adding an Anthropocene Epoch – and terminating the Holocene Epoch – was not supported by the standards used to define epochs.</p>
<p>To be clear, this vote has no bearing on the overwhelming evidence that human societies are indeed transforming this planet.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://ges.umbc.edu/ellis/">an ecologist who studies global change</a>, I served on the <a href="http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/">Anthropocene Working Group</a> from its start in 2009 until 2023. <a href="https://anthroecology.org/why-i-resigned-from-the-anthropocene-working-group/">I resigned</a> because I was convinced that this proposal defined the Anthropocene so narrowly that it would damage broader scientific and public understanding. </p>
<p>By tying the start of the human age to such a recent and devastating event – nuclear fallout – this proposal risked sowing confusion about the deep history of how humans are transforming the Earth, from climate change and biodiversity losses to pollution by plastics and tropical deforestation.</p>
<h2>The original idea of the Anthropocene</h2>
<p>In the years since the term Anthropocene was coined by Nobel Prize-winning <a href="https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/15445/2023/">atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen</a> in 2000, it has increasingly defined our times as an age of human-caused planetary transformation, from climate change to biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, megafires and much more.</p>
<p>Crutzen originally proposed that the Anthropocene began in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/415023a">latter part of the 18th century</a>, as a product of the Industrial age. He also noted that setting a more precise start date would be “<a href="https://www.mpic.de/3865097/the-anthropocene">arbitrary</a>.” </p>
<p>According to geologists, we humans have been living in the Holocene Epoch for about 11,700 years, since the end of the last ice age. </p>
<p>Human societies began influencing Earth’s biodiversity and climate through agriculture <a href="https://cligs.vt.edu/blog/climate-change--a-new-twist-on-a-very-old-story.html">thousands of years ago</a>. These changes began to accelerate about five centuries ago with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-began-with-species-exchange-between-old-and-new-worlds-38674">colonial collision of the old and new worlds</a>. And, as Crutzen noted, Earth’s climate really began to change with the increasing use of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/The-Industrial-Revolution">fossil fuels in the Industrial Revolution</a> that began in the late 1700s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579988/original/file-20240305-20-6j3yag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A chart reflecting timing of the ‘Anthropocene Event’ shows how various human activities have affected the planet over mlllennia in the recent geologic time scale. Click the image to enlarge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3416">Philip Gibbard, et al., 2022</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Anthropocene as an epoch</h2>
<p>The rationale for proposing to define an Anthropocene Epoch starting around 1950 came from overwhelming evidence that many of the most consequential changes of the human age shifted upward dramatically about that time in a so-called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019614564785">Great Acceleration” identified by climate scientist Will Steffen</a> and others. </p>
<p>Radioisotopes like plutonium from hydrogen bomb tests conducted around this time left clear traces in soils, sediments, trees, corals and other potential geological records across the planet. The plutonium peak in the sediments of Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada – <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-anthropocene-start-in-1950-or-much-earlier-heres-why-debate-over-our-world-changing-impact-matters-209869">chosen as the “golden spike</a>” for determining the start of the Anthropocene Epoch – is well marked in the lake bed’s exceptionally clear sediment record. </p>
<h2>The Anthropocene Epoch is dead; long live the Anthropocene</h2>
<p>So why was the Anthropocene Epoch rejected? And what happens now?</p>
<p>The proposal to add an Anthropocene Epoch to the geological time scale was rejected for a variety of reasons, none of them related to the fact that human societies are changing this planet. In fact, the opposite is true. </p>
<p>If there is one main reason why geologists rejected this proposal, it is because its recent date and shallow depth are too narrow to encompass the deeper evidence of human-caused planetary change. As geologist <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa7297">Bill Ruddiman and others wrote in Science Magazine in 2015</a>, “Does it really make sense to define the start of a human-dominated era millennia after most forests in arable regions had been cut for agriculture?”</p>
<p>Discussions of an Anthropocene Epoch aren’t over yet. But it is very unlikely that there will be an official Anthropocene Epoch declaration anytime soon.</p>
<p>The lack of a formal definition of an Anthropocene Epoch will not be a problem for science. </p>
<p>A scientific definition of the Anthropocene is already widely available in the form of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3416">the Anthropocene Event</a>, which basically defines Anthropocene <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104340">in simple geological terms</a> as “a complex, transformative, and ongoing event analogous to the Great Oxidation Event and others in the geological record.”</p>
<p>So, despite the “no” vote on the Anthropocene Epoch, the Anthropocene will continue to be as useful as it has been for more than 20 years in stimulating discussions and research into the nature of human transformation of this planet. </p>
<p><em>This article was updated to clarify that a new attempt at an official Anthropocene Epoch declaration is unlikely soon.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erle C. Ellis is a former member of the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. He is a member of the American Association of Geographers.</span></em></p>Scientists have been debating the start of the Anthropocene Epoch for 15 years. I was part of those discussions, and I agree with the vote rejecting it.Erle C. Ellis, Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212922024-02-04T13:33:52Z2024-02-04T13:33:52ZWhy now is the time to address humanity’s impact on the moon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572329/original/file-20240131-15-x809b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C29%2C6500%2C3532&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mining the moon for its resources is growing more and more likely.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humans have always looked at the sky, using the stars as navigation guides or for spiritual storytelling. Every human civilization has looked to the stars and used celestial movements to measure time and find meaning.</p>
<p>This insatiable thirst for knowledge combined with technological advancements have made it possible for us to dream of travelling in space. These dreams became more and more real after the Second World War, the Industrial Revolution, the Cold War and the large-scale exploitation of the Earth’s resources.</p>
<p>Dreams of space travel started small with the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/sputnik-1/">launch of Sputnik-1 by the Soviet Union</a>, and escalated with the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/history/apollo-11-mission-overview/">U.S. Apollo landing on the moon in 1969</a>.</p>
<p>Six decades later, plans are ramping up for <a href="https://www.virgingalactic.com/">space tourism</a>, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/">missions to the moon and Mars</a>, and <a href="https://www.space.com/moon-mining-gains-momentum">mining on the moon</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://lunarresourcesregistry.com/">Lunar Resources Registry</a>, a private business that locates valuable resources on the moon and helps investors conduct the required exploration and extraction operations, notes: “The space race is evolving into space industrialization.” </p>
<p>According to NASA, “the moon holds <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/the-lunar-gold-rush-how-moon-mining-could-work">hundreds of billions of dollars of untapped resources</a>,” including water, helium-3 and <a href="https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/">rare earth metals</a> used in electronics.</p>
<h2>The dawn of the Anthropocene</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a black and white photo of a footprint on a sedimentary surface" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572349/original/file-20240131-21-a3nhp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A close-up view of an astronaut’s footprint in the lunar soil, photographed in July 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.nasa.gov/details/6901250">(Marshall Space Flight Center/NASA)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a group of academics researching various aspects of environmental sustainability on Earth, we are alarmed at the speed of these developments and the impacts resource exploitation will have on lunar and space environments. </p>
<p>There is a movement among the international geologic scientific community calling for a new epoch — <a href="https://brocku.ca/and/crawford-lake/">the Anthropocene</a> — reflecting the enormous extent to which human activity has altered the planet since the end of the Second World War.</p>
<p>Stratigraphers — geologists who study the layers of rock and sediment — look for measurable global impact of human activities in the geologic record. According to their research, the starting point for the Anthropocene has been identified as beginning in the 1950s, <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene/">and the fallout from nuclear testing</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-term-anthropocene-jumped-from-geoscience-to-hashtags-before-most-of-us-knew-what-it-meant-130130">How the term 'Anthropocene' jumped from geoscience to hashtags – before most of us knew what it meant</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To shock humankind into preventing the extensive destruction in space that we have wrought on Earth, it may be effective to add a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01347-4">lunar Anthropocene</a>” to the moon’s geologic time scale.</p>
<p>The case for a lunar Anthropocene is interesting. It can be argued that since the first human contact with the moon’s surface, we have seen anthropogenic impact. This impact is likely to increase dramatically. This is presented as justification for a new geologic epoch for the moon. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a mushroom cloud caused by a nuclear explosion" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572350/original/file-20240131-19-c72v6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image captured immediately after the first atomic explosion in Alamogordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945. The presence of nuclear traces of the fallout from the initial nuclear explosions is claimed to mark the beginning of the Anthropocene.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Damaging the Earth</h2>
<p>This new “human epoch” is hotly debated among stratigraphers as well as researchers in other disciplines. For humanities researchers and artists, the importance of the Anthropocene lies in the power the concept has to evoke human responsibility for bringing the Earth’s system to a <a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate/Understanding_climate_tipping_points">tipping point</a>. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/products/136-the-shock-of-the-anthropocene"><em>The Shock of the Anthropocene</em></a>, historians Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz argue that the new human epoch entails recognizing that technoscientific advances — which have driven socio-political economies relying on extractivism, consumption and waste — have led to the extent of damage we measure on Earth at present. </p>
<p>For millenia, most societies understood the importance of their relationship with the natural world for survival. But industrialization and the endlessly growing economy in developed countries has destroyed this relationship. </p>
<p>For example, trees used to be respected for providing timber, food, shade and more. But our industrial growth changed all that; in the past 100 years, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-lost-one-third-forests">more trees have been cut</a> than had been felled in the preceding 9,000 years.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/killing-trees-how-true-environmental-protection-requires-a-revolution-in-how-we-talk-about-and-with-our-forests-214899">'Killing' trees: How true environmental protection requires a revolution in how we talk about, and with, our forests</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A lunar Anthropocene</h2>
<p>And now the Anthropocene, this age of human impact, is also arriving on the moon.</p>
<p>NASA estimates there are already <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/national/500-000-pounds-human-trash-litters-the-moon-report-finds/wWeCaVjLmtz0u2ZunyqcLI/">227,000 kilos of human garbage littering the moon</a>, mostly from space explorations, including <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/strange-things-humans-have-left-on-moon">moon buggies and other equipment</a>, excrement, statues, golf balls, human ashes and flags, among other objects. </p>
<p>An increasing number of moon missions and extracting resources from the moon <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/jan/06/moons-resources-could-be-destroyed-by-thoughtless-exploitation-nasa-warned">could destroy lunar environments</a>. This mirrors what has happened on our planet: humans have used this collection of “natural resources” and produced enough waste and degradation to bring us to the current <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthpedia-articles/its-too-late-the-6th-mass-extinction-is-here/">sixth mass extinction precipice</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_tdsia6EZY8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">With the Artemis missions, NASA is planning to reestablish a human presence on the moon.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our throwaway society leads to not only habitat destruction on Earth, but also now on the moon and in space. We must rethink what we really need. Without a fully functional Earth system, including biodiversity and nature’s contribution to life, we will be unable to survive. </p>
<p>If the intent is to issue a word of caution and pre-emptively shock and elicit a feeling of responsibility on the part of those actors likely to impact the moon’s surface, it may very well be the right time to name a lunar Anthropocene. This may help prevent the kind of extensive and careless destruction we have caused and continue to witness on Earth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Daigle receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liette Vasseur receives funding from the Exploration New Frontiers Research Funds.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Ellen Good does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As space travel and lunar exploration becomes a near-future reality, we should consider the impact of human activities on the lunar environment.Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy, Brock UniversityJennifer Ellen Good, Associate Professor and Chair, Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Brock UniversityLiette Vasseur, Professor, Biological Sciences, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220912024-02-01T14:50:17Z2024-02-01T14:50:17ZHermit crabs find new homes in plastic waste: shell shortage or clever choice?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571882/original/file-20240129-15-j4gupx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists have found that hermit crabs are increasingly using plastic and other litter as makeshift shell homes</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hermit-crab-carrying-plastic-bottle-cap-1962035515">metamorworks/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Land hermit crabs have been using bottle tops, parts of old light bulbs and broken glass bottles, instead of shells. </p>
<p>New research by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723075885">Polish researchers</a> studied 386 images of hermit crabs occupying these artificial shells. The photos had been uploaded by users to online platforms, then analysed by scientists using a research approach known as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016953472030077X">iEcology</a>. Of the 386 photos, the vast majority, 326 cases, featured hermit crabs using plastic items as shelters. </p>
<p>At first glance, this is a striking example of how human activities can alter the behaviour of wild animals, and potentially the ways that <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.893453/full">populations and ecosystems function</a> as a result. But there are lots of factors at play and, while it’s easy to jump to conclusions, it’s important to consider exactly what might be driving this particular change. </p>
<h2>Shell selection</h2>
<p>Hermit crabs are an excellent model organism to study because they behave in many different ways and those differences can be easily measured. Instead of continuously growing their own shell to protect their body, like a normal crab or a lobster would, they use empty shells left behind by dead snails. As they walk around, the shell protects their soft abdomen but whenever they are threatened they retract their whole body into the shell. Their shells act as portable shelters.</p>
<p>Having a good enough shell is critical to an individual’s survival so they acquire and upgrade their shells as they grow. They fight other hermit crabs for shells and assess any new shells that they might find for suitability. Primarily, they look for shells that are large enough to protect them, but <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0761">their decision-making</a> also takes into account the type of snail shell, its condition and even its colour – a factor that could impact how conspicuous the crab might be.</p>
<p>Another factor that constrains shell choice is the actual availability of suitable shells. For some as yet unknown reason, a proportion of land hermit crabs are choosing to occupy plastic items rather than natural shells, as highlighted by this <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723075885">latest study</a>. </p>
<h2>Housing crisis or ingenious new move?</h2>
<p>Humans have intentionally changed the behaviour of animals for millennia, through the process of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213305413000052">domestication</a>. Any unintended behavioural changes in natural animal populations are potentially concerning, but how worried should we be about hermit crabs using plastic litter as shelter? </p>
<p>The Polish research raises a number of questions. First, how prevalent is the adoption of plastic litter instead of shells? While 326 crabs using plastic seems like a lot, this is likely to be an underestimation of the raw number given that users are likely to encounter crabs only in accessible parts of the populations. Conversely, it seems probable that users could be biased towards uploading striking or unusual images, so the iEcology approach might produce an exaggerated impression of the proportion of individuals in a population opting for plastic over natural shells. We need structured field surveys to clarify this. </p>
<p>Second, why are some individual crabs using plastic? One possibility is that they are forced to due to a lack of natural shells, but we can’t test this hypothesis without more information on the demographics of local snail populations. Or perhaps the crabs prefer plastic or find it easier to locate, compared with real shells? As the authors point out, plastic might be lighter than the equivalent shells affording the same amount of protection but at lower energy cost of carrying them. Intriguingly, chemicals that leach out of plastic are known to attract marine hermit crabs by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X21005671#:%7E:text=Our%20findings%20show%20that%20the,the%20artificial%20feeding%20stimulant%20betaine">mimicking the odour of food</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hermit crab using red plastic bottle cap as a shell, walking across beach surface covered in sand and seaweed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572811/original/file-20240201-23-4epat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572811/original/file-20240201-23-4epat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572811/original/file-20240201-23-4epat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572811/original/file-20240201-23-4epat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572811/original/file-20240201-23-4epat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572811/original/file-20240201-23-4epat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572811/original/file-20240201-23-4epat6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As hermit crabs adapt to an increase in plastic pollution, more research is needed to investigate the nuances.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hermit-crab-plastic-shell-zanzibar-2270754839">Bertrand Godfroid/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This leads to a third question about the possible downsides of using plastic. Compared to real shells plastic waste tends to be brighter and might contrast more with the background making the crabs more vulnerable to predators. Additionally, we know that exposure to microplastics and compounds that leach from plastic can change the behaviour of hermit crabs, making them <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36978596/#:%7E:text=Plastic%2Dexposed%20hermit%20crabs%20were,exposure%20disrupting%20hermit%20crab%20cognition">less fussy</a> about the shells that they choose, less adept at <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8511743/">fighting for shells</a> and even changing their personalities by making them more prone to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666911020300058">take risks</a>. To answer these questions about the causes and consequences of hermit crabs using plastic waste in this way, we need to investigate their shell selection behaviour through a series of laboratory experiments.</p>
<h2>Pollution changes behaviour</h2>
<p>Plastic pollution is just one of the ways we are changing our environment. It’s by far the most <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X14008571">highly reported form</a> of debris that we have introduced to marine environments. But animal behaviour is affected by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723059879?via%3Dihub">other forms of pollution</a> too, including microplastics, pharmaceuticals, light and noise, plus the rising temperatures and ocean acidification caused by climate change. </p>
<p>So while investigating the use of plastic waste by hermit crabs could help us better understand the consequences of certain human impacts on the environment, it doesn’t show how exactly animals will adjust to the Anthropocene, the era during which human activity has been having a significant impact on the planet. Will they cope by using plastic behavioural responses or evolve across generations, or perhaps both? In my view, the iEcology approach cannot answer questions like this. Rather, this study acts as an alarm bell highlighting potential changes that now need to be fully investigated.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Briffa works for the University of Plymouth. He receives funding from the UK BBSRC. </span></em></p>Hermit crabs have been using plastic waste such as bottle tops as homes instead of empty snail shells.Mark Briffa, Professor of Animal Behaviour, University of PlymouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182012024-01-19T13:41:44Z2024-01-19T13:41:44ZI’m an artist using scientific data as an artistic medium − here’s how I make meaning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569152/original/file-20240112-27-8u7iv7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C0%2C1393%2C932&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sarah Nance at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Sarah Nance</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/art/profile.html?id=snance">artist working across media</a>, I’ve used everything from thread to my voice to poetically translate and express information. Recently, I’ve been working with another medium – geologic datasets. </p>
<p>While scientists use data visualization to show the results of a dataset in interesting and informative ways, my goal as an artist is a little different. In the studio, I treat geologic data as another material, using it to guide my interactions with Mylar film, knitting patterns or opera. Data, in my work, functions expressively and abstractly. </p>
<p>Two of my projects in particular, “points of rupture” and “tidal arias,” exemplify this way of working. In these pieces, my goal is to offer new ways for people to personally relate to the immense scale of geologic time.</p>
<h2>Points of rupture</h2>
<p>An early project in which I treated data as a medium was my letterpress print series “<a href="https://www.sarahnance.com/shroud/alaska">points of rupture</a>.” In this series, I encoded data from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/cryoseism">cryoseismic, or ice quake</a>, events to create knitting patterns. </p>
<p>Working with ice quake data was a continuation of my research into what I call “archived landscapes.” These are places that have had multiple distinct geologic identities over time, like <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gumo/learn/nature/coralreefs.htm">mountains that were once sea reefs</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="silver knitting symbols on black background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569121/original/file-20240112-17-umjli0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘points of rupture (alaska glacial event 1999),’ 2020. Letterpress print of knitting pattern coded using cryoseismic data. Edition of 15. 18 x 18 in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Nance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because knit textiles are made up of many individual stitches, I can use them to encode discrete data points. In a knitting pattern, or chart, each kind of stitch is represented by a specific symbol. I used the open-source program <a href="https://stitch-maps.com">Stitch Maps</a> to write the patterns for this project, translating the peaks and valleys of seismographs into individual stitch symbols. </p>
<p>Knitting charts typically display these symbols in a grid. Instead, Stitch Maps allows them to fall as they would when knitted, so the chart mimics the shape of the final textile. </p>
<p>I was drawn to the expressive possibilities of this feature and how the software allowed me to experiment. I was able to write patterns that worked only in theory and not as physical, handmade structures. This gave me more freedom to design patterns that fully expressed the datasets without having to ensure their viability as textiles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="graphite drawing of mitten knitting chart on gallery wall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568495/original/file-20240109-29-ojgmd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘and when you change the landscape, is it with bare hands or with gloves? (lichen, woodwork, grate),’ 2023. Graphite drawing of selbu mitten knitting chart. 99 x 67 linear inches as installed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Nance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://nsidc.org/learn/parts-cryosphere/glaciers">Glaciers form</a> incrementally as new snowfall compacts previous layers of snow, crystallizing them into ice. A knitted fabric similarly accumulates in layers, as rows of interlocking loops. Each structure appears stable but could easily be dissolved.</p>
<p>Ice quakes occur in glaciers as a result of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/cryoseism">calving events or pooling meltwater</a>. Like melting glaciers, knitting is always in danger of coming apart – but instead of melting, by snagging and unraveling into formlessness. These structural similarities between glaciers and knitting are reflected in the “points of rupture” prints, where disruptive ice quakes translate into unknittable patterns. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="silver knitting symbols on black background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569080/original/file-20240112-19-758bfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘points of rupture (glacier de la plaine morte icequake 2016),’ 2020. Letterpress print of knitting pattern coded using cryoseismic data. Edition of 15. 18 x 18 in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Nance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The loop</h2>
<p>Repeated, interlocking loops are the base units that compose the structure of a knitted textile. The loop also forms the seed of an in-progress work I pursued during an artist residency with the <a href="https://lunarscience.nasa.gov/sserviteams">NASA</a> <a href="https://www.geodes.umd.edu">GEODES</a> research group. I joined their research team in Flagstaff, Arizona, in August 2023. I assisted in gathering data from sites within the San Francisco volcanic field, while also conducting my own fieldwork: photography, drawing, note-taking and walking.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A digital map showing a crater, with a green circle indicating the path walked, around the lip of the crater." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568498/original/file-20240109-21-we196t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah Nance’s walk at S P Crater in Arizona, as recorded in AllTrails.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot of All Trails map</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of my walks was a trek around a particularly prominent geologic loop – the rim of the S P cinder cone volcano. This is the second crater walk I’ve completed, the first being a tracing of the subsurface rim of the <a href="https://insider.si.edu/2013/03/iowa-meteorite-crater-confirmed/">Decorah impact structure</a> in Iowa. </p>
