#1: The Environmental Revolution
The Shoam----Kalihari Desert
(Botswana)-southern Africa
Bushmen of the Kalahari
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Isaac Barnard - living among the hunters for 20 years.
-same behavior for 30,000 yrs./hunting/trapping
-hunters set traps every day; each family has 3-4 traps;
-Meat & shelter comes directly from the land
-Sticks & grass for nightly shelter; 1-2 nights;women & men gather materials for shelter (20 minutes)
-Shoam roam over large areas
-Children carried in packs on women's backs
-Women gather food------men hunt
-Marama vine (nuts,tuber)
-150 species of plants some for eating/water
-80% diet from wild plant during rainy season
-20% wild game/traps
-Landscape: flat, few trees, very dry
-rub two sticks together to make fire; takes less than a minute
-Cooking with hot coals
-Rainy season is best of seasons/food plentiful
-During dry seasons, hunting is important.
-Drought can be very difficult
-Must keep moving to look for new plants & game
-For 100,000 years, people lived this way.
---------------------------------------children of settled people can be weaned earlier; causes population explosion
-hunting & gathering takes 150 sq. miles to support 50 people
-farming takes only a .5 sq. mile to support 50 people
-too much pressure on the land; not enough space for exploding population
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Hianim Cave--- Netufians
Northern Israel (middle east)
-moved into cave and stayed
-12,000 years ago, a change
-Francois Valla, archeologist at site
-stayed & lived in cave
-sedentary; stones brought into cave to build rounded rooms
-36 burials in cave
-marked ownership of territory
-collected food from wide area
-12,000 years ago--climate changed & rainfall reduced Netufians had to stop their
hunting/gathering lifestyle & begin relying on farming.
-sheer numbers of people killed Angasol; they ruined the environment around them
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Bedouins of south Jordan
page 1
-goat herding was first herding activity
-farming & goat-herding were a man-made substitute for hunting & gathering
-must keep numbers of goats and people down to control over use of resources
-goats are voracious eaters; have to keep them moving.
-small population in a wide area can support itself
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Angasol --9,000 year old Neolithic village in mid-east
City of Amman in Jordan
-plaster floors
-plaster figures
-plaster is an expensive taste (requires fuel)
-limestone (black in color from natural mineral oil) + hot fire (roasted limestone), then ground into powder to make
limestone powder. Needs lots of wood to roast the limestone.
-Ran out of wood; used up the trees around their village
-People over-exploiting the natural environment & turning to farming instead
-Species reduction / over 90% of animals became domesticated / no wild game
-Overpopulation ruined the environment around Angasol
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-Invention of farming:
called the ..... "Neolithic revolution"
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WORLD POPULATION:
10,000 years ago -----5 million
1,000 years ago----500 million
1800's------------ 1 billion
Today------------- 5 billion
2050-------------- 10 billion
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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
-created products
-created wealth
-created consumers
-created pollution
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Selective breeding/England
-English landowners; selective breeding first introduced
-Gentlemen farmers doubling and tripling yields of wool, meat, milk
-meat, milk, wool production increased
-enclosed fields; patchwork of "owned" land
-Mechanization: seed drills ( a major innovation) rather than "broadcasting"
-crop rotation also started
-more animals produced more manure, improving the land still more
-Fertilization of fields
-pace of life increases & population increases
page 2
-Birth records in England
-Population depends on when people get married!
-Fertility varies by age of parents when married & ability to provide own home
-population growth does NOT necessarily reflect total life expectancy
-"Getting established" means wealth...
-1709 smelting iron with coke to make cast iron
-Coal was the energy source that drove the industrial revolution./a way to get
around the limits of fire wood.
-cast iron was the silicon computer chip of the 1800's
-1800 England produced 10 mil. tons of coal a year
-women & boys as young as 6yrs. old would be working down in the shafts. Lots
of water, little pumping.
-steam engines did pumping
-first one was 1712
-Steam engines, iron, coal MADE the Industrial Revolution.
