Welcome to the
Anthropocene
Professor Wayne Hayes
V. 0.6, Build #7 | 2/4/2014
Our article is:
“The Anthropocene:
Are Humans Now Overwhelming
the Great Forces of Nature?”
Ambio , Vol. 36, No. 8, December 2007
©Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2007
http://www.ambio.kva.se
The article has become a classic and has taken on a large
following. The notion of the Anthropocene has stuck.
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The authors are:
• Will Steffen is the Director of the Fenner School of
Environment at the Australian National University, Canberra.
• Paul J. Crutzen won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995. He
is Professor at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and was
formerly Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.
• John R. McNeil is Professor of History at Georgetown and
formerly held the Cinco Hermanos Chair in International and
Environmental Affairs.
Note: None of the authors are geologists. Each author is highly
respected, comprising a formidable interdisciplinary team.
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Are we in the Anthropocene?
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How did we get there
from here?
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What are the implications?
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Shanghai, 2007 (National Geographic)
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From One Earth to One World:
This phrase, the subtitle of the Brundtland
Commission Report, Our Common Future,
implies that:
• The two images of Earth, one rooted in nature
and the other in global economic society,
must be reconciled.
• This broadly defines the challenge of World
Sustainability.
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The abstract from the original:
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Try another definition:
"A period marked by a regime change in the activity of
industrial societies which began at the turn of the
nineteenth century and which has caused global
disruptions in the Earth System on a scale unprecedented
in human history: climate change, biodiversity loss,
pollution of the sea, land and air, resources depredation,
land cover denudation, radical transformation of the
ecumene, among others. These changes command a
major realignment of our consciousness and
worldviews, and call for different ways to inhabit the
Earth.“
(Emphasis added; source, A Cartography of the Anthropocene, viewed on 9/9/2012)
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The article’s first two paragraphs
frame the challenge.
• Human-induced change raises disturbing questions about the
future of Earth and the environmental services that support
human civilization.
• They ask: Has the Earth left the benign interglacial state of the
Holocene to enter a new era of Earth history, the
Anthropocene?
• They assert: “The Earth is rapidly moving into a less
biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably
wetter and stormier state.”
• This “represents a profound shift in the relationship between
humans and the rest of nature.”
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Before the Anthropocene:
• The Agricultural Revolution began 10,000 to 12,000
years ago. Humans domesticated animals and plants,
cleared forests, and discovered fire. Humans did not
yet possess the technology or organization to
dominate nature above a transitory regional level.
• About 10,000 years ago, written language allowed
the “accumulation of knowledge and social learning,”
which the authors describe as “an impressive
catalytic process”.
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The origins of the Anthropocene I:
The Industrial Era (ca. 1800-1945)
1.
2.
3.
4.
The Industrial Revolution
The widespread use of coal (fossil fuels)
The expansion of economic society
Human population expands from about 750
million to about 2.5 billion.
Note the emphasis on economics and not
demography: Population growth follows economic
growth.
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Note the importance of energy:
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The Anthropocene II:
The Age of Acceleration
(1945-ca. 2015)
“This first stage of the Anthropocene ended
abruptly around 1945, when the most rapid and
pervasive shift in the human-environment
relationship began.”
This is also the advent of the USA as a world
military, economic, and cultural power.
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An inflection point starts around
mid-20th century.
The Age of Acceleration starts soon after World
War II, in 1950 with the USA as its epicenter.
This historical observation initiates much of
what unfolds in our course.
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Age of Acceleration:
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Examine indicators of
the Anthropocene:
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See the original report
for indicators.
See especially table 1 and figure 2, page 617 of
the original article on the Anthropocene.
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Anthropocene III:
Stewards of the Earth (ca. 2015-?)?
“Humankind will remain a major geological force
for many millennia, maybe millions of years, to
come. … Can humanity meet this challenge?”