<p>I see my paths through these landscapes as stand-ins for yarn. Over time, by taking walks that trace craters, or geologic loops, I will perform a textile. The performance of something as familiar as a textile offers me a new way to think about something that is much more difficult to comprehend – <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/geologic-time">geologic time</a>. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A square box with the words 'Art & Science Collide' and a drawing of a lightbulb with its wire filament in the shape of a brain, surrounded by a circle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567788/original/file-20240103-23-yg479z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Art & Science Collide series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">source</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/art-in-science-series-2024-149583">This article is part of Art & Science Collide</a></strong>, a series examining the intersections between art and science.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/literature-inspired-my-medical-career-why-the-humanities-are-needed-in-health-care-217357">Literature inspired my medical career: Why the humanities are needed in health care</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/i-wrote-a-play-for-children-about-integrating-the-arts-into-stem-fields-heres-what-i-learned-about-encouraging-creative-interdisciplinary-thinking-218001">I wrote a play for children about integrating the arts into STEM fields – here’s what I learned about interdisciplinary thinking</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/art-and-science-entwined-this-course-explores-the-long-interrelated-history-of-two-ways-of-seeing-the-world-210250">Art and science entwined: This course explores the long, interrelated history of two ways of seeing the world </a></p>
<hr>
<h2>Performance and tides</h2>
<p>Performance has been a useful tool in my work, as it can help people understand and relate to geologic processes.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="artist's hands holding small chunk of glacial ice" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569102/original/file-20240112-21-spkjsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘transference,’ 2017. Atlantic sea ice, body heat. Documentation of site-responsive performance on the East Coast Trail, Newfoundland, Canada. Project supported in part by La Soupée, Galerie Diagonale, Montréal, Québec.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Nance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The field of geology emerges from a <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-billion-black-anthropocenes-or-none">long history</a> of extraction and <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/geontologies">colonialist ventures</a>. In this context, land is valued for its economic importance – as raw material to be extracted or territory to be claimed. In my performances, I aim to interact with geology as its own active entity, rather than as a consumable resource. </p>
<p>In recent years, I have composed and performed two arias from tidal data. </p>
<p>The first, “<a href="https://www.sarahnance.com/marseille">marseille tidal gauge aria</a>,” sourced 130 years of sea level data collected from a tidal gauge in the Bay of Marseille, France. I converted each yearly average sea level into an individual note within my vocal range. This resulted in a composition that expresses the rising sea levels of the bay as increasingly higher pitches in the aria. </p>
<p>Its lyrics come from a somber poem in Rasu-Yong Tugen’s book “<a href="https://gnomebooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/songs-from-the-black-moon/">Songs From the Black Moon</a>.” Each note of the aria communicates not just the measured sea level but also my emotive response to this dataset. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black flexi disc with gold text and image" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569098/original/file-20240112-23-ffk4lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘tidal arias,’ 2022. Limited edition flexi disc with vocal performances ‘marseille tidal gauge aria’ and ‘skagway tidal aria.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Nance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Last fall, “marseille tidal gauge aria” was transmitted <a href="https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/ionosphere">to the ionosphere</a>, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. This was done as part of artist Amanda Dawn Christie’s project “<a href="https://ghostsintheairglow.space/transmission/august-2023">Ghosts in the Air Glow</a>,” using the <a href="https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu">High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program</a>’s ionospheric research instrument, which is an array of 180 antennas transmitting high-frequency radio waves. </p>
<p>The aria’s transmission reflected off the ionosphere, back to Earth and to shortwave radio listeners around the world.</p>
<p>For the second of these vocal pieces, “skagway tidal aria,” I used predictive as well as recorded tidal data from Skagway, Alaska. With this data, I composed an aria for <a href="https://t2051mcc.com">The 2051 Munich Climate Conference</a>, where speakers presented from the perspective of a climate-altered world 30 years in the future. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="vocal music score" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569106/original/file-20240112-25-4mocnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Score for ‘skagway tidal aria,’ 2021. Recorded and speculative tidal data from Skagway, Alaska (1945-2081), sonified as a vocal composition. Text from ‘Songs From the Black Moon’ by Rasu-Yong Tugen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Nance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I was drawn to this particular dataset because the falling tide levels in Skagway appear to contradict the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-drives-sea-level-rise-us-report-warns-of-1-foot-rise-within-three-decades-and-more-frequent-flooding-177211">global trend of rising sea levels</a>. However, this is a temporary effect caused by melting glaciers releasing pressure on the land, allowing it to rise faster than water levels. The effect will flatten over the next half-century, and Skagway’s tides will start to rise again.</p>
<p>Over the next few months, I’ll be working with geophysical datasets gathered during the NASA GEODES field expedition to write new arias. I want these pieces to continue blurring the separation between the human and the geologic, inviting listeners to think more deeply about their own relationships with the lands they use and occupy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author's projects with GEODES and Ghosts in the Air Glow were supported with funding from these organizations.</span></em></p>Sarah Nance uses geologic data and a variety of artistic media to help people think about their place in the landscapes they use and occupy.Sarah Nance, Assistant Professor of Integrated Practice in Art and Design, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183142023-12-22T19:00:18Z2023-12-22T19:00:18ZSkip ‘Die Hard’ this Christmas and watch these 5 films to better understand the climate crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566748/original/file-20231219-19-k72k4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C81%2C1433%2C892&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ethan Hawke plays a minister in 'First Reformed,' (2017) a film that prompts viewers to rethink what they assume they already know, from politics to religion to the climate crisis.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(A24)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/skip-die-hard-this-christmas-and-watch-these-5-films-to-better-understand-the-climate-crisis" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The holiday season is, for many, a time for cherished rituals and down time, including watching movies like <em>It’s a Wonderful Life</em>, <em>Elf</em> or <em>Die Hard</em>.</p>
<p>But this season is also a time for reflection on our lives and the world around us beset by conflict — and the worsening climate crisis. </p>
<p>Here are five film recommendations to help combine ritual and reflection. These films are analyzed in a forthcoming <a href="https://www.filmstudies.ca/2022/02/cjfs-special-issue-cfp-climate-change-and-cinema">special issue</a> of the <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/loi/cjfs"><em>Canadian Journal of Film Studies</em></a> on “Climate Change and Cinema” that I co-edited with my colleague <a href="https://www.stu.ca/english/andre-loiselle/">André Loiselle</a>, a professor of film studies at St. Thomas University.</p>
<p><strong>1. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6053438/"><em>First Reformed</em></a> (2017)</strong></p>
<p>This film, chronicling the spiritual troubles of Rev. Ernst Toller, played by Ethan Hawke, supports understanding and communion with others in responding to the climate crisis. </p>
<p>So explains <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/communication-arts/people-profiles/anders-bergstrom">Anders Bergstrom</a>, a University of Waterloo film and media scholar, in his article “Well Somebody Has to Do Something! <em>First Reformed</em> and Conceptualizing the Climate Crisis.” </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://offscreen.com/view/revisiting-paul-schraders-transcendental-style-in-film">transcendental film style</a> used by writer and director Paul Schrader, unadorned dialogue, slow pacing and plain images are used, not to convey realism, but to present a heightened, unified and spiritual picture of existence. This style prompts viewers to rethink what they assume they already know, from politics to religion to the climate crisis.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hCF5Y8dQpR4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘First Reformed.’</span></figcaption>
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<p><em>First Reformed</em> sees Toller, in a small congregation in upstate New York, grappling with mounting self-pity brought on partly by a tormented past. Early in the film, he counsels a young — and possibly violent — environmental activist in despair. </p>
<p>Toller explains: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Courage is the solution to despair. Reason provides no answers. I can’t know what the future will bring. We have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later, Toller confronts a church philanthropist whose wealth derives from his company, a major polluter. Toller asks him: “Will God forgive us for what we’re doing to His creation?” </p>
<p>But the corporate philanthropist dismisses this. He turns the conversation back to the fact that the environmentalist whom Toller counselled killed himself. “You need to look at yourself before counselling others,” he warns the minister.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-stay-hopeful-in-a-world-seemingly-beyond-saving-210415">How to stay hopeful in a world seemingly beyond saving</a>
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<p>Bergstrom explains how, for the rest of the film, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/movies/first-reformed-review-paul-schrader-ethan-hawke.html">the directness</a> of its slow and spare style compels us to imagine for ourselves, not only how Toller will respond, but also our own responses. </p>
<p>As the film builds toward its shocking denouement, the minister rejects despair and puts his faith in gathering up what he has and perhaps starting again. His choice recalls the teaching of St. Augustine: “<a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/5129/columns/draw-near">Love, and do as you will</a>.” No spoilers here: you’ll have to watch to see what happens. </p>
<p><strong>2. <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8399690/">Anthropocene: The Human Epoch</a></em> (2018)</strong></p>
<p>There is a scene in <em>First Reformed</em> where the camera slowly pans up and over funeral mourners to an endless sea of rubber tires. It then cuts to factory smokestacks, piles of plastic bottles, burning landscapes and barges polluting lifeless waterways. </p>
<p>This scene is remarkably similar to the Canadian documentary film <em>Anthropocene: The Human Epoch</em>, featuring the work of renowned landscape photographer <a href="https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/">Edward Burtynsky</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Anthropocene: The Human Epoch’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In <em>Anthropocene</em>, we see static forms, slow-tracking shots, little-to-no dialogue and repeated compositions. <a href="https://brocku.ca/social-sciences/cpcf/people-in-the-department/christie-milliken/">Christie Milliken</a>, a film studies professor at Brock University, writes in “Documenting the Anthropocene: Scale, Magnitude and Obfuscation in the Burtynsky Trilogy” that the film’s images “have had a haunting, mobilizing and protracted impact on me as a viewer, as a critic, and as a scholar.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-lake-holds-the-key-to-the-beginning-of-the-anthropocene-a-new-geological-epoch-209576">A Canadian lake holds the key to the beginning of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p><em>Anthropocene’s</em> creators sought to make climate-change research accessible by weaving together iconic examples. They travelled to six continents to document humans’ impact on the planet.</p>
<p><em>Anthropocene</em> challenges viewers to confront the uncomfortable fact that as a species on this earth, “we’ve been <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terraform">terraforming</a> since the dawn of civilization … but this doesn’t make us all equally implicated.” </p>
<p><strong>3. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4449576/"><em>Demain</em> (<em>Tomorrow</em>)</a> (2015)</strong></p>
<p><em>Demain</em> (<em>Tomorrow</em>) is a French documentary that begins with a group of the filmmakers’ friends in a lively discussion. “We weren’t green freaks or activists,” one explains, “but most of us had kids, and none of us could just stand by after hearing this terrifying news.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Demain’ with English subtitles.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The group decides to make a film about solutions to the climate crisis. The filmmakers embody the behaviour they seek to inspire in viewers, explains <a href="https://scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/profile/sabine_von_mering/overview?institution=01BRAND_INST">Sabine von Mering</a>, a professor of German and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Brandeis University, in “Promise Motivation: Films with Good News About Climate Change.” These behaviours include educating oneself about climate science, talking about it, joining with others and getting active. </p>
<p>Von Mering argues the film succeeds by providing a glimpse into climate solutions from several angles, including agriculture, energy, the economy, education and democracy. </p>
<p>She calls this “promise motivation,” contrasted with “risk motivation.” Of the film’s 116 minutes, 96 minutes (83 per cent) are devoted to climate solutions.</p>
<p><strong>4. <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093488/">The Man Who Planted Trees</a></em> (1987)</strong></p>
<p><em>The Man Who Planted Trees</em> is a Canadian, Academy Award-winning 30-minute animated film about a fictional shepherd’s single-handed quest to re-forest a barren valley. </p>
<p>This film illustrates the causes and misery of climate change, but also how humans can change the climate for the better, explains <a href="https://as.vanderbilt.edu/french-italian/faculty/graduate-faculty/susan-kevra-2/">Susan Kevra</a>, a lecturer in French and American studies at Vanderbilt University, in her article “The Man Who Changed the Climate: Frederic Back’s Film Adaption of The Man Who Planted Trees.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The Man Who Planted Trees.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kevra cautions us not to scoff at the achievement of this deceptively simple film and its single-minded fictional shepherd. She shares the words of <a href="https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai">Wangarĩ Muta Maathai</a>, the Kenyan founder of the Green Belt movement and winner of the <a href="https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai/the-nobel-peace-prize">2004 Nobel Peace Prize</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Tree planting became a natural choice to address some of the initial needs identified by women. Also, tree planting is simple, attainable and guarantees quick, successful results within a reasonable amount of time … So, together, we have planted over 30 million trees to provide fuel, food, shelter and income to support their children’s education and household needs. The activity also creates employment and improves soils and watersheds.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>5. <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709536/">Angry Inuk</a></em> (2016)</strong></p>
<p>Inuk filmmaker <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3410237/?ref_=tt_ov_dr">Alethea Arnaquq-Baril</a> examines the central role of seal hunting in the lives of the Inuit, the importance of the revenue earned from sale of seal skins — and the negative impacts international campaigns against the seal hunt have had on their lives.</p>
<p>In “Angry Inuk, Listening to Science, and the Perpetuation of Climate Crisis in Film,” Carleton University film studies professor <a href="https://carleton.ca/filmstudies/people/kester-dyer/">Kester Dyer</a> explains the film’s argument for the right to trade seal products for consumption beyond local subsistence. This “simultaneously exposes viewers to the ecological logic of Indigenous value systems” and the need for non-Indigenous people to accept these.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Angry Inuk’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film, Dyer explains, initiates a dialogue with animal-protection groups through depicting how the Inuit have learned to understand the “language of anti-sealers and southern lawmakers,” and have “started to co-opt some of their visual strategies” in their own counter-protests, including through creative use of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/28/inuit-seal-sealfies-selfie-degeneres-oscars">social media</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRPEz57_l_M">YouTube</a>. </p>
<p>Arnaquq-Baril summarizes her film as “a call for westerners to listen a little harder, and a call for Inuit to speak a little louder.”</p>
<p>When it comes to the climate crisis, many of us, especially non-Indigenous audiences in the Global North, need to listen and look a little harder. These five films are a good place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason MacLean is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation (CELL).</span></em></p>‘Somebody has to do something’: Top feature film and documentary picks from scholars examining climate change and cinema offer courage to hold contradictory truths and pursue climate solutions.Jason MacLean, Adjunct professor, Environment and Sustainability, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186412023-12-05T16:56:40Z2023-12-05T16:56:40ZThe climate change we caused is here for at least 50,000 years – and probably far longer<p>In February 2000, Paul Crutzen rose to speak at the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme in Mexico. And when he spoke, people took notice. He was then one of the world’s most cited scientists, a Nobel laureate working on huge-scale problems – the ozone hole, the effects of a nuclear winter. </p>
<p>So little wonder that a word he improvised took hold and spread widely: this was the <a href="https://desertreport.org/the-anthropocene/">Anthropocene</a>, a proposed new geological epoch, representing an Earth transformed by the effects of industrialised humanity.</p>
<p>The idea of an entirely new and human-created geological epoch is a sobering scenario as context for the current UN climate summit, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/cop28-132366">COP28</a>. The impact of decisions made at these and other similar conferences will be felt not just beyond our own lives and those of our children, but perhaps beyond the life of human society as we know it.</p>
<p>The Anthropocene is now in wide currency, but when Crutzen first spoke this was still a novel suggestion. In support of his new brain-child, Crutzen cited many planetary symptoms: enormous deforestation, the mushrooming of dams across the world’s large rivers, overfishing, a planet’s nitrogen cycle overwhelmed by fertiliser use, the rapid rise in greenhouse gases. </p>
<p>As for climate change itself, well, the warning bells were ringing, certainly. Global mean surface temperatures had risen by about half a degree since the mid-20th century. But, they were still within the norm for an interglacial phase of the ice ages. Among many emerging problems, climate seemed one for the future.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Heat danger sign, desert background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563662/original/file-20231205-15-omkrvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Death Valley in California recently recorded one of the highest temperatures ever.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/road-sign-death-valley-warning-travelers-180367781">travelview / shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A little more than two decades on, the future has arrived. By 2022, global temperature had climbed another half a degree, the past nine years being the hottest since records began. And 2023 has seen climate records being not just broken, but smashed. </p>
<p>By September there had already been 38 days when global average temperatures exceeded pre-industrial ones by 1.5°C, the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/">safe limit of warming</a> set by the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the Paris agreement. In previous years that was rare, and before 2000 this milestone had never been recorded. </p>
<p>With this leap in temperatures came record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires and floods, exacerbated by other local human actions. Climate has moved centre stage on an Anthropocene Earth.</p>
<p>Why this surge in temperatures? In part, it’s been the inexorable rise in greenhouse gases, as fossil fuels continue to dominate human energy use. When Crutzen spoke in Mexico, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were about 370 parts per million (ppm), already up from the pre-industrial 280 ppm. They’re now <a href="https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/">around 420 ppm</a>, and climbing by some 2 ppm per year.</p>
<p>In part, the warming results from cleaner skies in the past few years, both on land and at sea, thanks to new regulations <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/2023/03/27/climate-change-how-cleaning-up-pollution-may-heat-the-planet/dd7496b0-ccdc-11ed-8907-156f0390d081_story.html">phasing out old power stations and dirty sulphur-rich fuels</a>. As the industrial haze clears, more of the sun’s energy makes it through the atmosphere and onto land, and the full force of global warming kicks in. </p>
<p>In part, our planet’s heat-reflecting mirrors are shrinking, as sea ice melts away, initially in the Arctic, and in the last two years, precipitously, around Antarctica too. And climate feedbacks seem to be taking effect, too. A new, <a href="https://theconversation.com/rising-methane-could-be-a-sign-that-earths-climate-is-part-way-through-a-termination-level-transition-211211">sharp rise in atmospheric methane</a> – a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – since 2006 seems to be sourced from an increase in rotting vegetation in tropical wetlands in a warming world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-coal-power-plant-high-2136951757" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563669/original/file-20231205-19-5o41co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is about 50% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere compared to before the industrial revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-coal-power-plant-high-2136951757">Bilanol / shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>This latest warming step has already taken the Earth into levels of climate warmth not experienced for some 120,000 years, into those of the last interglacial phase, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03155-x">a little warmer</a> than the current one. There is yet more warming <a href="https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889?searchresult=1">in the pipeline</a> over coming centuries, as various feedbacks take effect. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01818-x">recent study</a> on the effects of this warming on Antarctica’s ice suggests that “policymakers should be prepared for several metres of sea-level rise over the coming centuries” as the pulse of warmth spreads through the oceans to undermine the great polar ice-sheets. </p>
<p>This remains the case even in the most optimistic scenario where carbon dioxide emissions are reduced quickly. But emissions continue to rise steeply, to deepen the climate impact.</p>
<h2>Controls have been overridden</h2>
<p>To see how this might play out on a geological timescale, we need to look through the lens of the Anthropocene. A delicately balanced planetary machinery of regular, multi-millennial variations in the Earth’s spin and orbit has tightly controlled patterns of warm and cold for millions of years. </p>
<p>Now, suddenly, this control machinery has been overridden by a trillion tons of carbon dioxide injected into the atmosphere in little more than a century.</p>
<p>Modelling the effects of this pulse through the Earth System shows that this new, suddenly disrupted, climate pattern is here for <a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1275-2021">at least 50,000 years</a> and probably far longer. It’s a large part of the way our planet has changed fundamentally and irreversibly, to become comparable to some of the great climate change events in deep Earth history.</p>
<p>So will this particular COP meeting, with fossil fuel interests <a href="https://theconversation.com/cop28-inside-the-united-arab-emirates-the-oil-giant-hosting-2023-climate-change-summit-217859">so strongly represented</a>, make a difference? The bottom line is that attaining, and stabilising carbon emissions at “net zero” is only a crucial first step. </p>
<p>To retrieve the kind of climate optimal for humanity, and for life as a whole to thrive, negative emissions are needed, to take carbon out of the atmosphere and ocean system and put it back underground. For future generations, there is much at stake.</p>
<hr>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jens Zinke receives funding for his general research from the Royal Society, NERC and the German DFG. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Waters, Jan Zalasiewicz, and Mark Williams do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Anthropocene began quickly, but will last deep into the geological future.Jan Zalasiewicz, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of LeicesterColin Waters, Honorary Professor, Department of Geology, University of LeicesterJens Zinke, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of LeicesterMark Williams, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183852023-11-22T16:09:08Z2023-11-22T16:09:08ZEarth in the Anthropocene: how did we get here? Can we limit the damage?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561042/original/file-20230531-21796-ooshjd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dans un monde aux ressources finies, les effets des activités humaines sur l’environnement hypothèquent gravement le futur des générations à venir. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2000, Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen proposed that the epoch known as the Holocene, which started some 11,700 years ago, had reached its end. To describe our current era, he employed the term <em>anthropocene</em>, originated earlier by ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer. Together the <a href="http://www.igbp.net/publications/globalchangemagazine/globalchangemagazine/globalchangenewslettersno4159.5.5831d9ad13275d51c098000309.html">two scientists</a> asserted that humans’ collective influence on the Earth system was so profound that it was altering the planet’s geological and ecological trajectory. According to them, humanity had entered a new geologic era.</p>
<h2>The pivotal juncture of the steam engine</h2>
<p>This declaration prompted considerable debate. The most obvious remains the question of when the Anthropocene actually began. The initial proposal was 1784, when Englishman James Watt patented his steam engine, the defining emblem of the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, this choice is consistent with the significant rise in the concentrations of several greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, as evidenced by data collected from ice cores.</p>
<p>From the perspective of other scientists, humanity’s recent history has followed a trajectory they describe as the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019614564785">“great acceleration”</a>. From around 1950, the main indicators of the global socioeconomic system and the Earth system began to show a distinct trend of exponentiality.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"605003636700286976"}"></div></p>
<p>Ever since, humanity’s ecological footprint has continually grown, now existing in a whole slew of interconnected forms: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>drastically rapid and intense changes in climate; </p></li>
<li><p>widespread damage to the entire web of life due to humans encroaching on ecosystems and loading them with radically new substances (such as synthetic chemicals, plastics, pesticides, endocrine disruptors, radionuclides and fluorinated gases); </p></li>
<li><p>biodiversity collapse at an unprecedented speed and scale (which some believe will usher in the sixth mass extinction, the previous one being the demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago);</p></li>