-250 engines for one mine
-one engine could run 1000 looms
-people crowded into industrial cities
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Sheffield & Manchester
Moors
-Peat bogs growing for 7,000 years until,
-Acid rain & soot deposited on moors killed them
-Peat forms at surface
-First large-scale industrial pollution
-no sewage system
-coal smoke
-average age of death -17yrs in Manchester during early years of industrial
revolution! (1840)
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European colonialism
-raw cotton, latex, timber, elephant tusks
-exotic products shipped into Europe from all over world.
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Atom Bomb tests
-radioactivity in fish, pastures, bone marrow
-DDT -- for killing insects (insecticide)
-"Silent Spring", Rachel Carson: contaminants can build up and poison life
-Death of Lake Erie/untreated sewage
-Cities choked with smog from car exhaust & smoke stacks
-1969 Santa Barbara channel oil well ruptured/beaches fouled
-Dennis Hayes: Student recalls --- small blue planet has finite resources
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FIRST EARTH DAY -1970
-concern for environment; planetary death a real possibility
-World Environment Conference in 1972
page 3
-3rd world response (in the speech by Indira Gandhi of India : It's the industrial countrys' fault. Industrial
countries consume great majority of resources & is cause of most of the pollution & environmental havoc.
-An issue for everyone
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Environmental Revolution
- Where are we headed?
-World poisoned by pollution
-Ozone layer depleted; solar radiation a world-wide problem
-Oceans/rivers unusable because of sewage & toxic waste
-Unmanageable piles of garbage filled with squandered resources of planet
-Population of 10 bil in 60 years (2 x today's)
-Food production no longer able to keep pace with population growth
-No room for wild things; only domesticated species remain
-No forests; no trees left
--Is this inevitable?????--
#2: Effects of Pollution
--Do We Really Want to Life This Way?
-Consumer Lifestyle
-Ponderosa Pines dying from acid rain
-California (has 1 in 20) of nation's population.
-12 mil. people in LA basin
-13,000 sq. mile area with mountains surrounding basin.
-smog build-up by noon each day (inversion layer)
-photochemical smog effects: eye irritation, crops die due to ozone, cracking of rubber; shortness of breath
-government regulation: emission controls, + catalytic converters,
-Ozone = Hydrocarbons + oxides of nitrogen + sunlight
-Catalytic Converters in cars are responsible for reducing much of the pollutants coming out of automobile engines
-Acid rain & ozone gases have detrimental effects on forests.
-acid rain & ozone weakens trees; reduces leaf surface -- same problem in Europe, Scandinavia, & Canada; ozone
weakens San Bernadino trees leaving them open to natural enemies such as bark beetles
-0.390 ppm of ozone = shortness of breath, chest pains, wheezing, nausea, headaches, coughing, runny nose
-regulation on products used & emissions allowed.
-chromium as a carcinogen
-small businesses regulated too
-50% increase in LA population projected in next 10 years.
-compulsory car-pooling
-cleaner burning fuels
-emission-free vehicles
-100 tons contributed by citizens alone
-aerosol ban?
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River Rhine in Europe
-Fish in Waddenzee are heavily contaminated with PCBs. Seals eat fish & ingest PCBs.
page 4
-Waddenzee is major pollution area at mouth of Rhine River.
-Waddenzee --seals
-20 years ago you would find 150 seals, now only one if you are lucky.
-River begins in Swiss alps & picks up sewage and industrial waste all along the way.
-Rhine: Drinking water source for 8 mill. people & sewage drain as well.
-1988: 16,000 seals died
-oxygen-depleting sewage in river.
-life-forms on rocks indicates health of river
-20 miles off the coast in the North Sea are evidences of nitrates & phosphates
-North Sea on end of "tube"; whatever goes into the Rhine River, ends up in the North Sea
-Runoff from vineyards: pesticides on crops & fertilizers on the soil
-efforts to reduce fertilizer & pesticides. worries about ground water & drinking supplies
-Rhine as a giant sewer
-Amsterdam: Drinking water plants: settling tanks, contaminants sink to plastic-lined pond; water is piped
underground towards Amsterdam and then percolates through sand in a marsh area
-new equipment used to identify substances in city drinking water
-Bentazone: pesticide found in Amsterdam water supply -- found 200 miles north coming from BASF
manufacturing plant.
-Bentazone emissions were at low levels ... but had been going on for years
-We all drink contaminated water; we all breathe polluted air.
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