Difference between revisions of "Main Page"

From sum.sum4200h202
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 71: Line 71:
 
=== The Necrocene ===
 
=== The Necrocene ===
  
=== Not a new age at all/Holocene ===
+
===Not a new age at all/Holocene ===
<references />
+
Since the Holocene became the official geological time, it implies that the current interglacial differs from the previous Pleistocene because of the influence of humans. It has been argued that an Anthropocene Epoch is not required, given that some human influence is already contained within the Holocene. Defining the Anthropocene would deprive the Holocene Epoch of its unique feature as the age in which humans live. Alternatively, the Holocene may not be required (Lewis and Maslin 2015)(Gibbard and Walker 2014).<references />
  
 
== Getting started ==
 
== Getting started ==

Revision as of 15:29, 31 August 2020

Definition

Development of the term

Earlier use

The idea of a geological time unit defined by humans has existed for centuries. Comte de Buffon, who was an essential figure for the development of modern geology, wrote in his Epochs of Nature (1778) about a seventh and final geological epoch called the Epoch of Man. In nineteenth century textbooks of geology it was common to include humans in the definition of the most recent geological time unit. Different names to refer to this time unit were used, like Recent, Holocene, Anthropozoic, Era of Man and Age of Mind. Thomas Jenkyn was probably the first one to use the Greek ‘anthropos’ to denote a human epoch in 1854. In the twentieth century, geologists increasingly used the term Holocene.

Proposal in the 2000s and popularisation

The current use of the term the Anthropocene can be traced back to two papers in the early 2000s. In 2000, during a meeting of the International Biosphere-Geosphere Programme (IGBP) in Mexico, Paul Crutzen proposed that we now live in the Anthropocene and that the Holocene has ended (Lewis & Maslin, 2018, 20-21). Together with Eugene Stoermer, he published a short paper in the IGBP Newsletter, one month later (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000). Two years later, Crutzen published about the beginning of a new geological epoch in the leading scientific journal Nature (Crutzen, 2002). After these two articles, the concept has been taken up by various scholars and across disciplines.

Dating the Anthropocene

The division of history into geological periods of different orders (from highest to lowest order: Eons, Eras, Periods, Epochs, Ages) is coordinated by the International Commission on Stratigraphy on account of the International Union of Geological Science. The established procedure for determining the starting point of each unit is the use of a Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), commonly a section of rock sediment or ice drill core, that indicates a definitively detectable and dateable change in global environmental conditions. Such changes can be the appearance of new plant and animal species or changes in biological and chemical cycles. These primary markers are commonly supported by secondary sediment markers from other locations that show the same change for the same time (International Commission on Stratigraphy, https://stratigraphy.org/gssps/). For dating the beginning of the Anthropocene, various indicators have been proposed, pointing to different times and global developments.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration

Atmospheric gas concentrations can be reconstructed using ice core sections from the polar ice caps, in which gas is entrapped and stored over long periods of time. For atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, two changes have been proposed: the decline of CO2 levels starting in the late 16th century and reaching their lowest point around 1610; and the continuous increase of CO2 levels from the late eighteenth century onwards (Lewis & Maslin, 2018, p.316ff).

The decrease of CO2 levels leading up to the 1610 minimum can be attributed to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas from the late fifteenth century onwards. With the introduction of new diseases that local populations had little immunity for and conquest wars, populations in the Americas declined rapidly. Less land was used for food production so that forests expanded and sequestered atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis (Lewis & Maslin, 2015, p.175). The subsequent and ongoing increase of atmospheric CO2 levels can be attributed to the expansion of European settler-driven agriculture through plantations, migration of European populations to the Americas, and, starting in the eighteenth century, increasing fossil fuel consumption for energy production. These changes are captured in atmospheric gas deposits in Arctic and Antarctic ice cores that allow for a dating of these changes (Lewis & Maslin, 2018, p.317).

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from the late eighteenth century onwards are another alternative of designating the beginning of the Anthropocene, focusing on the use of fossil fuel-derived energy throughout the Industrial Revolution (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000, p.17). Widespread adoption of coal as a heating fuel and the use of coal-powered steam engines released carbon from fossilised plants into the atmosphere. Changes in atmospheric CO2 levels become definitivelty measurable between the late eighteenth and nineteenth century and have continued to increase since (Lewis & Maslin, 2015, p.176).

Using CO2 levels as markers for the beginning of the Anthropocene thus gives two options: the early seventeenth or late-eighteenth and -nineteenth century. Controversies about the choice of date revolve around what is definitive for contemporary human life: the expansion of human social relations to a planetary scale through trade, production, and conflict, which points to the 1610 atmospheric CO2 minimum that marked colonisation of the Americas; or the increasing reliance on technology and fossil fuel-driven industrial production that is indicated by the continuing rise of atmospheric CO2 levels from the late-eighteenth century (cf. Lewis & Maslin, 2018; Sayre, 2012; Moore, 2018).

Atmospheric methane concentration

Changes in atmospheric methane concentration are detectable in Arctic and Antarctic ice cores from 5,000 years ago. The primary causes are the expansion of farming, especially paddy rice cultivation, and livestock farming (Lewis & Maslin, 2015, p.174). While sedentary agriculture arose over a span of thousands of years across multiple locations, its more widespread adoption around 5,000 years before now first began to alter environmental processes and change landscapes to the point of becoming trapped in and detectable using ice cores and sedimented biological matter. While such evidence has shown the large-scale transformation of landscapes through human action (Crutzen & Stoemer, 2000, p.17), indicators of farming such as pollen deposits in sediment shows the variation in time of when and what kind of farming was adopted. The time lag between the first adoption of farming and the detectability of atmospheric methane concentration changes, then, makes this a contentious marker for designating the time when human actions brought environmental change on a planetary scale.