<li><p>multiple disturbances in biogeochemical cycles (specifically those that govern water, hydrogen and phosphorous).</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
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<h2>Who is responsible?</h2>
<p>Another debate regarding the Anthropocene was advanced by Swedish scientists <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019613516291">Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg</a>. They note that Anthropocene narrative holds the entire human species equally accountable. Even when placing the advent of industry in a few nations as the start of the Anthropocene, many authors assert that the ultimate cause of society’s rising dependence on fossil fuels is part of a gradual evolutionary process, originating with our ancestors’ mastery of fire (at least 400,000 years ago).</p>
<p>Malm and Hornborg also stress that the use of umbrella terms like <em>human beings</em> and <em>humankind</em> assumes that it is an inevitable result of our species’ natural propensity for resource exploitation. For the two researchers, this naturalisation conceals the social dimension of the fossil fuel regime that has spanned the last two centuries.</p>
<p>After all, the human race did not vote unanimously to adopt the coal-fired steam engine or later oil- and gas-based technologies. Equally, the trajectory of our species was not decided by representatives in power, who themselves were not elected based on natural characteristics.</p>
<p>According to Malm and Hornborg, it has actually been social and political conditions that have created, time and again, the possibility for individuals with enough capital to make lucrative investments that contributed to the collapse of our climate. And these individuals have almost invariably been white, middle- and upper-class men.</p>
<h2>Who emits what?</h2>
<p>The Anthropocene as applied to the scale of all humankind overlooks another major point: the role of intraspecies inequality in climate upheaval and ecological imbalance.</p>
<p>Currently, the 10% of the world’s inhabitants who emit the most greenhouse gases (GHGs) are responsible for <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00955-z">48% of all global emissions</a>, whereas the 50% who emit the smallest amount account for a mere 12% of global emissions. Estimates place <a href="http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/ChancelPiketty2015.pdf">the richest 1%</a> among the biggest individual emitters on the planet (mainly coming from the United States, Luxembourg, Singapore and Saudi Arabia), who each emit more than 200 tons of CO<sub>2</sub> equivalent annually. At the other end of the spectrum are the poorest individuals from Honduras, Mozambique, Rwanda and Malawi, whose emissions are 2,000 times lower, coming in at around 0.1 tons of CO<sub>2</sub> equivalent per head per year.</p>
<p>This close link between wealth and carbon footprint implies a shared, but not equal, responsibility, which is ill-suited to the sweeping categorisation of the Anthropocene.</p>
<h2>From British coal to American oil</h2>
<p>This criticism takes on greater significance when we consider the historical perspective, given that climate disturbance is the result of cumulative GHG emissions. Take the case of the United Kingdom: we might ask why it should be spearheading the fight against climate change when it currently represents only around 1% of global carbon emissions. But this overlooks the fact that the country has contributed to 4.5% of global emissions since 1850, making it the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/">eighth-biggest polluter</a> in history.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259826/original/file-20190219-43270-17l71bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259826/original/file-20190219-43270-17l71bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259826/original/file-20190219-43270-17l71bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259826/original/file-20190219-43270-17l71bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259826/original/file-20190219-43270-17l71bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259826/original/file-20190219-43270-17l71bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259826/original/file-20190219-43270-17l71bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fossil fuel use is responsible for emitting CO₂, the primary cause of global warming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/GrmwVnVSSdU">Zbynek Burival/Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In terms of the exponential acceleration of the trajectory of the Earth system over the past 200 years, contributions have widely differed among the nations of the world and their inhabitants. As respective stalwarts of global economic development during the 19th and 20th centuries, the United Kingdom and United States now owe a monumental <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30196-0/fulltext">ecological debt</a> toward other nations. Coal fuelled the United Kingdom’s endeavours of imperial domination, while this same role was (and continues to be) played by oil in the United States.</p>
<h2>Survival or otherwise</h2>
<p>Clarity is important when it comes to the thorny issue of each nation’s historical contribution to climate shift, so it is worth bearing in mind that the GHG emissions and overall environmental impact of a given country or person are chiefly determined by the rate at which they consume goods and services. By and large, it is unrealistic for those living in rich countries to think that they can “live green”. Furthermore, for all the quantitative data at our disposal, there is nothing that indicates either the absolute necessity – or, by contrast, the utter futility – of measuring a kilogram of carbon dioxide in the same way for everyone across the board.</p>
<p>For some, emitting slightly more greenhouse gases comes down to a question of survival, perhaps representing the fuel required to cook a portion of rice or build a roof. For others, it amounts only to purchasing yet another gadget for a few more hours of entertainment. Some argue that reducing the world’s population would be an effective means of combating climate disruption (and all other the environmental disturbances), but a simpler solution would be to prevent the ultra-rich from continuing to pursue their shamelessly climate-destroying lifestyles.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280040/original/file-20190618-118543-1d2mp0t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280040/original/file-20190618-118543-1d2mp0t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280040/original/file-20190618-118543-1d2mp0t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280040/original/file-20190618-118543-1d2mp0t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280040/original/file-20190618-118543-1d2mp0t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280040/original/file-20190618-118543-1d2mp0t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280040/original/file-20190618-118543-1d2mp0t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yachts in Cannes harbour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/614085">Pxhere</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By constructing the abstract notion of a uniformly affected “humankind”, the dominant discourse around the Anthropocene suggests that the responsibility is shared equally by all of us. In the Amazon, the Yanomami and Achuar peoples get by without a single gram of fossil fuel, surviving through hunting, fishing, foraging and subsistence agriculture. Should they feel as responsible for climate change and biodiversity collapse as the world’s richest industrialists, bankers and corporate solicitors?</p>
<p>If the Earth really has entered a new geological epoch, the responsibilities of each nation and individual differ too greatly across space and time for us to consider “the human species” as a suitable abstraction for shouldering the burden of guilt.</p>
<p>Quite apart from all these debates and disputes, climate disruption and biodiversity loss call for immediate, tangible action on a massive scale. There is no shortage of efforts and initiatives, with some now being implemented across the globe, but which ones are actually working?</p>
<h2>Just how useful is the Paris Agreement?</h2>
<p>In 2015, the COP21 was held at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris.</p>
<p>The resulting agreement was hailed as a watershed moment, marking the first time that 196 countries committed to decarbonising the global economy. In practice, each state was free to define its national strategy for the energy transition. All the countries party to the agreement must then present their “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) to the other signatories. These NDCs are collated to form the expected trajectory for global greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>The issue with such a strategy (assuming that it is actually enforced) is that the numbers are insufficient. Even if the countries delivered on all their promises, human-induced GHG emissions would still bring about a temperature rise of around 2.7°C by the end of the century.</p>
<p>If we maintain the current momentum for the target to limit the temperature rise to 2°C, we will fall short of by <a href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/40932/EGR2022_ESEN.pdf">12 billion tons of annual CO₂ equivalent (Gt CO₂-eq/year)</a>. This deficit climbs to 20 Gt CO<sub>2</sub>-eq/year if we aim for a maximum rise of 1.5°C.</p>
<p>Under the framework of the 2015 Paris Agreement, signatory states can theoretically amend their commitments every five years to strengthen their ambitions. The fact is, however, that emissions have continued to rise in virtually every signatory country (when calculated by consumption rather than production).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522173/original/file-20230420-1738-jeeu7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1995%2C1315&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522173/original/file-20230420-1738-jeeu7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522173/original/file-20230420-1738-jeeu7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522173/original/file-20230420-1738-jeeu7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522173/original/file-20230420-1738-jeeu7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522173/original/file-20230420-1738-jeeu7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522173/original/file-20230420-1738-jeeu7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, Laurent Fabius, ratifies the adoption of the Paris Agreement at COP21 in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cop Paris/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although the Paris Agreement was presented as a diplomatic success, it must be conceded as another hollow addition to the litany of commitments that prove ineffective in the face of climate disruption. Actually, suspicions should have been cast from the moment that the text was ratified, given that it does not mention the phrase “fossil fuels” even once. The goal was to avoid ruffling any feathers (among public or private actors), and to get as many states as possible on board with signing an agreement that, in the end, offers no solution to the gravest emergency facing humankind.</p>
<p>At the time of the Paris Agreement’s signature in 2015, if humanity were to have any reasonable hope of limiting global warming to 2°C, the cumulative volume of CO<sub>2</sub> that we could have afforded to emit was no more than 1,000 Gt. Taking into account the last five years of emissions, this <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa98c9">carbon budget</a> has already dropped to 800 Gt. This is equal to one third of the 2,420 Gt of CO<sub>2</sub> emitted between 1850 and 2020, including 1,680 Gt from fossil fuel burning (and cement production) and 740 Gt from land use (primarily deforestation).</p>
<p>And with annual emissions at around 40 Gt, this carbon budget will plummet at a breakneck pace, reaching zero within the next two decades if nothing changes.</p>
<h2>Could a fossil fuel lockdown solve the problem?</h2>
<p>To reach these targets, humans – especially the wealthiest among them – must consent not to use what has traditionally been seen as the source of their material comforts.</p>
<p>Since fossil fuel reserves have the potential for truly colossal emissions, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14016">a third of the world’s oil reserves, half of its gas reserves and over 80% of its coal reserves</a> must remain unexploited. Increasing hydrocarbon production, whether from coal mines or oil and gas deposits, or from the exploitation of new fossil fuel resources (e.g., in the Arctic), would therefore sabotage efforts required to limit climate change.</p>
<p>On top of this, the longer we take to start seriously decarbonising the global economy, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02351-2">the more drastic the necessary action will be</a>. If we had started effectively limiting global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions back in 2018, it would have been enough for us to reduce emissions by 5% until 2100 to cap the temperature rise at 2°C. Embarking on this gargantuan task in 2020 would have required an annual reduction of 6%. But waiting around until 2025 would entail a reduction of 10% per year.</p>
<p>Faced with this emergency, there have been calls in recent years for <a href="https://fossilfueltreaty.org/cop27">a treaty to ban the spread of fossil fuels</a>. “All” we need to do is make everyone agree to stop using the stuff that has powered the global economy for the last century and a half!</p>
<p>To date, this treaty has been signed only by island nations (such as Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands) since these are the most vulnerable to climate collapse. Conversely, hydrocarbon-producing countries and major importing countries are yet to act in this regard. The reason for this is simple: the initiative offers no financial arrangements to compensate hydrocarbon-rich countries, whose governments do not want to risk losing potential GDP.</p>
<p>But if we want to stop the exploitation of fossil fuel reserves, this is precisely the type of compensation that must be offered for an international agreement to achieve meaningful results.</p>
<h2>The crucial role of financiers</h2>
<p>So, are we done for? Not necessarily. One recent <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/what-happens-when-banks-divest-from-coal-climate-change">study</a> offers a glimmer of hope. Two researchers from the Harvard Business School have shown that there are promising results in the decision by certain banks to pull investments from the coal sector.</p>
<p>The studied sample of data between 2009 and 2021 demonstrates that when backers of coal companies decide to embrace strong disinvestment policies, these companies reduce their borrowings by 25% compared to others unaffected by such strategies. This capital rationing appears markedly to yield reduced CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, as “disinvested” companies are likelier to shut down some of their facilities.</p>
<p>Could this same approach be applied to the oil and gas sector? In theory, yes, but it would be trickier to implement.</p>
<p>For figures in the coal industry, options are limited when it comes to obtaining alternative sources of debt financing if existing ones are withdrawn. Indeed, there are so few banks that actually facilitate transactions involving coal – and relationships are so deeply entrenched – that bankers inevitably hold great sway over who should be financed in this sector. This is not the case in the oil and gas industry, which enjoys a greater diversity of funding options. In any case, all this goes to show that the finance sector has a defining role to play in our transition toward zero carbon.</p>
<p>But it would be delusional to believe that financiers are going to start magically steering the global economy along an eco-friendlier path.</p>
<p>Capitalism dictates a growth imperative that is quite simply nonsensical in a world of finite resources. If we are to stop living beyond the ecological means of our Earth system, we must completely redefine both what we stand for and what we are prepared to give up.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is part of a project between The Conversation France and AFP audio, supported financially by the European Journalism Centre, as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation “Solutions Journalism Accelerator” <a href="https://ejc.net/news/the-second-group-selected-in-the-solutions-journalism-accelerator-programme">“Solutions Journalism Accelerator”</a> initiative. AFP and The Conversation France have maintained their editorial independence at every stage of the project.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Court is a member of the "Energy & Prosperity" Chair and a research associate at the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain (LIED, Université Paris Cité). The opinions expressed in these pages are those of the author alone, and in no way reflect the views of the institutions with which he is affiliated.</span></em></p>Humanity’s ecological footprint takes many different and interconnected forms that are all getting worse.Victor Court, Économiste, chercheur associé au Laboratoire interdisciplinaire des énergies de demain, Université Paris CitéLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2158322023-11-01T17:04:03Z2023-11-01T17:04:03ZOur new map reveals the effects of 20th century land-use and climate change on Britain’s wild species<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556825/original/file-20231031-25-eweeyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C5413%2C2553&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/arable-land-ploughed-field-background-panorama-2159524289">Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Under the stewardship of geographer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dudley-Stamp">Sir Dudley Stamp</a>, thousands of volunteers (including many schoolchildren) came together in the 1930s on a mission that sounds relatively simple on paper: to record how British land was being used. </p>
<p>Equipped with an Ordnance Survey map, a clipboard and a pencil, these volunteers recorded information that collectively formed the earliest <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1784994?origin=crossref">spatial record</a> of where and how the British people were using their environment at the beginning of the third agricultural revolution. Spanning the mid-20th century, that revolution changed the British landscape almost beyond recognition.</p>
<p>The landscape changed largely because it had to. More land was brought into production to feed a growing post-war population. This involved converting semi-natural habitats to cropland, removing hedgerows and enhancing pastures with fertilisers and faster-growing fodder (creating agriculturally “improved” grassland). More homes were also built to provide a better quality of life.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42475-0">our new study</a>, we digitally converted scanned copies of the Dudley Stamp maps and compared them with modern-day satellite data to record the full extent of land-use change across Britain in the mid-20th century. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.5878/9wks-qg91">change map</a> outlines the level of land conversion for every 10km x 10km grid square of Britain.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A digital map showing the proportion of land converted in Britain between the 1930s and 2007." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Land conversion in Britain between the 1930s and 2007. Higher values indicate that more land changed use in that area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42475-0">Suggitt et al. (2023)/Nature Communications</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mapping land-use change in Britain</h2>
<p>We estimate that roughly 90% of <a href="https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/habitats/grassland/lowland-meadow-and-pasture">lowland meadow and pasture</a> has been lost. Land was converted either to arable farmland, which saw a 22% increase, or to agriculturally improved grassland, which now occupies 27% of Britain’s land area.</p>
<p>Urbanisation saw the nation’s built area expand from 4% to 5%. And woodland cover doubled from 6% to 12%, largely due to a concerted effort to increase the country’s reserve of timber. For better or worse, the nation’s land use became less mixed and more consolidated.</p>
<p>All of this environmental change is thought to have had a profound effect on biodiversity. According to the recent <a href="https://stateofnature.org.uk/">State of Nature Report</a>, the abundance of UK species has declined by an average of 19% since 1970. Some 1,500 species (or 16% of those analysed) are now threatened with national extinction.</p>
<p>The impacts of climate change on biodiversity are also becoming ever more apparent in almost all the Earth’s ecosystems and at all levels of biological organisation – <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaf7671">from genes right up to ecosystems</a>. There is no doubt that increasing human activity is posing a greater series of challenges for the natural world in this new geological epoch we term “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14258">the Anthropocene</a>”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dawn-of-the-anthropocene-five-ways-we-know-humans-have-triggered-a-new-geological-epoch-52867">Dawn of the Anthropocene: five ways we know humans have triggered a new geological epoch</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map from the original Land Use Survey of Britain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ambleside and Great Langdale, as surveyed by the Land Use Survey of Britain in 1931/32. Large areas of upland Britain were classified as rough hill pasture or commons (yellow shading).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Giles Clark</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s driving biodiversity change?</h2>
<p>Although evidence documenting widespread changes to biodiversity is now relatively easy to come by, attributing these changes to a particular driver, or series of drivers, continues to prove quite difficult. This is because we know relatively little about how these drivers can “interact” with one another to make things worse.</p>
<p>But the net effect of drivers acting in concert can be quite different to the individual effect of each driver acting alone. For example, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04644-x">research</a> has demonstrated that climate change is more likely to lower insect diversity in agricultural landscapes compared to more natural systems.</p>
<p>Disentangling the different drivers of biodiversity change has proved particularly problematic in the UK. The intensification of agriculture and the other changes in land use of the mid-20th century occurred before Earth observation satellites were in orbit. Many habitats were lost before we could document the true scale of the change and, just as importantly, which regions, landscapes and locations were most affected.</p>
<h2>Climate and land-use change acting together</h2>
<p>Making our new land-use change map for Britain meant that we could now finally investigate the extent to which this change combined with climate change to worsen the prognosis for the country’s flora and fauna.</p>
<p>Our investigation determined that these drivers did not often interact. In fact, less than one in five of the species we studied were affected by change drivers acting to accelerate or dampen one other. And their combined effect on extinction risk was often mild. </p>
<p>For roughly three-quarters of the species that responded to environmental change (668 of 898 species), we found that climate warming and land conversion acted independently of one other. This means that for species like the <a href="https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/small-pearl-bordered-fritillary">small pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly</a> (<em>Boloria selene</em>), which predominantly inhabits cooler and wetter habitats, the impacts of warming temperatures and habitat loss, while detrimental, have not exacerbated each other to increase the chance of the butterfly’s populations dying out.</p>
<p>Many species were only affected by one of the change drivers we analysed, and not both. We found that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/globeflower">globeflower</a> (<em>Trollius europaeus</em>), for example, has declined due to habitat loss alone.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Globeflower flowering in a meadow." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Globeflower has declined due to habitat loss. Some 53% of open grassland habitat such as this has been lost in the UK over the past 75 years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pmau</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because our results were less complicated than we expected, the so-called “winners” and “losers” of environmental change among British flora and fauna might be easier to predict than we anticipated. However, the highly individual responses to change we detected – and the wide split between winners and losers associated with these responses – mean it is difficult to come up with rules of thumb for conservationists, authorities or land managers to use when taking action on the extinction crisis. </p>
<p>As such, we need to maintain our emphasis on the inclusion of species-level information when devising plans to maintain biodiversity. We also need to continue supporting biological recording efforts, as these often act as the barometer by which we can judge if conservation measures are successful.</p>
<p>We hope that our study is the first of many to make full use of the valuable information collected by Dudley Stamp and his volunteer army almost 100 years ago. Digital versions of our maps are publicly available for <a href="https://doi.org/10.5878/9wks-qg91">free download</a> so that researchers, conservationists and the general public can see where Britain’s landscape has changed the most.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Britain has lost large areas of semi-natural habitat since the 1930s.Andrew Suggitt, Assistant Professor, Northumbria University, NewcastleAlistair Auffret, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2062782023-10-17T21:24:58Z2023-10-17T21:24:58ZHave we reached the end of nature? Our relationship with the environment is in crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552550/original/file-20231006-15-i94ned.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5464%2C3639&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Redefining our relationship to nature is crucial to address our current environmental crises.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/have-we-reached-the-end-of-nature-our-relationship-with-the-environment-is-in-crisis" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Recently, I encountered the thought-provoking expression “<a href="https://libquotes.com/eug%C3%A8ne-ionesco/quote/lbn5s2x">God is dead, Marx is dead and I don’t feel so well myself</a>.” I wonder if it is now the time to update this by adding “Nature is dead”? </p>
<p>Has Nature, framed as being separate to humanity, lost its relevance? Does humanity’s exceptionalist mindset, as famed biologist E.O. Wilson suggests, leave us “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631492525">contemptuous towards lower forms of life</a>”?</p>
<p>Globally, we have entered the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene/">Anthropocene</a>, with humans the dominant force driving change in all ecosystems. Through our overwhelming influence on the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, no ecosystem anywhere is sheltered from our influence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-raises-risks-of-earth-without-democracy-and-without-us-38911">Anthropocene raises risks of Earth without democracy and without us</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Whether it be through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01865-1">colonial redistribution of species</a>, habitat loss, the diverse forces of climate change, overextraction or pollution by plastics, forever chemicals, and reactive nitrogen and phosphorus, there is no unaltered ecosystem. As some of these forces of change combine, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01157-x">ecosystems are being pushed past tipping points of collapse at a faster rate</a>. </p>
<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, incidences of reverse zoonosis, in which <a href="https://theconversation.com/origin-of-the-covid-19-virus-the-trail-of-mink-farming-155989">humans became the reservoir and source of infection for domesticated and wild animals</a>, emphasized how the fate of humanity and all creatures sharing the biosphere is linked.</p>
<h2>The crises of the Anthropocene</h2>
<p>As a result of the Anthropocene — this period of time when human activity is enormously impacting the planet — global biodiversity is in crisis, with species extinction occurring at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12974">1,000 times the pre-human rate</a>. Addressing this crisis is one of our greatest challenges. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://eowilsonfoundation.org/what-is-the-half-earth-project/">Half-Earth project</a> contends that only by preserving 50 per cent of global surface habitat will we preserve 85 per cent of species. But setting aside land for nature, such as in parks and reserves, has often meant depriving Indigenous people of their lands, instead of <a href="https://theconversation.com/respect-for-indigenous-knowledge-must-lead-nature-conservation-efforts-in-canada-156273">respecting and prioritizing the role of Indigenous peoples in biosphere preservation</a>. </p>
<p>While the increasing size of protected areas (<a href="https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/thematic-areas/wdpa?tab=WDPA">to 17 per cent of land and 10 per cent of oceans, respectively by 2020</a>) is encouraging, the effectiveness of their management in preserving biodiversity is still largely to be determined.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a drone photograph of a blue and aquamarine sea" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554057/original/file-20231016-29-wgf89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Only by preserving 50 per cent of global surface habitat will we preserve 85 per cent of species.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(NASA/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Supporting biodiversity</h2>