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Humanity is becoming aware
by these means:
1. Research, particularly on “interdisciplinary
work on human-environment systems”
2. The Internet as “a global self-organizing
information system”
3. The spread of free and open societies
4. Democratic political systems and the
emergence of civil society.
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Three paths are open.
1. Business as usual
2. Mitigation
3. Geo-Engineering
We need to examine them and perhaps go
even further, regarding the challenge as an
opportunity.
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Consider a fourth path:
social ecology
The Institute for Social Ecology considers social
ecology to be:
1. A coherent radical critique of contemporary
social, economic, political, and anti-ecological
trends;
2. A democratic path toward reconstruction based
on the convergence of small-scale, decentralized
communities and bio-regions around
appropriate technology and ethical social
relations. This is called re-inhabitation.
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The business as usual scenario:
Stated as: “…the institutions and economic system that
have driven the Great Acceleration continue to
dominate human affairs.” This assumes:
1. Human-driven changes will not disrupt the global
economy or societies.
2. Economic society (“market-oriented economic
system”) can adapt adequately.
3. The resources are available to mitigate damage.
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The risk to business as usual:
“The long-term momentum built into the Earth
System means that by the time humans realize
that a business-as-usual approach may not
work, the world will be committed to further
decades or even centuries of environmental
change. Collapse of modern, globalized society
under uncontrollable environmental change is
one possible outcome.”
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The authors do not express optimism:
They note that “the Great Acceleration has
considerable momentum and appears to be
accelerating.”
They conclude: “The critical question is
whether the trends of dematerialization and
shifting societal values become strong enough
to trigger a transition of our globalizing society
to a more sustainable one”
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The mitigation scenario involves:
•
•
•
•
Improved technology and social organization
Wise use of resources
Control of human and animal population
Conservation and restoration of the
environment
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The authors stress dematerialization:
Technology and economic development is
essential. “Over the past several decades rapid
advances in transport, energy, agriculture, and
other sectors have led to a trend of
dematerialization in several advance economies.
The amount and value of economic activity
continue to grow but the amount of physical
material flowing through the economy does
not” (619).
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Energy is important in the
mitigation scenario.
“In addition to the many opportunities for
energy conservation, numerous technologies --from solar thermal and photovoltaic through
nuclear fission and fusion to wind power and
biofuels from forests and crops --- are available
now or are under development to replace fossil
fuels” (619).
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The geo-engineering scenario:
Essential to this scenario is sequestration of
carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs.
Another technology is the release of aerosols to
reflect the sun’s rays in the stratosphere.
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A warning about the
geo-engineering scenario:
Geo-engineering carries risks of unintended
consequences and is subject to intense ethical
debate. They warn that the cure could be worse
than the disease.
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The conclusion issues a warning.
The final paragraph states that the Great
Acceleration is approaching a critical stage.
The authors conclude: “Whatever unfolds,
the next few decades will surely be a tipping
point in the evolution of the Anthropocene.”
What do you think?
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My expansion on the theme of the
Anthropocene
Anthropocene ==>
Technosphere ==>
Noosphere
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The article explains the Noosphere:
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From Anthropocene to Noosphere
The teleology, or end point, of the biosphere
was to provide the physical conditions for the
ultimate destination of evolution, the
transformation of the biosphere into the
noosphere. Just as the biosphere transformed
the earlier geosphere, the noosphere would
transform the biosphere, extending the
culminating destiny of humanity. (From W.
Hayes, The Noosphere.)
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Vernadsky, Russian geographer and
cosmologist stated in 1929:
“The biosphere is the
cradle of the noosphere.”
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From Teilhard de Chardin
In 1926, Vernadsky met Teilhard de Chardin, a
paleontologist and a Jesuit priest. Chardin had
speculated about a global transformation, the
noosphere.
See Social Values and Social Progress,
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To be continued!
My intention in this presentation is simply to
connect the Anthropocene to the Technosphere
and then to the Noosphere. This will be
continued later.
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