<p>We are recognizing, however, that biodiversity can also be supported everywhere and in everything we do. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-urban-gardens-can-boost-biodiversity-and-make-cities-more-sustainable-162810">Urban landscapes can support greater biodiversity such as of pollinators</a> and farmed landscapes can contribute depending on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/adjusting-the-intensity-of-farming-can-help-address-climate-change-191293">intensity of farming</a>. </p>
<p>School children increasingly are no longer taken on trips into nature, but instead learn in settings where they <a href="https://forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-school/">develop a reciprocal relationship with the land and living world</a>.</p>
<p>As the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What would the world be, once bereft</p>
<p>Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,</p>
<p>O let them be left, wildness and wet;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thereader.org.uk/featured-poem-inversnaid-by-gerard-manley-hopkins/">Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Relationships with nature</h2>
<p>At a breakout discussion group I participated in during a <a href="https://regenerationcanada.org/en/">Regeneration Canada</a> conference, we were asked to describe our “community.” Many described their urban or rural community. I spoke about my academic community — my students, colleagues… </p>
<p>A young Mohawk man began by describing a copse of birch trees on his land as his community. For the rest of us present, “man” had been overrepresented when speaking of community. For essayist and philosopher Sylvia Wynter, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015">the invention and overrepresentation of Man (a category that emerged from European rational thought) as distinct from nature</a>, is the underpinning concept that enabled its history of colonialism and racism.</p>
<p>Some academics, becoming aware of the profound effects of climate change, have declared that the wall between human history and natural history was now broken. As historian Dipesh Chakrabarty proposed in his famous paper, “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/596640">The Climate of History: Four Theses</a>,” this collapse of chronologies means key motifs in contemporary human history, such as the struggle for freedom, are now inextricably linked to the fate of the biosphere. </p>
<p>Historians should thus combine their contemporary history studies with that of our longer history as one species among many. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a copse of birch trees" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554055/original/file-20231016-21-qho37v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reframing our relationship with nature is an important step to deepen our commitment to addressing human-made environmental crises.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ecologists are recognizing that “othering” the natural world is meaningless, and <a href="https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/are-humans-separate-from-nature/">the study of natural processes has to include those modified by mankind</a>. Indeed, the idea of ourselves as distinct from all non-humans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341451">is considered by some to be the fundamental driver of our current planetary crisis</a>.</p>
<p>Given such deepening understanding, is it now the time to go beyond “nature” as a concept external to humanity? Instead, we could promote a deeper understanding of biodiversity and community as the shared long history and future fate both of humanity and non-human life. </p>
<p>Such revised paradigms are closer to Indigenous viewpoints of community, in which land management is conducted in partnership <a href="https://culanth.org/fieldsights/why-interspecies-thinking-needs-indigenous-standpoints">with our relatives within all ecosystems</a>.</p>
<p>Have we reached the end of nature in its traditional meaning as distinct from us? Reframing our relationship with nature is an important step to deepen our commitment to addressing these human-made environmental crises.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek Lynch receives funding for his research from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.</span></em></p>Our relationships with the natural world have changed, and addressing how we understand our place in the world will help us find solutions to current environmental crises.Derek Lynch, Professor of Agronomy and Agroecology, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122172023-10-10T11:25:59Z2023-10-10T11:25:59ZBuilding on the greenbelt is central to solving the housing crisis – just look at how the edges of cities have changed<p>Amid <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/08/labour-keir-starmer-new-homes-target-green-belt">new targets</a> of 1.5m new <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67058848">homes</a> over five years, the Labour party has pledged to review the planning rules which dictate where housing in England can be built. The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/08/labour-keir-starmer-new-homes-target-green-belt">“a common-sense approach”</a> to deciding quite what land is worth protecting and what can sensibly be used to create more housing was crucial. </p>
<p>This may put Labour at odds with many Conservative politicians in the UK, who have long defended the greenbelt, the protected land that encircles the country’s largest cities, including London, Newcastle and Manchester. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’s latest long-term plans for housing <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/long-term-plan-for-housing-secretary-of-states-speech">prioritise</a> urban development of brownfield sites (abandoned or underutilised industrial land) over so-called greenbelt “erosion.”</p>
<p>The notion of “concreting over the countryside,” as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rishi-sunak-housing-plan-uk-michael-gove-b2380605.html">has put it</a>, is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/19/is-it-time-to-rethink-the-green-belt">politically loaded</a>. Yet, elements of the Conservative party itself are beginning to see that this oversimplifies the issue. As former housing minister Brandon Lewis <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66998512">has said</a> at a fringe event at the Tory conference, the concept “needs to be reviewed and changed”.</p>
<p>It no longer makes sense to prioritise the city centre over its peripheries because quite what is in the city, and what is outside it, is no longer clear. Multiple factors have seen the city extend into a continuous periphery. These include uneven urbanisation and geo-engineered landscapes, changing working patterns and locations and the perceived conflation of nature with culture. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://counterintuitivetypologies.com/Peripheries-Peripherocene">research looks at</a> how to rethink the urban-nature divide. We have found that design that focuses on <a href="https://punctumbooks.com/titles/analogical-city/">urban peripheries</a> in socially diverse and sustainable ways <a href="https://www.park-books.com/en/product/thinking-design/115">can benefit residents</a>, combat climate change and tackle the housing crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graphic showing suburban town planning." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548777/original/file-20230918-29-9wssmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548777/original/file-20230918-29-9wssmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548777/original/file-20230918-29-9wssmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548777/original/file-20230918-29-9wssmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548777/original/file-20230918-29-9wssmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548777/original/file-20230918-29-9wssmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548777/original/file-20230918-29-9wssmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Anthropocene has blurred the city’s boundaries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Wojewoda | Cameron McEwan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The politics of ‘urban sprawl’</h2>
<p>In his long-term housing policy, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove has made the connection between urban planning, aesthetic standards and climate change. He argues against what he and <a href="https://lirias.kuleuven.be/1684573?limo=0">many before</a> him have termed “urban sprawl”. Instead, making the city centre more dense, he says, will “enhance economic efficiency, free up leisure time and also help with climate change”. </p>
<p>In city planning terms, <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_698#:%7E:text=Definition,a%20defined%20unit%20of%20area.">“density”</a> refers to the degree of human activity and occupation in a defined unit of urban space. It is, of course, an important measure. Our research shows, however, that what matters most is not the numbers of people and businesses in a city, but the quality of the space in which they operate. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Map of England's greenbelts" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551814/original/file-20231003-25-afdgj0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551814/original/file-20231003-25-afdgj0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=677&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551814/original/file-20231003-25-afdgj0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=677&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551814/original/file-20231003-25-afdgj0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=677&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551814/original/file-20231003-25-afdgj0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551814/original/file-20231003-25-afdgj0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551814/original/file-20231003-25-afdgj0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">England’s greenbelts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26130819">Hellerick|Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Housing is an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/25/the-guardian-view-on-housebuilding-michael-goves-urban-visions-cant-erase-his-partys-record">inherently political issue</a>. <a href="https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/our_strategy_2022-2025">Shelter</a>, the housing charity, states that 17.5 million people are trapped by the housing emergency. According to the <a href="https://www.centreforcities.org/publication/the-housebuilding-crisis/">Centre for Cities</a> thinktank, Britain has a backlog of 4.3 million homes missing from the national housing stock. This analysis shows that it would take at least 50 years to fill this deficit, if the government’s current target to build 300,000 homes a year in England is met. And it won’t be: homes are being built at approximately half this rate.</p>
<p>However, in 2013, the economist Paul Cheshire <a href="https://theconversation.com/greenbelt-myth-is-the-driving-force-behind-housing-crisis-17802">wrote</a> that what he termed “the greenbelt myth” was, in fact, driving the housing crisis. “Contrary to popular perception,” he said, “less than 10% of England is developed. And of what is developed much less than half is ‘covered by concrete’.” </p>
<p>Instead, Cheshire proposed that there be selective building on what he termed “the least attractive and lowest amenity parts of greenbelts.” Not only are these areas close to cities where people want to live, but building on brownfield land in the greenbelt or repurposing derelict buildings might begin to alleviate the housing crisis, including problems of affordability, for generations to come.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graphic illustration of an interior." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548775/original/file-20230918-17-p7l0vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548775/original/file-20230918-17-p7l0vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548775/original/file-20230918-17-p7l0vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548775/original/file-20230918-17-p7l0vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548775/original/file-20230918-17-p7l0vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548775/original/file-20230918-17-p7l0vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548775/original/file-20230918-17-p7l0vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Building reuse has great potential.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthias Guger|Mihael Vecchiet|Andreas Lechner, Studio Counterintuitive Typologies, TU Graz</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How urban peripheries can work for people and the environment</h2>
<p>To combat climate change and tackle the housing crisis, cities need to be allowed to expand with coherent planning – that includes good public transport, well-designed public spaces and high-quality housing. </p>
<p>In Italy, the post-war district of <a href="https://www.archdaily.com/867165/ad-classics-gallaratese-quarter-milan-aldo-rossi-carlo-aymonino">Gallaratese</a>, which lies 7km north-west of the centre of Milan, features medium-scale apartment blocks, good social amenities and high-quality, well-connected public transport. People living there have access to small parks and public gardens, places to sit and shop. </p>
<p>This affords the public realm a certain dignity that is often lacking in in Britain. People benefit from better infrastructure for commuting into the city centres – not just traffic lanes for cars, but metro, tram and train connections, with coherently designed outdoor public space. </p>
<p>In Austria, <a href="https://www.aspern-seestadt.at/en/about_us/organisation">Seestadt Aspern</a>, a newly developed extension of Vienna, has been characterised as a “city within a city.” It is compact, yet full of public spaces. The project is conceived with job creation, housing and metro-line extension as priorities. </p>
<p>Our research suggests introducing, to <a href="https://counterintuitivetypologies.com/Studios">periphery design</a>, the kind of buildings more associated with inner-city design. To date, housing in suburban planning in England has largely revolved around the detached single-family home. This ultra-low density building type uses lots of land and is firmly reliant on fossil-fuel heavy private transport. </p>
<p>Focusing instead on what we have called the urban villa might be an alternative. The urban villa aims for a synthesis between the city apartment and the single-family home. Think, a number of apartments in a freestanding house, no more than five storeys, surrounded by a garden. </p>
<p>Suburban planning that centred on this type of housing – which combines urban density with a connection to green space and the public realm – could create a denser, more attractive and, crucially, more sustainable alternative to the way city outskirts are currently planned.</p>
<p>The housing crisis is <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/climate/climate-publications/built-environment/the-green-belt-sustainability-and-england's-housing-crisis.aspx">inextricable</a> from the climate crisis. The environment is <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/3554/JBA-9s9-00-FULL.pdf">most demonstrably in crisis</a> in urban peripheries. It is where the collapse of a coherent urban order takes place, where big bits of transport infrastructure meet fields and suburbs. It’s often where marginalised communities are pushed. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Cheshire was right. The dual housing and climate crises are exasperated by the failure to resolve the greenbelt argument. </p>
<p>What is built around urban cores is crucial to a truly sustainable and equitable solution – for both people and the environment. But, doing so in a way that is beneficial to both residents and the environment requires a shift in government policy and public imagination. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204614001522">more and more people</a> cluster around cities in search of work, or a better balance between home and work life, those areas that are now peripheral will become central. Quite under what conditions they live and work there is a matter that demands urgent attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The way we develop urban peripheries is central to tackling both the housing crisis and the climate emergency.Cameron McEwan, Associate Professor in Architecture, Northumbria University, NewcastleAndreas Lechner, Associate Professor, Graz University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131352023-10-06T12:31:37Z2023-10-06T12:31:37ZThe pope’s new letter isn’t just an ‘exhortation’ on the environment – for Francis, everything is connected, which is a source of wonder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552272/original/file-20231005-19-erj0sa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5455%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pope Francis cleans the sky from pollution in graffiti by the artist Maupal, inspired by 'Laudato Si.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ItalyPope/0711f333eb9e4a61bb22e623c3add160/photo?Query=laudato&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=43&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/ Andrew Medichini</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Eight years have elapsed since Pope Francis released “<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf">Laudato Si</a>,” his encyclical urging “care for our common home.” Though hailed as an eloquent plea to protect the environment, climate change was just one part of the pope’s message, from encouraging solidarity with the poor to criticizing “blind confidence” in technology. </p>
<p>On Oct. 4, 2023, Francis released an <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20231004-laudate-deum.html">addendum to “Laudato Si</a>,” addressed to “all people of good will on the climate crisis.” October 4 marks the feast day of the pope’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, <a href="https://theconversation.com/birds-worms-rabbits-francis-of-assisi-was-said-to-have-loved-them-all-but-todays-pet-blessings-on-his-feast-day-might-have-seemed-strange-to-the-13th-century-saint-211865">who famously loved all of creation</a>. The new installment, “Laudate Deum” – “Praise God” – is no less sweeping in the way it links environmental problems with economic, social and technological issues.</p>
<p>Like “Laudato Si,” the new document strongly reproaches wealthy nations that contribute the most to climate change, accusing them of ignoring the plight of the poor. It offers a similar rebuke of rampant individualism, lamenting that responses to global crises of climate change and the pandemic have led to “greater individualism” and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/16/business/oxfam-pandemic-davos-billionaires/index.html">hoarding of wealth</a>, rather than increased solidarity. </p>
<p>Scarcely any facet of modern life emerges unscathed by Francis’ sometimes withering critiques. In his view, societies have failed to respond to crises that are profoundly interrelated: global inequality, pollution and even new forms of artificial intelligence that feed the illusion of humans’ unlimited power. His 2015 broadside, in fact, targeted today’s “<a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/just-catholic/globalization-technocratic-paradigm">technocratic paradigm</a>” with such vehemence that one critic <a href="https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/09/why-the-pope-is-wrong-about-climate-000257/">likened these passages</a> to the rantings of an “Amish hippie.”</p>
<p>At the root of Earth’s interlocking crises, the pope argued in 2015 and again in 2023, is a denial of the fact that all life exists in relationships. The larger whole in which all beings are embedded is, for Francis, both an inescapable reality and a source of wonder.</p>
<h2>An integrated vision</h2>
<p>I am <a href="https://es.ucsb.edu/people/lisa-sideris">an environmental ethicist</a>, and my work explores both science and religion. And while these fields often look at the natural world through very different lenses, they also <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520294998/consecrating-science">share a common value: wonder</a>. Francis’ social critique, I believe, stems from his vision of life – one filled with awe for the depth of meaning and mystery to be found in an interconnected world.</p>
<p>Conversely, the list of social and environmental ills Francis addresses in his environmental documents all involve a tendency to fracture and obscure the bigger picture – to ignore the larger context of each particular issue. He criticizes “<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf">excessive anthropocentrism</a>,” for example: overlooking humans’ bonds with the rest of creation. Within society, excessive individualism similarly prioritizes “parts” at the expense of the whole community.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in white robes bends over a small table to sign something, as men in black and purple robes stand behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552268/original/file-20231005-26-bpv8j0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pope Francis attends a 2021 meeting in the Vatican, sending an appeal to participants in the 26th United Nations climate change conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pope-francis-attends-the-meeting-faith-and-science-towards-news-photo/1235688943?adppopup=true">Alessandro Di Meo/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cheap consumer goods <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-story-of-stuff-extern_b_490351">mask the full cost of production</a>, such as the environmental and health costs of manufacturing, obscuring the relationship between customers’ habits and their harmful consequences. The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/trains-vs-planes-whats-the-real-cost-of-travel/a-45209552">impacts of air travel</a>, for example – air and noise pollution, land use, carbon emissions – are not factored into the ticket price. Failure to see these connections contributes to what Francis assails as an unsustainable “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/11/26/247332384/pope-slams-disposable-culture-that-marginalizes-many">throwaway culture</a>.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, ubiquitous technology – with an app for everything at each person’s fingertips – encourages a techno-fix mentality. Francis’ environmental writings reprove tech solutions that target the symptoms of problems without addressing their deeper causes. Geoengineering may offer hope <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/03/stop-burning-fossil-fuels-now-no-co2-technofix-climate-change-oceans">to mitigate the effects of climate change</a>, but not if societies keep burning fossil fuels in the meantime. Social media supposedly helps build connections, but researchers have found that people who go on the apps to maintain relationships <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2022.2158089">feel more lonely</a> than other users. In <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-08/pope-warns-against-dehumanizing-tyranny-of-technocracy.html">an August 2023 speech</a>, Francis warned of social media’s “reduction of human relationships to mere algorithms.”</p>
<h2>Integral ecology</h2>
<p>In Francis’ eyes, all these problems result from denial of how deeply interconnected the world is. When humans attempt to declare “<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf">independence from reality</a>,” he writes, relationships are the first casualty. </p>
<p><a href="https://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/1560">The word “reality</a>” appears over 40 times <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">in the pope’s 2015 encyclical</a>, by my count. In <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20231004-laudate-deum.html#_ftn29">his 2023 addendum</a>, Francis once more features the word prominently. He argues that nonhuman creatures have their own “reality” and that climate change is a complex “global reality” that many try to deny, or simplify by blaming others – notably developing societies – rather than recognize their own role. </p>
<p>To understand what he means by “reality,” <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/integral-ecology-everything-connected">I look to the idea of “integral ecology,</a>” a term popularized by Francis’ 2015 encyclical. In short, integral ecology is a holistic way of thinking about economic, social, political, ethical and environmental problems. The Earth is not confronting a variety of separate crises, Francis insists, but rather “<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf">one complex crisis</a>” with many faces. <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20231004-laudate-deum.html">His new document</a> reinforces this idea, stressing that climate concerns are about more than ecology, because care for the Earth and care for one another are intimately linked.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A few Christian nuns and other women walk on a street during a march, holding a banner of Pope Francis." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552267/original/file-20231005-20-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nuns hold a banner reading ‘I ask you in the name of God to defend Mother Earth’ during the Global Climate March in Bogota, Colombia, in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nuns-hold-a-banner-of-pope-francis-reading-i-ask-you-in-the-news-photo/499165760?adppopup=true">Guillermo Legaria/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mystery in a dewdrop</h2>
<p>The pope often turns to <a href="https://theconversation.com/birds-worms-rabbits-francis-of-assisi-was-said-to-have-loved-them-all-but-todays-pet-blessings-on-his-feast-day-might-have-seemed-strange-to-the-13th-century-saint-211865">Saint Francis of Assisi</a>, patron saint of animals, as a model of integral thought. The 13th century saint understood the “inseparable bond” that exists “between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace,” <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">the pope wrote in 2015</a>. St. Francis spoke of <a href="https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2015/06/04/canticle-of-brother-sun-and-sister-moon-of-st-francis-of-assisi/">all of creation as family</a>, praising “Mother Earth,” “Brother Moon” and “Sister Sun.”</p>
<p>In 2015, the pope wrote admiringly about his namesake’s sense of awe, adding that without wonder, humans’ attitude is that of “<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters</a>.” </p>
<p>Indeed, wonder can create a shift in how people understand themselves in relation to something larger. There has recently been a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/202211/the-wonders-of-awe">renaissance of interest</a> across many fields of study in the power of wonder to encourage behaviors that are good for the environment and for human health and relationships.</p>
<p>Psychologists have found that experiences of wonder <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000018">can shrink the ego</a>, encouraging generosity, humility and ethical decision-making. Wonder also weakens the perception of boundaries, increasing a person’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-0JpJjPe74">sense of connection</a> with something larger than the self. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1097627">Other studies suggest</a> that experiences of awe have the power to broaden people’s moral concerns, increasing their consideration toward other humans, plants, animals and the environment.</p>
<p>For the pope, however, integral reality is about more than humans and nature; it encompasses relationships between all living things and God – an even larger, <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/faith/mystery-trinity-and-global-solidarity">mysterious reality that is divine</a>.</p>
<p>“The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely,” he writes in both documents. Therefore, “There is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.” All are knit together in wondrous patterns of interconnection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa H. Sideris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Integral ecology, a holistic way of looking at problems the world faces today, is key in the pope’s writings about the environment.Lisa H. Sideris, Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliate Faculty in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2132152023-09-14T23:05:59Z2023-09-14T23:05:59ZOur planet is burning in unexpected ways - here’s how we can protect people and nature<p>People have been using fire for millennia. It is a vital part of many ecosystems and cultures. Yet human activities in the current era, sometimes called the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-anthropocene-start-in-1950-or-much-earlier-heres-why-debate-over-our-world-changing-impact-matters-209869">Anthropocene</a>”, are reshaping patterns of fire across the planet.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-120220-055357">In our new research</a>, published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, we used satellite data to create global maps of where and how fires are burning. We calculated about 3.98 million square kilometres of Earth’s land surface burns each year. We also examined research spanning archaeology, climatology, ecology, Indigenous knowledge and paleoecology, to better understand the causes and consequences of fires.</p>
<p>Our international team found strong evidence fires are burning in unexpected places, at unusual times and in rarely observed ways. These changes in fire patterns are threatening human lives and modifying ecosystems.</p>
<p>But the future does not have to be bleak. There are many opportunities to apply knowledge and practice of fire to benefit people and nature.</p>
<h2>Here’s how fire patterns are changing</h2>
<p>Exploring multiple approaches and scales enables a deeper understanding of where, when and how fires burn.</p>
<p>Satellite data provide evidence of changes in fire patterns at a global scale. <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020RG000726">Annual fire season length</a> increased by 14 days from 1979 to 2020 and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04325-1">night fires</a>, which indicate fires that cannot be quickly controlled, increased in intensity by 7.2% from 2003 to 2020.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An image showing a portion of the globe, as seen from space, showing bushfire smoke mixing into the atmosphere." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547993/original/file-20230913-19-hsuqm8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The coupling of landscape fires with the atmosphere can create storms that inject smoke into the stratosphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. Used with permission from David A. Peterson.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other changes are apparent only when we look at data from particular regions. An increase in fire size and the frequency of large fires has recently been observed in <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2103135118">forests and woodlands of the western United States</a>. Meanwhile fire-dependent grasslands and savannahs across <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14711">Africa</a> and <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL082327">Brazil</a> have experienced reductions in fire frequency.</p>
<p>It’s also important to consider the timescale and type of fire when interpreting changes. In Australia, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27225-4">satellite records show</a> the frequency of very large forest fires has increased over the past four decades. At longer time scales, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-020-01339-3">charcoal and pollen records</a> indicate the frequency of low-intensity fires <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.2395">decreased in parts of southeastern Australia</a> following British colonisation in 1788.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-the-colonists-came-we-burned-small-and-burned-often-to-avoid-big-fires-its-time-to-relearn-cultural-burning-201475">Before the colonists came, we burned small and burned often to avoid big fires. It's time to relearn cultural burning</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Changes in fire affect air, land and water</h2>
<p>Many animals and plants have evolved strategies that enable them to thrive under particular fire patterns. This means changes to fire characteristics can <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb0355">harm populations and ecosystems</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A closeup photo of epicormic growth in an Australian eucalypt. Small colourful leaves are sprouting from the trunk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547998/original/file-20230913-15-15pk1s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some eucalypts in southern Australia resprout after fire via epicormic buds along the trunk and branches. Resprouting influences how rapidly the tree layer, important habitat for animals, regenerates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas A. Fairman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12905">Large and intense fires</a> are reducing the available forest habitat preferred by the greater glider. But a <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-reveals-fire-is-pushing-88-of-australias-threatened-land-mammals-closer-to-extinction-185965">lack of fire can be problematic too</a>. Threatened species of native rodents can benefit from food resources and habitats that flourish shortly after fire.</p>
<p>There is evidence that emissions from recent fires are already modifying the atmosphere. The historically exceptional 2019–20 Australian wildfires produced <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe1415#:%7E:text=Intense%2C%20widespread%20bushfires%20in%20Australia,from%20a%20moderate%20volcanic%20eruption.">record-breaking levels of aerosols</a> over the Southern Hemisphere, as well as substantial carbon emissions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00610-5">wildfire smoke-related health costs</a> of the 2019–20 wildfires in Australia included an estimated 429 smoke-related premature deaths as well as 3,230 hospital admissions for cardiovascular and respiratory disorders.</p>
<p>Changes in fire patterns are modifying water cycles, too. In the western United States, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2009717118">fires are reaching higher elevations</a> and having strong impacts on <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2200333119">snow</a> and water availability. </p>
<p>New studies are revealing how the air, land and water that support life on Earth are connected by fires. Smoke plumes from the 2019–20 Australian wildfires transported nutrients to the Southern Ocean, resulting in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03805-8">widespread phytoplankton blooms</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-protect-yourself-against-bushfire-smoke-this-summer-154720">How to protect yourself against bushfire smoke this summer</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Humans are responsible for the changes</h2>
<p>Human drivers such as climate change, land use, fire use and suppression, and transportation and extinction of species <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-120220-055357">are causing shifts in fire patterns</a>.</p>
<p>Increasing global temperatures and more frequent heatwaves and droughts increase the likelihood of fire by promoting hot, dry and windy conditions. A pattern of extreme fire weather outside of natural climate variation is already emerging in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15388">North America</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1183-3">southern Europe</a> and <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac1e3a/meta">the Amazon basin</a>.</p>
<p>Humans modify fire regimes by changing land use for agricultural, forestry and urban purposes. Until recent decades, large fires in tropical forests were uncommon. But <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03876-7">deforestation fires</a> used to clear primary forest for agriculture often promotes more frequent and intense uncontrolled fires.</p>
<p>Humans have transported plants and animals across the globe, resulting in novel mixes of species that modify fuels and fire regimes. In many parts of the world, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1908253116">invasive grasses</a> have increased flammability and fire activity.</p>
<p>Social and economic changes propel these drivers. Colonisation by Europeans and the displacement of Indigenous peoples and their skilful use of fire has been linked with fire changes in <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.2395">Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116264119">North America</a> and <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2015.0174">South America</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-rangers-are-burning-the-desert-the-right-way-to-stop-the-wrong-kind-of-intense-fires-from-raging-211900">Indigenous rangers are burning the desert the right way – to stop the wrong kind of intense fires from raging</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photograph of an experimental fire in temperate savannah in Minnesota, US, at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve. A low flame is visible on the right hand side of the smoky image." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548003/original/file-20230913-25-gqnccm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Experimental fires help us learn about ecosystems and sustainability. This is an experimental fire in temperate savannah in Minnesota, US, at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frank Meuschke</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Using knowledge and practice of fire to achieve sustainability goals</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-120220-055357">The pace and scale of these changes</a> represent challenges to humanity, but knowledge and practice of fire can help to achieve sustainability goals.</p>
<p>This includes:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2015.0174">good health and wellbeing</a>, by supporting community-owned solutions and fire practices that increase social cohesion and health</li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479718314658">sustainable cities and communities</a>, by designing green firebreaks and mixed-use areas with low fuels, strategically located in the landscape</li>
<li><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aam7672">life on land</a>,
by tailoring use of fire to promote and restore species and ecosystems</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00867-1">climate action</a>,
by applying low-intensity fire to promote the stability of soil organic matter and increase carbon storage</li>
<li><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/3921">reduced inequalities</a>, by allocating resources before, during, and after wildfires to at-risk communities and residents.</li>
</ul>
<p>As the world changes, society as a whole needs to keep learning about the interplay between people and fire.</p>
<p>A deep understanding of fire is essential for achieving a sustainable future – in other words, <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-120220-055357">a better Anthropocene</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Kelly receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Natural Hazards Research Australia, and NSW Department of Planning and Environment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bowman receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Natural Hazards Research Australia, and NSW Department of Planning and Environment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ella Plumanns Pouton receives funding from the Australian Research Training Program, the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, and Natural Hazards Research Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grant Williamson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Natural Hazards Research Australia, and NSW Department of Planning and Environment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael-Shawn Fletcher receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>We used satellite data to create global maps of where and how fires are burning. Fire season lasts two weeks longer than it used to and fires are more intense. But there are regional differences.Luke Kelly, Associate Professor in Quantitative Ecology, The University of MelbourneDavid Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of TasmaniaElla Plumanns Pouton, PhD candidate, The University of MelbourneGrant Williamson, Research Fellow in Environmental Science, University of TasmaniaMichael-Shawn Fletcher, Professor in Biogeography, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097882023-08-07T00:46:05Z2023-08-07T00:46:05ZPlastic rocks, plutonium, and chicken bones: the markers we’re laying down in deep time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540679/original/file-20230802-23-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C13%2C2982%2C1553&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rocks keep time. Not on our human-scale time, but deep time: the almost unimaginable span of billions of years which have already come and gone. </p>
<p>Let’s say you’re in the far future and you’re looking for evidence of previous civilisations. Where would you look? The first place would be in the rocks. </p>
<p>For decades, experts have debated whether our world-spanning impact on the planet represents the sign of a new geological period, the Anthropocene. Only recently, scientists selected a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-lake-holds-the-key-to-the-beginning-of-the-anthropocene-a-new-geological-epoch-209576">small lake</a> in Canada as the site that best records our impact.</p>
<p>That’s because the waters of the lake don’t mix, which means sediment falling into the lake is laid down neatly and in incredible detail. Over long periods, the lake’s <a href="https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glacial-geology/varves/">varved sediments</a> have preserved an excellent, undisturbed record of the Anthropocene. </p>
<p>But what would have to be in those sediments to leave indelible evidence of our presence? Here are five of the markers we’re leaving for the future. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1678814180848050177"}"></div></p>
<h2>What markers are we laying down in rock?</h2>
<p>We break up deep time into parts. Everyone is familiar with periods such as the Jurassic. But what separates them? Usually, a change in the global environment so large it leaves permanent evidence visible in the rock layers. That could be an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event">asteroid strike</a>, gargantuan <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-ancient-fossils/extinction/deccan-traps-volcanoes">volcanic eruptions</a> in what is now India or trillions of bacteria <a href="https://asm.org/Articles/2022/February/The-Great-Oxidation-Event-How-Cyanobacteria-Change">injecting oxygen</a> into the atmosphere and making respiration possible. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="ocean cliffs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540660/original/file-20230802-27-iod8xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Experts learn to read rock layers like a book of deep time. Each layer on these cliffs tells a story of changing environments over millions of years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So to declare that we’re in a new geological epoch – and that we’ve left the balmy post-ice age Holocene behind – requires finding evidence of unmistakably clear markers. Here are five possibilities. </p>
<h2>1. Plastics and plastic rocks</h2>
<p>Plastics aren’t naturally produced – they’re manufactured from feedstock such as oil, coal, cellulose and fossil gas. Finding plastics in a sediment or rock layer is a clear sign that the layer dates from modern times. </p>
<p>There are also plastiglomerates, the mutant offspring of plastics and rock. These have been found in several places worldwide. They can be produced when plastic is heated, such as <a href="https://phys.org/news/2023-03-scientists-disturbing-remote-island-plastic.html">in campfires</a>, or in bushfires. But they’re also being found in other places <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01037-6">such as creeks</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Concrete</h2>
<p>Concrete is now the <a href="https://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org/contribution/concrete-a-stratigraphic-marker-for-the-anthropocene">most abundant</a> human-made “rock” on the planet’s surface. Future archaeologists could dig down through mud and detritus to identify when widescale use of concrete first became obvious. This would tell them they’d struck the 20th century. Concrete, of course, has been used for millennia – ancient Roman concrete is <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106">still standing</a> in some places. But it didn’t become ubiquitous until recently. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="tunelboca beach anthropocene" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540649/original/file-20230802-27-6zixs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cement, brick and industrial waste has been laid down in newly formed beachrock at Tunelboca beach in Spain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Chicken bones</h2>
<p>Humans like chicken. As of 2018, we <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/science/chicken-anthropocene-archaeology.html">were eating</a> about 65 billion of these birds a year. At any one time, there are 23 billion chickens alive. But why would chicken bones be a telltale sign we were here? Because of how common they are – and because our long reliance on these birds has changed them dramatically. They no longer resemble their sleek <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/how-wild-jungle-fowl-became-chicken">jungle fowl</a> antecedents – they’re far larger, grow quicker and eat differently. Broiler (meat) chickens can’t survive without human intervention. These changes are <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.180325">so profound </a>that it’s as if we’ve bred a new species, according to paleobiology and Anthropocene expert Jan Zalasiewicz, who <a href="https://phys.org/news/2023-07-proof-humans-reshaped-world-chickens.html">told AFP</a>: “It usually takes millions of years […] but here it has taken just decades to produce a new form of animal.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="broiler chicken farm" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540657/original/file-20230802-29-yj4k10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Broiler chickens grow much faster than their wild ancestors – and we breed billions upon billions every year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Plutonium and nuclear residue</h2>
<p>Nuclear testing began in the 1940s and accelerated through the 1950s and 60s before being phased out. Testing of new bombs <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/nuclear-tests-have-changed-but-they-never-really-stopped/">now happens</a> without exploding them. But those decades of testing in the 20th century have left behind a pollution time marker in our environment. </p>
<p>Explosive testing scattered traces of radiation across the entire planet. Plutonium, in particular, makes an excellent marker of 20th century human impact. While it does <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-transuranic-elements-s">occur naturally</a>, it’s only at incredibly low levels. The amount of plutonium spread by testing has left a clear spike, like a fingerprint, in the environment. Even now, we can identify samples from the 1950s and 1960s by <a href="https://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org/contribution/radioactive-fallout-as-a-marker-for-the-anthropocene">the presence</a> of plutonium and other radionuclides. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-lake-holds-the-key-to-the-beginning-of-the-anthropocene-a-new-geological-epoch-209576">A Canadian lake holds the key to the beginning of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>5. Fossil fuels and climate change</h2>
<p>We’ve been digging up and burning fossil fuels for a long time. People were using coal for heat thousands of years ago. But we really got going during what’s been dubbed the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674545038">Great Acceleration</a> in the mid-20th century, as many countries got richer, populations exploded, and demand for cars, planes and electricity soared. Burning these fuels leaves behind large volumes of fly ash and carbon particles, which fall to Earth, are laid down in rock in some areas. The carbon (CO2) pollution from burning the fuels will also eventually be recorded in rock. Future civilisations would be able to detect our presence because of the remarkably fast spike in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. </p>
<h2>Markers upon markers</h2>
<p>There are many more markers, from sudden shifts in distribution of animal species, soil erosion and pollution, to refined metals, to looming mass extinctions of species. </p>
<p>Even so, the Anthropocene has not yet been declared. And it may never be. That’s because there are still many questions to sort out. Will these markers be recognisable long term? And – as some geologists argue – can we even say this is a distinct epoch, given it’s only just begun in geological terms? </p>
<p>All of this will be hashed out in discussions through this year. By the end of next year, we’ll learn the scientific fate of the Anthropocene. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-anthropocene-start-in-1950-or-much-earlier-heres-why-debate-over-our-world-changing-impact-matters-209869">Did the Anthropocene start in 1950 – or much earlier? Here's why debate over our world-changing impact matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan Cook receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>We’re having a big impact on the planet. But what marks will we leave behind in deep time?Duncan Cook, Associate Professor in Geography, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101262023-07-21T12:28:31Z2023-07-21T12:28:31ZIs it really hotter now than any time in 100,000 years?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538655/original/file-20230721-25-nhjvk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=199%2C0%2C6214%2C4023&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Recent heat waves underscore Earth's new climate state.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hot-arid-climate-landscape-royalty-free-image/1181240920">Sean Gladwell via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/wmo-warns-risk-heart-attacks-deaths-heatwave-intensifies-2023-07-18/">scorching heat</a> grips large swaths of the Earth, a lot of people are trying to put the extreme temperatures into context and asking: When was it ever this hot before?</p>
<p>Globally, 2023 has seen some of the <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/preliminary-data-shows-hottest-week-record-unprecedented-sea-surface-temperatures-and">hottest days</a> in modern measurements, but what about farther back, before weather stations and satellites?</p>
<p>Some news outlets have reported that daily temperatures hit a 100,000-year high. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KpeykKsAAAAJ&hl=en">paleoclimate scientist</a> who studies temperatures of the past, I see where this claim comes from, but I cringe at the inexact headlines. While this claim may well be correct, there are no detailed temperature records extending back 100,000 years, so we don’t know for sure.</p>
<p>Here’s what we can confidently say about when Earth was last this hot.</p>
<h2>This is a new climate state</h2>
<p>Scientists concluded a few years ago that Earth had entered a new climate state not seen in more than 100,000 years. As fellow climate scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=j8_CgoEAAAAJ&hl=en">Nick McKay</a> and I recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-911-2022">discussed in a scientific journal article</a>, that conclusion was part of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/climate-change-2021-the-physical-science-basis/technical-summary/C7CCEAD271B10F328C6E50C03A0F4F02">a climate assessment report</a> published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2021.</p>
<p>Earth was already more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) warmer than preindustrial times, and the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were high enough to assure temperatures would stay elevated for a long time.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A time series chart shows a peak around 125,000 years ago and points to today's interglacial, showing temperatures close to the 1C warming level." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538649/original/file-20230721-21-as2db8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Earth’s average temperature has exceeded 1 degree Celsius (1.8 F) above the preindustrial baseline. This new climate state will very likely persist for centuries as the warmest period in more than 100,000 years. The chart shows different reconstructions of temperature over time, with measured temperatures since 1850 and a projection to 2300 based on an intermediate emissions scenario.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/18/911/2022/">D.S. Kaufman and N.P. McKay, 2022, and published datasets</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even under the most optimistic scenarios of the future – in which humans stop burning fossil fuels and reduce other greenhouse gas emissions – average global temperature will very likely remain at least 1 C above preindustrial temperatures, and possibly much higher, for multiple centuries.</p>
<p>This new climate state, characterized by a multi-century global warming level of 1 C and higher, can be reliably compared with temperature reconstructions from the very distant past.</p>
<h2>How we estimate past temperature</h2>
<p>To reconstruct temperatures from times before thermometers, paleoclimate scientists rely on information stored in a <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/programs/climate-research-and-development-program/science/paleoclimate-research">variety of natural archives</a>.</p>
<p>The most widespread archive going back many thousands of years is at the bottom of <a href="https://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/2017/01/using-lake-sediments-to-understand-past-climate/">lakes</a> and <a href="https://www.icm.csic.es/en/news/what-do-marine-sediments-tell-us-about-earths-climate">oceans</a>, where an assortment of <a href="https://www.icm.csic.es/en/news/what-do-marine-sediments-tell-us-about-earths-climate">biological, chemical and physical evidence</a> offers clues to the past. These materials build up continuously over time and can be analyzed by extracting a sediment core from the lake bed or ocean floor.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two female scientists aboard a boat examine a sediment core, with the layers clearly visible." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538741/original/file-20230721-22261-8jb0lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538741/original/file-20230721-22261-8jb0lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538741/original/file-20230721-22261-8jb0lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538741/original/file-20230721-22261-8jb0lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538741/original/file-20230721-22261-8jb0lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538741/original/file-20230721-22261-8jb0lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538741/original/file-20230721-22261-8jb0lp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">University of Arizona scientist Ellie Broadman holds a sediment core from the bottom of a lake on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/was-earth-already-heating-up-or-did-global-warming-reverse-a-long-term-cooling-trend-197788">Emily Stone</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-earth-already-heating-up-or-did-global-warming-reverse-a-long-term-cooling-trend-197788">sediment-based records</a> are rich sources of information that have enabled paleoclimate scientists to reconstruct past global temperatures, but they have important limitations.</p>
<p>For one, bottom currents and burrowing organisms can mix the sediment, blurring any short-term temperature spikes. For another, the timeline for each record is not known precisely, so when multiple records are averaged together to estimate past global temperature, fine-scale fluctuations can be canceled out.</p>
<p>Because of this, paleoclimate scientists are reluctant to compare the long-term record of past temperature with short-term extremes.</p>
<h2>Looking back tens of thousands of years</h2>
<p>Earth’s average global temperature has fluctuated between glacial and interglacial conditions in cycles lasting around 100,000 years, driven largely by slow and predictable <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/">changes in Earth’s orbit</a> with attendant changes in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. We are currently in an interglacial period that began around 12,000 years ago as ice sheets retreated and greenhouse gases rose.</p>
<p>Looking at that 12,000-year interglacial period, global temperature averaged over multiple centuries might have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0530-7">peaked roughly around 6,000 years ago</a>, but probably did not exceed the 1 C global warming level at that point, according to the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/climate-change-2021-the-physical-science-basis/changing-state-of-the-climate-system/8B8FB442BA38A2C314ADD4136A9FE2E8">IPCC report</a>. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03984-4">Another study</a> found that global average temperatures continued to increase across the interglacial period. This is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-earth-already-heating-up-or-did-global-warming-reverse-a-long-term-cooling-trend-197788">topic of active research</a>.</p>
<p>That means we have to look farther back to find a time that might have been as warm as today.</p>
<p>The last glacial episode lasted nearly 100,000 years. There is no evidence that long-term global temperatures reached the preindustrial baseline anytime during that period.</p>
<p>If we look even farther back, to the previous interglacial period, which peaked around 125,000 years ago, we do find evidence of warmer temperatures. The evidence suggests the long-term average temperature was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/climate-change-2021-the-physical-science-basis/changing-state-of-the-climate-system/8B8FB442BA38A2C314ADD4136A9FE2E8">probably no more than 1.5 C (2.7 F)</a> above preindustrial levels – not much more than the current global warming level.</p>
<h2>Now what?</h2>
<p>Without rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth is currently on course to reach temperatures of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/climate-change-2021-the-physical-science-basis/summary-for-policymakers/CBBF8E93AC3A66A16D29C14D0815A45A">roughly 3 C (5.4 F)</a> above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, and possibly quite a bit higher.</p>
<p>At that point, we would need to <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1809600115">look back millions</a> of years to find a climate state with temperatures as hot. That would take us back to the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/geology/time-scale.htm">previous geologic epoch</a>, the Pliocene, when the Earth’s climate was a distant relative of the one that sustained the rise of agriculture and civilization.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darrell Kaufman receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Long before thermometers, nature left its own temperature records. A climate scientist explains how ongoing global warming compares with ancient temperatures.Darrell Kaufman, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Northern Arizona UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097642023-07-19T21:55:33Z2023-07-19T21:55:33ZCrawford Lake: What the past can teach us about urban living today<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/crawford-lake-what-the-past-can-teach-us-about-urban-living-today" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When I heard that Crawford Lake in southern Ontario was selected as the “Golden Spike” candidate for placing the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch in 1950 — essentially, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-lake-holds-the-key-to-the-beginning-of-the-anthropocene-a-new-geological-epoch-209576">the best place in the world to show how humans impacted the planet’s fossil record</a> — I was not surprised. </p>
<p>As the Allan and Helaine Shiff Curator of Climate Change at the Royal Ontario Museum, a metre-long sediment core from Crawford Lake was the first object I accepted into the collection as curator in April 2022.</p>
<p>Further, as a <a href="https://www.iisd.org/ela/blog/commentary/back-to-basics-what-is-a-limnologist/">limnologist studying inland waters</a> I have long understood that lakes are <a href="https://doi.org/10.4319/lo.2009.54.6_part_2.2283">sentinels of climate change</a>. Small changes in environmental conditions can lead to larger changes in a lake’s physical, chemical and biological processes, impacting the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix106">ecosystem services they provide</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, nearly any lake on the planet contains many of the same Anthropocene markers (such as plutonium from nuclear weapons testing) across the same timeline. </p>
<p>This begs the question. Just what is so special about Crawford Lake in Milton, Ont.? And what, if anything, can it teach us about how we interact with our environments?</p>
<h2>A local history of environmental change</h2>
<p>As the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) Golden Spike candidate, Crawford Lake is largely special because its sediments feature visual distinctions between years, known as varving. This varving allows for particularly accurate historical dating of environmental events. </p>
<p>But even beyond its status as a Golden Spike candidate, Crawford Lake’s sediments tell a powerful story of human history that is both local and global. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Core sample from Crawford Lake on a wooden table top." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538339/original/file-20230719-21-qrzk3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538339/original/file-20230719-21-qrzk3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538339/original/file-20230719-21-qrzk3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538339/original/file-20230719-21-qrzk3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538339/original/file-20230719-21-qrzk3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538339/original/file-20230719-21-qrzk3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538339/original/file-20230719-21-qrzk3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Crawford Lake core sample in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum showing particularly striking varving patterns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Paul Eekhoff)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The annual varving pattern in the sediments essentially <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">began in the late 13th Century</a>. It was caused by nutrient enrichment due to farming activities associated with an <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2694221">Attawandaron or pre-Wendat village adjacent to the lake at that time</a>.</p>
<p>Moving forward, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">a major sediment colour shift occurred in 1874</a>. This shift aligned with the acquisition of the land by the Crawford family who cleared trees near the lake and operated a sawmill after immigrating from England. </p>
<p>More recently, the sediments contain evidence of the Dust Bowl as well as the faint impact of the construction of park infrastructure near the lake and two archaeological excavations. Thus, in one continuous sediment core, we witness Indigenous and colonial local histories, as well as the global signature of an inflection point in Earth systems due to human activities. </p>
<p>Among other things, we’re left with an evocative record of how our environments are impacted by humans. </p>
<h2>The impacts of intentions</h2>
<p>The degree to which humans impact Crawford Lake’s conditions over time is not simply a function of the number of people near the lake. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2694221">early villages dating from the late 1200s through 1400s were likely home to hundreds</a>, yet the Crawford family’s lumber business produced <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">a much starker shift in conditions</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Lake core sample still wet from being removed from the lake." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538338/original/file-20230719-29-130tnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Crawford Lake core sample freshly pulled from the lake with especially vivid varving lines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Soren Brothers)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, its place within a conservation area excludes local settlement but it still draws over one hundred thousand visitors to the lake each year.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Crawford Lake’s sediments teach us that humans have always — and will always — change our environments in some way. But it is our cultures, discourses and attitudes towards our environment that ultimately determine what this change will look like. </p>
<p>It’s easy to focus on the negative impacts that humans can have on the environment. However, it’s worth embracing that humans can also live in positive, mutually beneficial relationships with the land, as has been the case with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2006.00605.x">traditional Indigenous environmental management systems practised here in Canada</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, contemporary Indigenous land management practices are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.07.002">at least as effective, if not more, as conventional protected area approaches at preserving biodiversity</a>. </p>
<h2>Reversing urban impacts</h2>
<p>As we are — for the first time in human history — <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview/">a predominantly urban species</a>, it is now more important than ever to design our cities to help ensure our urban areas create net positive outcomes to local biodiversity and climate impacts. But how can this be done?</p>
<p>The possibilities are as diverse as the landscapes where the cities are situated, compounded with the collective creativity of their inhabitants. </p>
<p>Toronto, the largest urban area close to Crawford Lake, might adopt measures being undertaken by other cities around the world, for instance creating <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/07/how-effective-are-wildlife-corridors-like-singapores-eco-link/">wildlife habitat corridors</a> connecting its existing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/dec/21/theres-no-major-city-like-it-toronto-unique-ravine-system-under-threat">ravine systems</a>, and expanding the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ecologist-new-bylaw-natural-garden-1.5752995">efforts of locals using their private yards as refuges for native plants</a>. </p>
<p>We could see <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/23/us/california-wildlife-crossing-scn-trnd/index.html">wildlife crossings</a> on highways and streets, pollinator gardens on <a href="https://newsforkids.net/articles/2022/09/29/the-uk-is-buzzing-over-bee-bus-stops/">bus stop roofs</a>, oversized parking lots converted to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-08/act-micro-forests-in-canberra-offer-hope-against-climate-change/100274670">micro-forests</a>, sidewalks widened for <a href="https://www.epa.gov/soakuptherain/soak-rain-rain-gardens">rain-absorbing gardens</a>, and select <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-07/how-amsterdam-is-closing-the-door-on-downtown-cars">streets closed</a> to through-traffic by privately owned vehicles. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bridge for wildlife over a highway with mountains in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538227/original/file-20230719-29-946n5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538227/original/file-20230719-29-946n5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538227/original/file-20230719-29-946n5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538227/original/file-20230719-29-946n5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538227/original/file-20230719-29-946n5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538227/original/file-20230719-29-946n5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538227/original/file-20230719-29-946n5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wildlife bridges, long a fixture in more rural areas, could have a positive impact in urban areas as well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This would reduce noise and air pollution and provide those living in and visiting the city a safe, convenient, cheap and healthy alternative to driving.</p>
<p>The complex network of streams buried across the city might be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/29/river-runs-global-movement-daylight-urban-rivers">exposed to see the light of day again</a>, cooling down and beautifying neighbourhoods, while drawing down atmospheric carbon from <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/riparian">riparian zone</a> vegetation and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2017.06.037">sequestering that carbon in wetland sediments</a> along the Lake Ontario coast.</p>
<p>The possibilities are endless. While these changes may sound idealistic or idyllic, they are real changes happening in major cities around the world today. In Toronto’s case, they would be building on already-existing <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-07-27/is-toronto-s-port-lands-flood-protection-project-the-future-of-urban-resilience">ecologically-minded projects occurring in the city</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-attain-global-climate-and-biodiversity-goals-we-must-reclaim-nature-in-our-cities-196860">To attain global climate and biodiversity goals, we must reclaim nature in our cities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Repositioning ourselves within our ecosystems, to the point of considering local stewardship practices as a fundamental <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01096-7">component of ecosystem health</a>, may not only be smart, but necessary for our survival. </p>
<p>The Crawford Lake sediments present powerful evidence regarding the relationship between <em>Homo sapiens</em> and the planet we inhabit. Yet, perhaps the most important lesson here is that the relationship between people and planet is not predetermined, but shaped by people’s choices and values. </p>
<p>By positively harnessing our powers today, we can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and protect local biodiversity. We can tap into the best that our species is capable of, improving our quality of living along the way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Soren Brothers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What is so special about Crawford Lake? And what can it teach us about the urban spaces we live in?Soren Brothers, Allan and Helaine Shiff Curator of Climate Change, Royal Ontario Museum and Assistant Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098692023-07-18T20:02:02Z2023-07-18T20:02:02ZDid the Anthropocene start in 1950 – or much earlier? Here’s why debate over our world-changing impact matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537960/original/file-20230718-29-f4vh8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3853%2C2549&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It made world news last week when a small lake in Canada was chosen as the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/11/23791629/anthropocene-climate-epoch-canada-lake-crawford">Golden Spike</a>” – the location where the emergence of the Anthropocene is most clear. The Anthropocene is the proposed new geological epoch defined by humanity’s impact on the planet. </p>
<p>It took 14 years of scouring the world before the geoscientists in the <a href="http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene">Anthropocene Working Group</a> chose Lake Crawford – the still, deep waters of which are exceptionally good at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/climate/anthropocene-epoch-crawford-lake.html">preserving history</a> in the form of sediment layers. Core samples from the lake give us an unusually good record of geological change, including, some scientists believe, the moment we began to change everything. For this group, that date is around 1950. </p>
<p>But what didn’t get reported was the resignation of a key member, global ecosystem expert Professor Erle Ellis, who left the working group and published an <a href="https://anthroecology.org/why-i-resigned-from-the-anthropocene-working-group">open letter</a> about his concerns. In short, Ellis believes pinning the start of our sizeable impact on the planet to 1950 is an error, given we’ve been changing the face of the planet for much longer. </p>
<p>The other working group scientists argue 1950 is well chosen, as it’s when humans started to really make their presence felt through surging populations, fossil fuel use and deforestation, amongst other things. This phenomenon has been dubbed the <a href="http://www.igbp.net/news/pressreleases/pressreleases/planetarydashboardshowsgreataccelerationinhumanactivitysince1950.5.950c2fa1495db7081eb42.html#:%7E:text=We%20can%20say%20that%20around,to%20the%20global%20economic%20system.">Great Acceleration</a>.</p>
<p>The disagreement speaks to something vital to science – the ability to accommodate dissent through debate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="lake crawford" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537958/original/file-20230718-19-afp9e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canada’s Lake Crawford was chosen because it’s a rare meromictic lake, meaning different layers of water don’t intermix. That, in turn, makes it better at laying down sediment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s the debate about?</h2>
<p>Would the public embrace the idea that our actions are making the world almost wholly unnatural? The answer, of course, depends on the quality of the science. Since most people aren’t scientists, we rely on the scientific community to hash out debate and present the best explanations for the data.</p>
<p>That’s why Ellis’s departure is so interesting. His resignation letter is explosive: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s […] [im]possible to avoid the reality that narrowly defining the Anthropocene […] has become more than a scholarly concern. The AWG’s choice to systematically ignore overwhelming evidence of Earth’s long-term anthropogenic transformation is not just bad science, it’s bad for public understanding and action on global change. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s not that Ellis thinks the way we live is problem-free. The central issue, in his view, is that there’s powerful evidence of much earlier global-scale impacts caused by pre- and proto-capitalist societies. </p>
<p>For instance, as Earth systems experts Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-anthropocene-began-with-european-colonisation-mass-slavery-and-the-great-dying-of-the-16th-century-140661">have shown</a>, the violent Portuguese and Spanish colonisation of Central and South America indirectly lowered atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. How? By killing millions of indigenous people and destroying local empires. With the people gone, the trees regrew during the 17th century and covered the <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/lost-society-found-in-amazon-rainforest">villages and cities</a>, expanding the Amazon rainforest. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537963/original/file-20230718-17-5eworn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Villages and towns dotted many parts of the Amazon before colonisation. This image shows what’s left of a village.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Exeter</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why we should welcome honest disagreement in science</h2>
<p>Scientists have been debating in recent years over whether the Anthropocene should be deemed an “epoch” with a specific start date, or else an historically extended “event” caused by different human practices in different places, such as early agriculture, European colonisation and the spread of European and North American capitalism worldwide. </p>
<p>Ellis’ resignation stems from this debate. He’s not alone – other group members and experts have also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.3416">worked to refute</a> the epoch idea. </p>
<p>As philosopher of science Karl Popper and others have argued, productive scientific debate can only occur if there’s space for dissent and alternative perspectives. Ellis clearly believes the Anthropocene group has gone from debate to group think, which, if true, would challenge the free exchange at the heart of science. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-lake-holds-the-key-to-the-beginning-of-the-anthropocene-a-new-geological-epoch-209576">A Canadian lake holds the key to the beginning of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Longer term, a compromise may well be reached. If the Anthropocene group were to shift tack and label the start of the epoch a multi-century event (a “long Anthropocene”), we’d still benefit from having labels for periods such as our current one where the human impact ramped-up significantly. </p>
<p>One issue with such tensions is what happens when they hit the media. Consider Climategate, the 2009 incident in which an attacker stole emails from a key climate research centre in the United Kingdom. Bad faith actors seized on perceived issues in the emails and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2019/nov/09/climategate-10-years-on-what-lessons-have-we-learned">used them</a> to claim anthropogenic climate change was fabricated. The scientists at the heart of the controversy were cleared of wrongdoing, but the whole affair helped seed doubt and slow our transition away from fossil fuels. </p>
<p>The risk here is that if the public gets only a glancing, oversimplified view of these debates, they may come to doubt the abundant proof of our impact on Earth. It falls to journalists and science communicators to convey this accurately. </p>
<p>As for our trust in science, the case for declaring the Anthropocene will be subject to very close scrutiny and may not be ratified by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the <a href="https://stratigraphy.org/">body responsible</a> for separating out <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-things-will-outlast-us-how-the-indigenous-concept-of-deep-time-helps-us-understand-environmental-destruction-132201">deep time</a> into specific epochs. </p>
<p>Stratigraphers such as Lucy Edwards <a href="https://rock.geosociety.org/net/gsatoday/archive/26/3/abstract/i1052-5173-26-3-4.htm">have argued</a> that an emerging epoch isn’t a fit subject for stratigraphy at all because all the evidence cannot, by definition, be in. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="hutton unconformit" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537959/original/file-20230718-23-3qk1b4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This unassuming rock formation in Scotland is the site of a famous geological discovery, where James Hutton first realised the boundary between two types of rock separated geological epochs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What does this tension mean for the Anthropocene?</h2>
<p>The epoch versus event debate doesn’t mean we’re off the hook in terms of our impact on the planet. It is abundantly clear we have become the first species in Earth’s long history to alter the functioning of the atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and pedosphere (the soil layer) all at once and very quickly. Species such as cyanobacteria or blue-green algae had <a href="https://asm.org/Articles/2022/February/The-Great-Oxidation-Event-How-Cyanobacteria-Change">huge impact</a> by adding oxygen to the atmosphere, but they did not affect all spheres with the speed and severity we have.</p>
<p>While we did not set out to alter the planet, its implications are profound. Humans are not only altering the climate but the entirety of the irreplaceable envelope sustaining life on the only planet known to have life. This is a complex story and we should not expect science to simplify it for political or other reasons.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-anthropocene-began-with-european-colonisation-mass-slavery-and-the-great-dying-of-the-16th-century-140661">Why the Anthropocene began with European colonisation, mass slavery and the 'great dying' of the 16th century</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209869/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noel Castree does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our activities now affect the entire planet. But there’s a vital debate over when we started disrupting these systems. Was it 1950 – or hundreds and thousands of years earlier?Noel Castree, Professor of Society & Environment, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2095762023-07-11T19:38:45Z2023-07-11T19:38:45ZA Canadian lake holds the key to the beginning of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536911/original/file-20230711-17-6vor9k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1920%2C1267&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canada's Crawford Lake, in Ontario, was chosen for its pristine sediment record.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/crawford-lake-one-few-meromictic-lakes-145107226">SF photo/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/un-lago-canadiense-sera-el-enclave-que-marque-el-inicio-del-antropoceno-199522">Leer en español</a></em></p>
<p>Are we really living in the Anthropocene, the geological time marked by the global impact of human activity? And if so, when did it begin?</p>
<p>These are questions that the <a href="http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/">Anthropocene Working Group</a> – established in 2009 by the <a href="http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/">International Commission on Stratigraphy</a> to propose a definition of the concept and to estimate its potential as a unit of geologic time – is hoping to answer.</p>
<p>The group <a href="https://www.shh.mpg.de/2331855/press-conference">announced on July 11, 2023</a>, that Lake Crawford in Ontario, Canada, had been chosen as the site with the sedimentary record that would be used to define the beginning of the Anthropocene. </p>
<p>What makes this site so special that it holds the dividing line between different geological epochs?</p>
<h2>The footprint of the Great Acceleration</h2>
<p>Since its formation, the Anthropocene Working Group has evaluated various types of physical, chemical and biological evidence preserved in sediments and rocks, and it has published numerous <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221136422">scientific papers</a> that have explored their nature and relevance. </p>
<p>These studies have concluded that the Anthropocene is significant on a geologic scale because of the rapidity and magnitude of recent human impacts on processes operating on the Earth’s surface. Many of these impacts have generated irreversible changes that exceed the small range of natural variability of the Holocene, which began 11,700 years ago.</p>
<p>In the geologic strata, the Anthropocene Working Group has identified a significant set of indicators that coincide with the so-called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2021/021031">Great Acceleration</a>” of the mid-20th century, driven by an unprecedented increase in human population, energy consumption, industrialization and globalization following the end of World War II. These include the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Radioisotopes from thermonuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere (such as plutonium).</p></li>
<li><p>Carbonaceous particles originating from the burning of fossil fuels at high temperatures.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/es/topics/microplasticos-62800">Microplastics</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Changes in biodiversity, including extinction, the movement of species out of their natural range and the great expansion of domesticated organisms.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person a beach looks up at a rock wall with clear evidence of different layers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530979/original/file-20230608-16881-hfat5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A partial view of the geological deposit at Spain’s Tunelboca beach formed by iron slags, refractory bricks, plastics and other technofossils from the Anthropocene.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roberto Martínez</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Finding the ‘golden spike’</h2>
<p>Over the years, the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2017.09.001">Anthropocene Working Group has mostly agreed</a> that the Anthropocene is geologically real and should be formalized as an independent unit within the international scale of geologic time. </p>
<p>Its onset would be in the mid-20th century, in the 1950s, according to the global signals recorded in sediments since then. </p>
<p>The Anthropocene Working Group established that it is necessary to determine its place of reference by means of a material and temporal boundary called a <a href="https://stratigraphy.org/gssps/">Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point</a>, or GSSP – colloquially, a “golden spike.” This is the most widely accepted method for formalizing geologic units over the past 540 million years.</p>
<h2>Selection criteria</h2>
<p>Since 2019, a collaborative project between the Anthropocene Working Group and numerous research laboratories has been underway as part of an international initiative called <a href="https://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org/">Anthropocene Curriculum</a>, promoted by the <a href="https://www.hkw.de/en">Haus der Kulturen der Welt</a> and the <a href="https://www.latam.mpg.de/70579/instituto-max-planck-para-la-historia-de-la-ciencia">Max Planck Institute for the History of Science</a>, both in Germany. </p>
<p>Twelve detailed proposals were initially submitted for different geological sections that could host this GSSP, located on five continents and situated in eight different geological environments. All of them were published in 2023 in the scientific journal <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/anra/10/1">Anthropocene Review</a>. These papers were the main source of information for the voting members of the Anthropocene Working Group during the selection process.</p>
<p>The Anthropocene Working Group finally reviewed <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20530196221136422">nine reference sections</a> in detail. Suitable candidates were those containing thin layers of sediment that could be analyzed from year to year and whose age could also be corroborated by the presence of radioactive elements to ensure a complete sedimentary record.</p>
<p>The stratigraphic procedures established to decide on a GSSP are already standardized in geology and are common for the definition of any geological time. Thus, a “golden spike” requires the local presence of a physical marker that can be seen with the naked eye and at least one indicator signal, such as a geochemical change, that is found in sediments and rocks of the same age and across the globe.</p>
<p>Most of the proposals identified plutonium as the primary indicator and proposed the onset of the Anthropocene from an increase in the signal of this radioactive element.</p>
<h2>And the winner is …</h2>
<p>Initial discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of each location began in October 2022, and the list was narrowed to three. </p>
<p>According to the results, the most relevant geological sections were located in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221135077">Beppu Bay</a>, Japan; <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196231167019">Sihailongwan Lake</a>, China; and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">Crawford Lake</a>. After a detailed analysis of the nature of their plutonium signal and a new vote, the Chinese and Canadian lake sites were finalists. </p>
<p>In the end, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">Crawford Lake</a> received 61% of the votes and was chosen as the site of the GSSP for the Anthropocene epoch.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532654/original/file-20230619-19-57piop.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The location of Crawford Lake.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">Francine MG McCarthy et al. Sage Journal, 2023.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sediment layers in the lake bed, west of Toronto, were originally investigated to demonstrate the region’s sporadic occupation by Native American peoples and subsequent colonization by Europeans. The new geological study has increased the number of indicators preserved in its various annual layers, which are formed by an alternation of pale calcite, deposited in summer, and dark organic laminae, accumulated in winter.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map shows the location of Crawford Lake, just west of Toronto in Ontario." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1331&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532734/original/file-20230619-22-63rdeh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1331&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A core from the lake bed shows annual layers of sediment deposited there. This sample indicates the position of the proposed boundary in the year 1950.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281">Francine MG McCarthy et al. Sage Journal, 2023</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The layer proposed as a visual marker for the GSSP is 6.1 inches (15.6 centimeters) deep at the base of a calcite sheet deposited in the summer of 1950. It was selected because of the rapid <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/plutonium.html">increase in plutonium</a> thereafter. This signal also coincides with an increase in carbonaceous particles and a major ecosystem change identified by a decline in elm pollen and a replacement in diatom species, a type of algae.</p>
<h2>Farewell to the Holocene</h2>
<p>It is very important not to confuse the start of human activity and the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene does not include the initial impact of humans, which was regional and grew over time, but it is defined as a consequence of the planetary response to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00029-y">the enormous impact of the Great Acceleration</a>. </p>
<p>The Anthropocene is part of geologic time. Formalizing it precisely will help determine its meaning and use in all sciences and other academic disciplines. The end of a relatively stable epoch in Earth’s history, the Holocene, will thus be recognized.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alejandro Cearreta receives funding for his research on the Anthropocene from the projects Harea-Grupo de Geología Litoral (Basque Government, IT1616-22) and Antropicosta-2 (RTI2018-095678-B-C21, MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ERDF A way of making Europe and European Union).</span></em></p>Crawford Lake in Ontario contains the record that best identifies the beginning of the Anthropocene, the geologic epoch characterized by the global impact of human activity.Alejandro Cearreta, Catedrático de Paleontología, Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko UnibertsitateaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2067202023-06-12T15:50:46Z2023-06-12T15:50:46ZThe materials used by humans now weigh more than all life on Earth – here’s four graphs that reveal our staggering impact on the planet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531323/original/file-20230612-220125-wmssuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C3976%2C2664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yantian Port, Shenzhen City, China.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/november-16-2020yantian-port-free-trade-1855418863">Weiming Xie/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The extent of humanity’s influence on the planet has become increasingly clear in recent years. From the alarming <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-earths-plastic-pollution-problem-could-look-by-2040-143220">accumulation of plastic waste</a> in our oceans to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/star-wars-earth-will-never-be-an-ecumenopolis-like-coruscant-but-our-cities-are-devouring-the-world-202224">sprawling growth of urban areas</a>, the size of our impact is undeniable. </p>
<p>The concept of the “technosphere” aims to reveal the immense scale of our collective impact. The concept was <a href="https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/Haff%202013%20Technology%20as%20a%20Geological%20Phenomenon.pdf">first introduced</a> by US geologist Peter Haff in 2013, but paleobiologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-human-made-materials-now-weigh-as-much-as-all-living-biomass-say-scientists-151721">Jan Zalasiewicz</a> has since popularised the term through his work. The technosphere encompasses the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019616677743">vast global output of materials</a> generated by human activities, as well as the associated energy consumption. </p>
<p>Since the agricultural revolution some 12,000 years ago (when we started building cities and accumulating goods), human enterprise has steadily grown. However, our impact has surged dramatically over the past couple of centuries. This surge has since transformed into <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019614564785">exponential growth</a>, particularly since 1950. </p>
<p>The technosphere is indicative of how humans are increasingly emerging as a global force on par with the natural systems that shape the world. The transformation that is needed to reduce our impact is therefore equally large. And yet, despite growing awareness, there has been a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7958091/">lack of concrete action</a> to address humanity’s impact on the planet.</p>
<p>To comprehend the sheer magnitude of the technosphere, it is best visualised. So here are four graphs that capture how our collective addiction to “stuff” is progressively clogging up planet Earth.</p>
<h2>1. Weighing the technosphere</h2>
<p>In 2020, a group of Israeli academics <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3010-5">presented a shocking fact</a>: the combined mass of all materials currently utilised by humanity had surpassed the total mass of all living organisms on Earth. </p>
<p>According to their findings, the collective weight of all life on Earth (the biosphere) – ranging from microbes in the soil, to trees and animals on land – stands at 1.12 trillion tonnes. While the mass of materials actively used by humans, including concrete, plastic and asphalt, weighed in at 1.15 trillion tonnes. </p>
<p><strong>The technosphere weighs more than all life on Earth (trillion tonnes):</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing how the technosphere now weighs more than the biosphere." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531118/original/file-20230609-19-xmxm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The relative weights of the active technosphere and biosphere. The active technosphere includes materials that are currently in use by human activities. The biosphere includes all living things.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3010-5">Elhacham et al. (2020)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This graph offers a glimpse into the immense size of humanity’s footprint. But it likely only scratches the surface. </p>
<p>When accounting for the associated byproducts of the materials used by humans, including waste, ploughed soil and greenhouse gases, the geologist and palaeontologist, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jan-zalasiewicz-153171">Jan Zalasiewicz</a>, calculated that the technosphere expands to a staggering <a href="https://en.unesco.org/courier/2018-2/unbearable-burden-technosphere">30 trillion tonnes</a>. This would include a mass of industrially emitted carbon dioxide equivalent to 150,000 Egyptian Pyramids.</p>
<h2>2. Changing the Earth</h2>
<p>Remarkably, human activity now dwarfs natural processes in changing the surface of our planet. The total global sediment load (erosion) that is transported naturally each year, primarily carried by rivers flowing into ocean basins, is estimated to be around <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019618800234">30 billion tonnes</a> on average. However, this natural process has been overshadowed by the mass of material moved through human action like construction and mining activities.</p>
<p>In fact, the mass of material moved by humans <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040709083319.htm">surpassed the natural sediment load in the 1990s</a> and has since grown rapidly. In 2015 alone, humans moved approximately <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019618800234">316 billion tonnes of material</a> – more than ten times the natural sediment load. </p>
<p><strong>Humans change the Earth’s surface more than natural processes (billion tonnes):</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing how more material is moved by mineral extraction and construction than by natural geological processes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531335/original/file-20230612-151816-a7wk5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Global movement of material: average annual natural sediment transport (blue), the total mass of things transported by humans in 1994 (purple) and in 2015 (orange).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053019618800234%20and%20https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040709083319.htm">Cooper at al. (2018) & ScienceDaily (2004)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Transporting ‘stuff’</h2>
<p>Our ability to transport fuel and products worldwide has facilitated the trends shown in the preceding graphs. Humans now transport these materials over increasingly vast distances. </p>
<p>Shipping continues to be the primary mechanism for moving materials around the globe. Since 1990, the amount of materials that are shipped around the world has increased <a href="https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/transport/global-shipping/">more than threefold</a> – and is <a href="https://hbs.unctad.org/merchant-fleet/">continuing to grow</a>. </p>
<p><strong>How shipping has grown since 1980 (million tonnes):</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing the growth in shipping capacity from 1980 to 2022." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529942/original/file-20230604-23-yjd97z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shipping capacity growth between 1980 and 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/transport/global-shipping/%20and%20https://hbs.unctad.org/merchant-fleet/">World Ocean Review (2010) & UNCTAD (2022)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. The growth of plastics</h2>
<p>Plastic stands out as one of the main “wonder materials” of the modern world. Due to the sheer speed and scale of the growth in plastic manufacturing and use, plastic is perhaps the metric most representative of the technosphere.</p>
<p>The first forms of plastic emerged in the early 20th century. But its mass production began following the second world war, with an <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700782">estimated quantity of 2 million tonnes</a> produced in 1950. However, the global production of plastic had increased to approximately 460 million tonnes by 2019.</p>
<p>This surge in plastic manufacturing is a pressing concern. Plastic pollution now causes many negative impacts on both <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w">nature</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/24/plastic-waste-puts-millions-of-worlds-poorest-at-higher-risk-from-floods">humans</a>. Ocean plastics, for example, can degrade into smaller pieces and be ingested by marine animals.</p>
<p><strong>Plastic manufacturing (million tonnes) has grown exponentially since 1950:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing how plastic production has increased since 1950." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530067/original/file-20230605-25-crv4bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Annual plastic production.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700782%20and%20https://www.oecd.org/environment/plastics/">Geyer et al. (2017) and OECD (2023)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Humanity’s escalating impact on planet Earth poses a significant threat to the health and security of people and societies worldwide. But understanding the size of our impact is only one part of the story.</p>
<p>Equally important is the nature, form and location of the different materials that constitute the technosphere. Only then can we understand humanity’s true impact. For example, even the tiniest materials produced by humans, such as <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04184">nanoplastics</a>, can have significant and far-reaching consequences.</p>
<p>What is clear, though, is that our relentless pursuit of ever-increasing material output is overwhelming our planet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick King is affiliated with the Schumacher Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aled Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Four graphs that show us how humanity’s impact on the planet is growing.Aled Jones, Professor & Director, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin UniversityNick King, Visiting Researcher, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1999632023-03-30T20:24:08Z2023-03-30T20:24:08ZFriday essay: could a reinterpreted Marxism have solutions to our unprecedented environmental crisis?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517578/original/file-20230327-249-zotfqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5464%2C3610&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bärbel Miemietz/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2021, Kohei Saito’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Anthropocene">Capital in the Anthropocene</a> became a publishing sensation in Japan, eventually selling more than half a million copies.</p>
<p>That astonishing achievement becomes even more extraordinary when one considers that Saito, an academic at the University of Tokyo, has for some years been rearticulating materialist philosophy based on a close reading of Karl Marx’s unpublished manuscripts – not exactly the kind of enterprise that traditionally results in bestsellers.</p>
<p>Though Capital in the Anthropocene remains (somewhat oddly) untranslated, English-speaking readers can now access Saito’s subsequent work, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/marx-in-the-anthropocene/D58765916F0CB624FCCBB61F50879376">Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism</a>. </p>
<p>In his new book, Saito notes the awful ironies of the current period, in which, instead of the promised “end of history”, we face the (rather different) end of human history, as the conquest of nature transforms dialectically into nature’s apocalyptic return in the form of fires, floods and other disasters.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514399/original/file-20230309-28-lrupaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514399/original/file-20230309-28-lrupaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514399/original/file-20230309-28-lrupaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514399/original/file-20230309-28-lrupaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514399/original/file-20230309-28-lrupaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514399/original/file-20230309-28-lrupaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514399/original/file-20230309-28-lrupaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The social crises associated with the environmental emergency have not, as yet, spurred the Marxist revival one might expect from an era of political and economic tumult. Saito blames this on the longstanding association between socialism and the Promethean notion that nature can and should serve as raw materials for human ends. </p>
<p>Think of the Communist Manifesto and its giddy zeal for the transformative program of the bourgeoisie: “constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation …”. </p>
<p>The young Marx’s enthusiasm for solids melting into air sounds rather different with the environment collapsing all around us.</p>
<h2>MEGA</h2>
<p>In Marx and the Anthropocene, Saito continues the project developed in his earlier book, <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/product/karl_marxs_ecosocialism/">Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism</a>, in which he delved deeply into Marx and Engels’ vast corpus of unpublished work to explain their engagement with environmental issues.</p>
<p>At first glance, a painstaking analysis of Marx’s private notes on, say, soil chemistry might seem arcane or even cultish: a doomed attempt at quote-mining to refashion a 19th century thinker according to contemporary tastes. </p>
<p>Yet Marx never completed the broader project of which Capital was merely one facet. The systemised “Marxism” we take for granted was a later reconstruction based on uncompleted manuscripts. The ongoing efforts of the <a href="https://www.bbaw.de/en/research/marx-engels-gesamtausgabe-the-complete-works-of-marx-and-engels">Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe</a> (or MEGA) to compile every available text thus provides Saito with a new basis on which to analyse fundamental concepts of the late Marx.</p>
<p>Saito focuses, in particular, on an argument presented in Capital but, until recently, ignored by most readers. That is, Marx treats labour as a metabolic relationship between people and nature. Human beings, in any society, must reshape – through labour – the natural world if they are to survive. Yet the way they do that varies tremendously from society to society. </p>
<p>Prior to capitalism, labour was (as you would expect) overwhelmingly directed to the immediate satisfaction of specific needs. Even in the most oppressive ancient societies, slaves created use values. They toiled to make goods and provide services their rulers actually wanted.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516851/original/file-20230322-22-9jsk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Capitalism mandates something very different. In a society governed by the commodity, production takes place primarily for exchange. Today, we sell our labour power to others, who then direct us. Unlike the pharaohs of old, our bosses don’t themselves want what we make or do. The capitalists who employ us seek, first and foremost, value, which can expand without any definite limit because it is quantitative rather than qualitative.</p>
<p>Saito argues that commodification – of labour and everything else – fundamentally changes the human relationship with nature. When value becomes “the organising principle of metabolism between humans and nature, it cannot fully reflect the complexity of the biophysical metabolic processes between them”. </p>
<p>Our direct and immediate interaction with the natural world, in other words, becomes a process driven by an external, expansionary dynamic. </p>
<h2>Metabolic rift</h2>
<p>Marx describes the disruption of nature by the circuit of capital as a “metabolic rift”.</p>
<p>For Saito, this concept entails “spatial rifts” between the cities and the country, and between developed and developing nations. It also entails “temporal rifts” between the deep time of geological processes and the ever-increasing tempo of capitalist production.</p>
<p>The notion of a “metabolic rift” thus makes manifest an environmental theory that is latent in Capital. Saito’s extraordinary erudition teases out the implication of concepts sometimes present in Marx’s work only in embryonic form.</p>
<p>Of course, everyone knows that corporations ravage the environment. The theory of metabolic rift explains that despoliation not as a result of the greed or ineptitude of individual entrepreneurs, but as a consequence of the commodity itself. It suggests that the fundamental interdependence between humans and nature is disturbed at the most granular level of capitalism.</p>
<p>The consequences cannot be overstated. Mainstream responses to climate change – the strategies advocated by most governments and by international gatherings (the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process/bodies/supreme-bodies/conference-of-the-parties-cop">Conference of the Parties</a>, for example) – centre on market mechanisms such as emissions trading schemes. Many progressives criticise such interventions as too little, too late. On Saito’s reading, their critique misses the point. Carbon trading and similar schemes, such as Australia’s new biodiversity market, seek the further commodification of nature. They are not merely insufficient; they are actively worsening the problem they claim to remedy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/karl-marx-his-philosophy-explained-164068">Karl Marx: his philosophy explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Ecosocialism</h2>
<p>Even more importantly, rift theory provides the basis for what Saito calls “ecosocialism”. </p>
<p>Historically, attempts to unite proletarians with the planet have tended to rely on moral appeals to workers on behalf of the natural world. This non-materialist strategy has invariably failed. </p>
<p>Saito suggests a very different approach. He emphasises that Marx sees the alienation of land and labour as different facets of the same phenomenon. The systematic ruination of nature arises from an equally thoroughgoing degradation of basic human activity. The fight to save the environment thus becomes, not an optional extra, but a cause fundamentally entwined with class struggle.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516855/original/file-20230322-24-3zwm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rosa Luxemburg (1905).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his new book, Saito buttresses his argument by identifying various thinkers within the broader Marxist tradition who, more or less independently, grasped a similar notion of metabolism. These include Rosa Luxemburg (in her book <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/">The Accumulation of Capital</a>), Georg Lukacs (particularly in his rediscovered 1925 manuscript <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/610-a-defence-of-history-and-class-consciousness">A Defence of History and Class Consciousness: Tailism and the Dialectic</a>), the Hungarian philosopher <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/index.htm">István Mészáros</a>, and contemporary writers like <a href="https://johnbellamyfoster.org/">John Bellamy Foster</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Paul-Burkett-76343637">Paul Burkett</a>. </p>
<p>Saito also defends the nature-society dualism on which rift theory rests against rival Marxist approaches. He polemicises, in particular, against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Smith_(geographer)">Neil Smith</a> and <a href="https://jasonwmoore.com/">Jason Moore</a>.</p>
<p>But by far the most important – and challenging – sections of Marx in the Anthropocene involve textual exegesis. Biographers sometimes describe Marx’s final years as unproductive, marred by illness and lack of focus. Saito argues that, from the late 1860s, Marx threw himself into a renewed study of the natural sciences in order to work through the implications of labour as metabolism and, in the process, revised several key concepts. </p>
<h2>Forces and relations of production</h2>
<p>Saito revisits, in particular, the traditional opposition between the forces of production – a term that includes the means of production, labour power, machinery, and much else – and the relations of production – that is, the economic ownership of those forces. </p>
<p>This antagonism is conventionally understood as the motor of social history. 20th century Marxists, in particular, presented the productive forces as the basis of a new society, often focusing on the technological advances facilitated by capitalism as central to the transition to socialism.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516849/original/file-20230322-18-3zwm08.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first Japanese edition Capital in the Anthropocene.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Saito claims that the later Marx saw the real (rather than formal) subsumption of labour under capital as dependant on a reorganisation of workers’ activities. Capital, writes Saito, “creates qualitatively new productive forces and a uniquely capitalist way of production sui generis”. </p>
<p>According to Saito, Marx rejected the idea – associated with official Soviet “Marxism” – that socialists could simply take over the forces of production. Rather, Marx concluded that the relations of production shaped productive forces in ways that could not and should not be considered progressive. </p>
<p>For example, the factory system generates tremendous productivity by bringing workers together. But the “co-operation” of the assembly line relies on individual workers performing repetitive actions, with management solely responsible for decisions about what they do and how. </p>
<p>This kind of tailored productivity does not provide the basis for collective self-management. On the contrary, democratic and collective control of the means of production – the basis of Marxian socialism – necessitates a proletarian autonomy that is incompatible with the management techniques enforced in, say, an Amazon factory. </p>
<p>That means progressives should not enthuse about productivity in the manner of some so-called “ecomodernists”. We can’t create a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment">fully-automated luxury communism</a>” simply by freeing advanced technology from the tech-bros who currently control it. </p>
<p>The non-alienated labour required for environmental sustainability and workers’ self-management requires a qualitative break with capitalist forces of production.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-human-made-materials-now-weigh-as-much-as-all-living-biomass-say-scientists-151721">Anthropocene: human-made materials now weigh as much as all living biomass, say scientists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Degrowth communism</h2>
<p>On that basis, Saito challenges the linear narrative associated with mechanical Marxism, which proposes that societies must transition from feudalism to capitalism, and then from capitalism to socialism. </p>
<p>He focuses on Marx’s famous correspondence with the Russian populist Vera Zasulich, who asked whether communes in which peasants traditionally managed their affairs must inexorably give way to Western-style capitalism. In his (very brief) published response, Marx denied any inevitability about developments in Russia. In an unsent draft, however, he argued explicitly that capitalism </p>
<blockquote>
<p>will end through its own elimination, through the return of modern societies to a higher form of an “archaic” type of collective ownership and production.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Saito chases down an array of notes, jottings and other writings in which Marx muses on precisely how pre- and post-capitalist relations might intersect. He shows that Marx, by the end of his life, had broken from any notion of a new society based on the expansion of productive forces. Marx had instead come to advocate what Saito calls “degrowth communism”.</p>
<p>It’s a remarkable conclusion. Saito writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Marx’s call for a “return” to non-capitalist society demands that any serious attempt at overcoming capitalism in Western society needs to learn from non-Western societies and integrate the new principle of a steady-state economy. Marx’s rejection of productivism is not identical with the romantic advocation of a “return to the countryside”. In fact, he repeatedly added that the Russian communes would have to assimilate the positive fruits of capitalist development and the principle of steady-state economy in non-Western societies that would allow Western societies to leap to communism as a higher stage of the archaic communes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Saito acknowledges that this vision is “utterly different from the productivist approach of traditional Marxism in the 20th century”. And the passages he relies on are fragmentary, even cryptic – much more so than the texts from which metabolic rift theory arises.</p>
<p>In some ways, though, that’s not really the point. The debate among Marxist scholars about the extent to which the MEGA provides textual support for such a conclusion matters much less than whether Saito’s thesis holds conceptually. We might even say that Saito’s insistence on grounding his book in Marx’s writing obscures his own considerable status as a theoretician who is creatively extending Marxism for a new period.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GVeAfW5opkk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-the-law-account-for-the-value-of-natural-places-195283">How can the law account for the value of natural places?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>I have seen the past – and it works!</h2>
<p>Today, a thoroughgoing pessimism pervades both mainstream and radical politics. Few people believe in their own power to shape events. Many accept misanthropic or Malthusian environmental currents that regard humanity as an innately destructive force.</p>
<p>Saito provides a much needed alternative – a demonstration of alternative possibilities. His project might be understood as an inversion of Lincoln Steffen’s famous slogan, along the lines of “I have seen the past – and it works!”</p>
<p>Australians, in particular, should be aware of how pre-class societies developed ways to live more or less sustainably in their environment. As I have argued in <a href="https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-246/feature-thats-what-drives-us-to-fight-labour-wilderness-and-the-environment-in-australia/">Overland</a> and <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/crimes-against-nature-9781922310705">elsewhere</a>, the living culture of Indigenous Australia proves that human beings are not hardwired (as we are often told) to destroy the natural world. </p>
<p>For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal people laboured on the continent in ways that fostered, rather than diminished, the country that they tended. The introduction of capitalism to the country thus provides a remarkable illustration of the metabolic rift. In the space of a few years, agricultural capitalism wiped out landscapes created by untold generations of Indigenous people. Many settlers recorded their astonishment and dismay as the country, deprived of its traditional custodians, changed under their feet.</p>
<p>Saito’s argument is not, of course, that the society that existed prior to 1788 should or could be revived. “The critique of productive forces of capital,” he says, “is not equivalent to a rejection of all technologies.” The scientific achievements of the capitalist allow, in Marx’s terms, “the associated producers [to] govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516259/original/file-20230320-24-p21bgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The last known photograph of Karl Marx (1882).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Saito describes the resulting society in terms of “degrowth”. In some ways, it is an infelicitous term. As a political slogan, “degrowth” invokes the much-hated austerity associated with neoliberal economics. It also sounds too much like the bourgeois environmentalism that is expressed through calls for individual sacrifice.</p>
<p>Even more importantly, it obscures Saito’s theoretical distinction between capitalism, on one hand, and ancient societies and communism on the other. “Growth” does not provide a meaningful measure for a use-value society. Communism would, for instance, prioritise healthcare, but the success or failure of its efforts would be assessed according to patient welfare, rather than the expansion or contraction of GDP.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Saito borrows from Kirstin Ross the phrase “communal luxury”, a term that better captures the meaning of unalienated labour. In the early years of white conquest, Indigenous people flatly refused to work for Europeans. They considered wage labour – an activity that stripped all meaning, control and spirituality from daily life – the most profound impoverishment imaginable. </p>
<p>A society based on use values might harbour the resources that capitalism squanders, but that would not amount to austerity. “Abundance,” says Saito, “is not a technological threshold but a social relationship.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-term-anthropocene-isnt-perfect-but-it-shows-us-the-scale-of-the-environmental-crisis-weve-caused-169301">The term 'Anthropocene' isn't perfect – but it shows us the scale of the environmental crisis we've caused</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A radical theory for the 21st century</h2>
<p>Saito’s deep knowledge of Marx’s published and unpublished writing makes for a rigorous argument, but it also presents socialism almost exclusively in terms of the development of ideas. That is misleading. </p>
<p>The crude productivism of so much 20th century socialist writing stemmed less from Engels’ misreading of Marx’s notes on science (a topic Saito addresses in detail) than from the Soviet Union’s repurposing of Marxism as a justification for state-directed capitalist development. </p>
<p>The Marx-Zasulich letters prefigured the much more concrete debate about feudalism, capitalism and socialism that ensued after 1917. In some respects, Saito’s argument resonates with Trotsky’s theory of <a href="https://www.leftvoice.org/an-introduction-to-trotskys-theory-of-permanent-revolution/">Permanent Revolution</a>, which provided an account of how undeveloped countries might build a workers’ state by spreading the revolutionary process to the imperialist heartland. </p>
<p>Trotsky’s argument centres on the role of the proletariat, but Saito does not really address how “degrowth communism” might come about. In that respect, the intellectual rigour of Marx in the Anthropocene fosters a certain weakness. Saito sounds occasionally as if he thinks a correct restatement of fundamentals will, in and of itself, repopularise Marxism. Obviously, that is not the case. We cannot rely on MEGA to make socialism great again.</p>
<p>Marx in the Anthropocene is nevertheless a tremendously important achievement: an imaginative re-purposing of radical theory for the 21st century. Too often environmental debates centre only on the most immediate proposals for curtailing emissions, without addressing how we got into this mess and how we might get out. By contrast, Saito provides both a convincing account of the social forces driving climate change and a description of what an alternative might entail. His book deserves the widest possible readership. Here’s hoping it sells as much as the last one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff Sparrow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Environmental debates often centre proposals for curtailing emissions, without addressing how we got into this mess and how we might get out. A radical new book ponders the alternatives.Jeff Sparrow, Lecturer, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995722023-03-03T06:09:49Z2023-03-03T06:09:49ZEconomic growth is fuelling climate change – a new book proposes ‘degrowth communism’ as the solution<p>I’m often told that degrowth, the planned downscaling of production and consumption to reduce the pressure on Earth’s ecosystems, is a tough sell. But a 36-year-old associate professor at Tokyo University has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/28/a-greener-marx-kohei-saito-on-connecting-communism-with-the-climate-crisis">made a name for himself</a> arguing that “degrowth communism” could halt the escalating climate emergency.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black book cover with white Japanese writing and an image of the author superimposed on a red Earth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first edition cover of Capital in the Anthropocene, published in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Anthropocene#/media/File:Capital-in-the-Anthropocene.png">Kohei Saito</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kohei Saito, the bestselling author of Capital in the Anthropocene, is back with a new book: <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/marx-in-the-anthropocene/D58765916F0CB624FCCBB61F50879376">Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism</a>. The book is dense, especially for those not fluent in Marxist jargon who, I suspect, care little about whether or not Karl Marx started worrying about nature in his later years.</p>
<p>And yet, the way Saito mobilises Marxist theory to make a plea for “the abundance of wealth in degrowth communism” (the title of the last chapter of his book) is as precise as it is gripping. This is what attracted my attention as an economist <a href="https://theses.hal.science/tel-02499463/document">working on degrowth</a>: Saito’s attempts to reconcile Marxism with newer ideas around alternatives to economic growth might bring critiques of capitalism to an unprecedented level of popularity.</p>
<h2>Economic growth creates scarcity</h2>
<p>Saito turns the concept of economic growth on its head. Many people assume that growth makes us richer but what if it did the precise opposite? </p>
<p>Gross domestic product (GDP), a monetary measure of production, can rise because someone privatises a common good – what British geographer <a href="https://books.google.se/books/about/Seventeen_Contradictions_and_the_End_of.html?id=EDg_AwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">David Harvey</a> calls “accumulation by dispossession”. Fence a resource that people could previously access for free and start selling it to them. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919304203">rent extraction</a> might inflate GDP but it doesn’t create anything useful. In fact, by preventing people from accessing the means of subsistence it creates an artificial scarcity.</p>
<p>The more money accumulates, the more these snatch-and-sell tricks become possible, whether it’s for natural resources, knowledge or labour. In a world where everything becomes a potential commodity (in other words, something which can be bought and sold), the ruling rationality favours lucrative activities over others. </p>
<p>Why would you lend your apartment to someone for free if you can rent it on Airbnb? And that’s the catch: once you need money to satisfy your needs, you are forced to play like a capitalist.</p>
<h2>An emergency brake</h2>
<p>This self-perpetuating striving for moneymaking pushes us to turn more and more of nature into a commodity. The money companies can make is infinite while the quantities of nature at disposition are getting scarcer. </p>
<p>There may be no clearer illustration than the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/02/07/bp-boasts-record-profits-as-oil-giants-report-historic-windfalls/">record profits</a> of fossil fuel companies amid <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/climate-change-is-messing-with-forests-ability-to-soak-up-carbon">worsening climate conditions</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/3989-the-future-is-degrowth">Degrowth</a> could act as an emergency brake on this vicious cycle, Saito argues, by “terminat[ing] the ceaseless exploitation of humanity and the robbery of nature”. </p>
<p>Academics define degrowth as a democratically planned effort to downscale levels of production and consumption in order to lighten environmental pressures. The democratic part is important: the idea is to do this in a way that reduces inequality and improves wellbeing for everyone.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to imagine this happening within capitalism, a system which must continually expand and generate more. And that’s Saito’s point: communism is much more likely to achieve these objectives.</p>
<p>He reasons that an economy concerned with meeting human need is more likely to avoid producing junk. Without the get-rich-or-perish imperative, many nature-intensive goods and services would cease to be necessary or desirable. </p>
<p>Saito calls this “a conscious downscaling of the current ‘realm of necessity’”. This Marxist term describes what we consider our essential needs. Under degrowth communism, this realm would shrink to exclude things and activities which don’t benefit human wellbeing or contribute to sustainability.</p>
<p>Suddenly, it’s possible to organise work differently. Gone is the industrial model of producing something as cheaply as possible while sacrificing safety and the pleasantness inherent in a shared effort. </p>
<p>Instead of competing for market share, companies could cooperate to achieve common goals like restoring biodiversity. Reducing the importance given to moneymaking would free societies to improve all these things we today trivialise because they aren’t profitable.</p>
<p>Such an economy might be slower and smaller money-wise but it would be more sustainable and more effective in delivering wellbeing, which is all we should be asking from an economy anyway.</p>
<h2>Towards a post-scarcity society</h2>
<p>Saito’s book is refreshing because it helps end an old feud between socialists who trust that new technologies and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment">automation of work</a> can deliver an expanding economy with greater leisure time and those who argue for a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2017.1386695">socialism without growth</a>. </p>
<p>Instead of perpetually growing the economy by making more things private property and saleable, Saito proposes sharing the wealth we’ve already created. This could usher in a new way of living, where people can afford to spend less time and effort producing commodities and turn their attention towards things that really matter to them, what Marxists call the realm of freedom. This should start, Saito argues, with restoring the health of Earth’s ecosystems, on which everything else relies.</p>
<p>No longer forced to obsess over money, people could enjoy the abundance of social and natural wealth <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/3693-post-growth-living">outside of consumerism</a>. Imagine trading the new smartphones which arrive yearly for luxuriant ecosystems, thriving communal spaces and vibrant democracies we finally have time to explore and participate in.</p>
<p>Saito breathes new life into Marxist ideas with his book by presenting evidence of life beyond endless extraction, production and consumption. As the author himself argues, this could not have come at a better time: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although it was never recognised during the 20th century, Marx’s idea of degrowth communism is more important than ever today because it increases the chance of human survival in the Anthropocene.</p>
</blockquote>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothée Parrique does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What does Karl Marx have to say about climate change? Quite a lot, according to a new book.Timothée Parrique, Researcher in Ecological Economics, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878702022-07-28T15:21:36Z2022-07-28T15:21:36ZJames Lovelock: the scientist-inventor who transformed our view of life on Earth<p>James Lovelock, the maverick scientist and inventor, died surrounded by his family on July 27 2022 – his 103rd birthday. Jim led an extraordinary life. He is best known for his Gaia hypothesis, developed with the brilliant US biologist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/dec/11/lynn-margulis-obtiuary">Lynn Margulis</a> in the 1970s, which transformed the way we think of life on Earth. </p>
<p>Gaia challenged the orthodox view that life simply evolved and adapted to the ever-changing environment. Instead, Lovelock and Margulis argued that species not only competed but also cooperated to create the most favourable conditions for life.</p>
<p>Earth is a self-regulating system maintained by communities of living organisms, they claimed. These communities adjust oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, salinity in the ocean and even the planet’s temperature to keep them within the acceptable bounds for life to thrive.</p>
<p>Just like Charles Darwin before him, Lovelock published his new, radical idea in a popular book, Gaia: A new look at life on Earth (1979). It was an instant hit that challenged mature researchers to reassess their science and encouraged new ones. As my friend and colleague Professor Richard Betts at the Met Office Hadley Centre put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He was a source of inspiration to me for my entire career, and in fact his first book on Gaia was a major reason why I chose to work on climate change and Earth system modelling. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not only did the book challenge the classical Darwinism notion that life evolved and prospered through constant competition and dogged self-interest, it founded a whole new field: Earth system science. We Earth system scientists study all the interactions between the atmosphere, land, ocean, ice sheets and, of course, living things. </p>
<p>Lovelock also inspired the environmental movement by giving his ideas a spiritual overtone: Gaia was the goddess who personified the Earth in Greek mythology. </p>
<p>This antagonised many scientists, but created a lot of fruitful debate in the 1980s and 1990s. It is now generally accepted that organisms can enhance their local environment to make it more habitable. For example, forests can <a href="https://theconversation.com/rewilding-is-essential-to-the-uks-commitment-to-zero-carbon-emissions-107541">recycle half the moisture</a> they receive, keeping the local climate mild and stabilising rainfall. </p>
<p>But the original Gaia hypothesis, that life regulates the environment so that the planet resembles an organism in its own right, is still treated with scepticism among most scientists. This is because no workable mechanism has been discovered to explain how the forces of natural selection, which operate on individual organisms, birthed the evolution of such planetary-scale homeostasis.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of morning mist over a rainforest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476503/original/file-20220728-23-2v155p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476503/original/file-20220728-23-2v155p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476503/original/file-20220728-23-2v155p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476503/original/file-20220728-23-2v155p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476503/original/file-20220728-23-2v155p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476503/original/file-20220728-23-2v155p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476503/original/file-20220728-23-2v155p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Organisms alter their environment to make it more favourable to life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-morning-mist-tropical-rainforest-1511729195">Avigator Fortuner/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An independent scientist</h2>
<p>There was much more to James Lovelock, who described himself as an “<a href="https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/a-lifetime-of-work-the-lovelock-archive/">independent scientist since 1964</a>”, because of the income generated from his invention of the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23331130-700-how-to-accidentally-save-the-planet/">electron capture detector</a> while studying for a PhD in 1957.</p>
<p>This matchbox-sized device could measure tiny traces of toxic chemicals. It was essential in demonstrating that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere, which originated in aerosols and refrigerators at the time, were destroying the ozone layer. It also showed that pesticide residues exist in the tissues of virtually all living creatures, from penguins in Antarctica to human breast milk.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small device resembling a spindle with a white band in the middle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476491/original/file-20220728-27951-d1d795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476491/original/file-20220728-27951-d1d795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476491/original/file-20220728-27951-d1d795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476491/original/file-20220728-27951-d1d795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476491/original/file-20220728-27951-d1d795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476491/original/file-20220728-27951-d1d795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476491/original/file-20220728-27951-d1d795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The electron capture detector Lovelock invented for measuring air pollution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock#/media/File:James_Lovelocks_Electron_capture_detector_for_a_gas_chromatograph,_1960._(9660569973).jpg">Science Museum London</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The money he earned from the electron capture detector gave him his freedom because, as he was fond of telling people, the best science comes from an unfettered mind – and he hated being directed. The detector was just the start of his inventing career and he filed more than 40 patents. </p>
<p>He also wrote over 200 scientific papers and many popular books expanding on the Gaia hypothesis. He was awarded scientific medals, international prizes and honorary doctorates by universities all around the world.</p>
<p>Dr Roger Highfield, the science director at the London Science Museum, summed Jim up perfectly: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jim was a nonconformist who had a unique vantage point that came from being, as he put it, half-scientist and half-inventor. Endless ideas bubbled forth from this synergy between making and thinking. Although he is most associated with Gaia, he did an extraordinary range of research, from freezing hamsters to detecting life on Mars … He was more than happy to bristle a few feathers, whether by articulating his dislike of consensus views, formal education and committees, or by voicing his enthusiastic support for nuclear power.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jim was deeply concerned by what he saw humanity doing to the planet. In his 1995 book The Ages of Gaia, he suggested that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ice-ages-have-been-linked-to-the-earths-wobbly-orbit-but-when-is-the-next-one-70069">warm periods between ice ages</a>, like the current Holocene, are the fevered state of our planet. Because over the last two million years the Earth has shown a clear preference for a colder average global temperature, Jim understood global warming as humanity adding to this fever. </p>
<p>Jim did despair at humanity’s inability to look after the environment and much of his writing reflected this, particularly his book The Revenge of Gaia in 2006. But at the age of 99, he published <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/27/novacene-by-james-lovelock-review">Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence</a> (2019), an optimistic view which envisaged humanity creating artificially intelligent life forms that would, unlike us, understand the importance of other living things in maintaining a habitable planet. </p>
<p>His dwindling faith in humanity was replaced by trust in the logic and rationality of AI. He left us with hope that cyborgs would take over and save us from ourselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Maslin is a Founding Director of Rezatec Ltd, Co-Director of The London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership, a member of Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee and a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. He is an unpaid member of the Sopra-Steria CSR Board, Sheep Included Ltd and NetZeroNow Advisory Boards. He has received grant funding in the past from the NERC, EPSRC, ESRC, DFG, Royal Society, DIFD, BEIS, DECC, FCO, Innovate UK, Carbon Trust, UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Research England, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, The Children's Investment Fund Foundation, Sprint2020, and British Council. He has received research funding in the past from The Lancet, Laithwaites, Seventh Generation, Channel 4, JLT Re, WWF, Hermes, CAFOD, HP, and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.
</span></em></p>Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis suggested that Earth could be considered a single, self-regulating organism.Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1760352022-02-28T00:37:17Z2022-02-28T00:37:17ZAt Unguja Ukuu, human activity transformed the coast of Zanzibar more than 1,000 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445313/original/file-20220209-17-1brmlqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C5199%2C1730&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Kotarba-Morley</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The medieval settlement of Unguja Ukuu, on the Zanzibar Archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, was a key port in an extensive Indian Ocean trade network that linked eastern Africa, southern Arabia, India and Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>Our archaeological research shows how human activities between the seventh and twelfth centuries AD <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15564894.2022.2030441">irreversibly modified the shoreline around the site</a>. At first, these changes may have helped the trading settlement develop, but later they may have contributed to its decline and abandonment. </p>
<h2>Ancient seafaring</h2>
<p>For millennia, the Indian Ocean has been the maritime setting for an early form of globalisation. Large trade networks operated across the vast ocean, foreshadowing modern global shipping networks. Unguja Ukuu was a crucial location in this early trade and an important node in the nascent slave trade out of continental Africa.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-war-elephants-to-cheap-electronics-modern-globalisation-has-its-roots-in-ancient-trade-networks-125483">From war elephants to cheap electronics: modern globalisation has its roots in ancient trade networks</a>
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<p>Unguja Ukuu was an active settlement from the mid-first millennium until the early second millennium AD. Archaeological evidence and historical accounts suggest Unguja Ukuu is one of the earliest known trading settlements on the Swahili coast.</p>
<h2>The rise and fall of trading ports</h2>
<p>To understand how and why early ports thrived or declined, it is important to know how the coastal landscape influenced the way traders operated. This includes their choice of mooring locations and their connections to inland locations. </p>
<p>But the question of how these commercial activities in turn modified the coastline has received less attention.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443920/original/file-20220202-25-1ojip7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Satellite image of the location of Unguja Ukuu and the surrounding landscape. Insets: A) the extent of the tidal channel leading to the settlement; B) satellite view of the settlement site; c) the Uzi channel leading towards the creek. Illustration by Juliën Lubeek.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GoogleEarth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unguja Ukuu prospered in an ecologically marginal zone, hemmed in between the sandy back-reef shore of Menai Bay and mangrove-banked creeks to the east. </p>
<p>Menai Bay afforded shelter from monsoonal storms and navigable waterways across the shallow inner shelf to the shore. It also provided food and other materials from the mangrove habitat. </p>
<p>This landscape enabled the emergence of the farming, fishing, and trading settlement of Unguja Ukuu.</p>
<h2>Sediment, sand and shells</h2>
<p>We studied sediments, back-beach sands, and shells at Unguja Ukuu to understand how the settlement had affected its own environment. We found the accumulation of coastal sediments over centuries led to significant changes in the landscape.</p>
<p>Detritus from the settlement, such as food remains, hearths and other domestic waste, helped the beach spread outward into the sea. Our analyses show how human waste and the compaction of ancient surfaces drove the coastline change, supporting the emergence of a major trading site. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445062/original/file-20220208-23-ibrjsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445062/original/file-20220208-23-ibrjsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445062/original/file-20220208-23-ibrjsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445062/original/file-20220208-23-ibrjsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445062/original/file-20220208-23-ibrjsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445062/original/file-20220208-23-ibrjsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445062/original/file-20220208-23-ibrjsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of the north section of Trench UU14 with a schematic representation of facies.
and the interpretations of the anthropogenic signatures in the sediments. Author provided.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As more land was used for urban living and agriculture, more sediment moved from the land to the sea. This contributed to rapid growth of beach fronts, physically altering the coastal landscape and the ecological conditions of the adjacent sea-scape. </p>
<p>These changes in turn could have resulted in habitat shifts and silting of the lagoon which possibly contributed to Unguja Ukuu’s decline. </p>
<h2>Early human impacts</h2>
<p>Human-made processes might also be implicated in the decline and eventual abandonment of Unguja Ukuu in the second millennium AD. This was an important period in the socio-political and economic transformation of coastal African societies, marking the emergence of maritime Swahili culture. </p>
<p>But suggesting a purely environmental cause for the settlement’s abandonment would be too simplistic. The interaction of coastal villages and harbours with their dynamic landscapes may have had a role in this regional reorganisation of settlements, harbours, and trade flows.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-term-anthropocene-jumped-from-geoscience-to-hashtags-before-most-of-us-knew-what-it-meant-130130">How the term 'Anthropocene' jumped from geoscience to hashtags – before most of us knew what it meant</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>New advances in archaeological science techniques, combined with systematic archaeological analyses, are increasingly allowing us to disentangle natural from human-made drivers of events. Such work often reveals <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-18603-4">far earlier human impacts than once envisioned</a>, shedding light on the early roots of Earth’s current geological epoch: the Anthropocene, in which human activity is a key force reshaping the planet. </p>
<h2>Human-made soil</h2>
<p>Our work records snapshots of the evolution of a natural coastal system at the fringes of an early settlement. </p>
<p>River sediments were covered by beach sands containing increasing amounts of human waste accumulating from the mid-seventh century AD. This backshore activity area was used for small-scale subsistence activities (including processing shells for meat), trade, and the dumping of industrial waste. </p>
<p>Earlier urban development shaped Unguja Ukuu’s soils over the long term and through periods of settlement decline and abandonment from the twelfth century AD onwards. A dark earth “anthrosol” (human-made soil) continues to evolve on these archaeological deposits today, supporting cultivation in and around the modern town. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/soil-its-what-keeps-us-clothed-and-fed-146">Soil: it's what keeps us clothed and fed</a>
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<p>Dark human-made soils such as these, formed by rapid decay of organic- and phosphate-rich waste from the settlement, may be used as markers for as-yet undiscovered archaeological sites on the eastern African coast. Their distinctive dark colour renders the soils easily identifiable on satellite images and other remote-sensing datasets.</p>
<h2>Understanding the past to shape the future</h2>
<p>Our study clearly shows how human modification of natural environments affected coastal landscapes on an East African island more than 1,000 years ago. These findings are a reminder that humans have been changing our environment for thousands of years - sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. </p>
<p>Studying history and archaeology is not simply about learning from our ancestors’ mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. It is also about ensuring that scientifically rigorous data that show how human activity in the past often altered the landscapes and environments in which people lived is effectively communicated, to both governments and the public. </p>
<p>If we can do this we might be able to make better informed sustainable choices for the future of our planet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna M. Kotarba-Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Crowther receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike W Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Boivin received funding for this research from the European Research Council.</span></em></p>Human waste created the landscape for a medieval Indian Ocean trading port and may eventually have led to its demise.Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, Flinders UniversityAlison Crowther, Senior Lecture in Archaeology, The University of QueenslandMike W. Morley, Associate Professor, Flinders UniversityNicole Boivin, Director, Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute of GeoanthropologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.