Radioactive fallout

With the development of nuclear fission technology from the 1940s onwards, leading up to the construction and test of nuclear bombs, the release of radioactive materials as fallout became detectable as traces of human actions on a global scale. Nuclear testing accelerated throughout the 1950s and 1960s, around the same time as production, trade, and cultural engagement became increasingly interconnected around the globe (Lewis & Maslin, 2018, p.309). While various radioactive isotopes can be traced back to nuclear testing, carbon-14 is established as a geological indicator for radiocarbon dating and is assimilated into trees. Its familiarity and the possibility of precise dating of tree rings has made this isotope a key marker for radioactive fallout resulting from human technological innovation. The peak of carbon-14 levels in 1964, when the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty had caused a rapid decline of nuclear tests thus offers another option of designating the impact that human actions, particularly mediated through technological change, have on a global scale (Lewis & Maslin, 2015, p.176). However, radioactive testing is not itself a cause of environmental change but correlated to technological developments such as increases in production capacities and transitions in energy use that themselves bring changes in the global environment.

Animal and plant species

Significant changes in animal and plant populations caused by evolutionary adaptations to changing environmental conditions are another approach to dating the beginning of geological periods. Rapid environmental changes can trigger both mass extinctions and evolutionary innovations - often interdependent events as the disappearance of some species opens evolutionary niches for new species to adapt to and changes the contextual conditions of existing species (Lewis & Maslin, 2018, p. 65). Human actions have contributed to changing animal and plant populations on a global scale through, for example, increased hunting of large-bodied mammals by an expanding human population between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago (Lewis & Maslin, 2015, p.173); tropical deforestation and the transformation of other ecosystems (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000, p.17); and the introduction of new species, which homogenised their presence across the globe, while other species went extinct from hunting, diseases, and habitat loss - all of this occurring at a rapidly increasing pace after the expansion of European control in the Americas throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth century (Lewis & Maslin, 2018, p.273). The megafauna extinction of 50,000 to 10,000 years ago being spread unevenly across a large period of time and different places makes it difficult to use as a period marker. Additionally, and the same being true for species extinctions from human-induced landscape transformation, the disappearance of a species cannot be definitively dated from an absence of evidence. The appearance of new plant and animal species around the globe, however, and primarily those consciously introduced by humans for agricultural use, provides another possible marker for globally transformative influences of human agency.

Controversies and debates

Overgeneralisation and lack of specificity

The Anthropocene concept has been criticized for glossing over inequalities between humans. The narrative in which the Earth System is increasingly dominated by humanity risks framing humanity as a unified actor. Malm and Hornberg (2014) call this a species-based view and hold that this view is misleading. Instead, they argue that analyses of our current ecological crisis must take into account (historical) intra-species inequalities. Global inequality and price and wage differences have been a condition for the “high-tech modernity” in parts of the world that is responsible for the biggest human impact on the environment (64). Furthermore, the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions of one-sixth of the human population is close to zero (65). Thus, we cannot speak of an undifferentiated humanity causing climate change.

Malm, Andreas, and Hornborg, Alf. "The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene Narrative." The Anthropocene Review 1, no. 1 (2014): 62-69.

Evidence & not yet formally recognised

Varied use across disciplines, possible misunderstandings

    • Brings together people across disciplines
    • e.g. Moore: focuses production/economy/power; Chakrabarty: uses historical besides geological evidence; Lewis & Maslin: are explicit about shifts in what evidence is used, as the AC would not rely on rock but ice cores (as it has already done for the Holocene), thus distorting consistency of evidence used for dating - but also make it clear that combining historical and geological archives can make it easier to give an accurate & relevant definition (plus: carbon-14 dating uses yet another dating procedure completely unrelated to rock/ice segments)
    • Moore, Chakrabarty, Hornborg & Malm, Sayre (H&M and Sayre critique the generalisation of the AC as a narrative of “humanity): all look at humanity INTERNALLY, i.e. how human actions come about, more than e.g. Crutzen & Stoermer or Lewis & Maslin, who look at human-nature impacts → methodological differences lead to different outcomes/assessments - which can be confusing for having conversations between disciplines, but can equally be beneficial

Challenges and alternative proposals

Since its emergence, the Anthropocene has generated discussions and raised a wave of criticism among experts and scholars across disciplines. The entire geological concept has been frequently criticized as incomplete and peripheral for its alleged absence of historical thinking and insufficient consideration of socio-economic factors. Each of the critiques explained below brings a different point of view from which they evaluate the concept and propose amendments.

The Capitalocene

Generally considered as the main contender of the Anthropocene, the main divergence lies in the Capitalocene’s different understanding of the emergence of the current planetary epoch and the distinct identification of its primary drivers – most notably the emergence of capitalism. This approach is promoted by many prominent scholars such as Donna Haraway, James W. Moore, Raj Patel, Jerome Roos and others.

While the Anthropocene characterizes the current geological epoch as human-dominated and considers humanity itself as a geological force and thus the main cause of environmental changes, those arguing for the Capitalocene identify the rise of capital and the capitalism’s organization within human society as the origin of geological and ecological shifts. What the Anthropocene classifies as the Age of Man, the Capitalocene identifies as the Age of Capital.

The Capitalocene presents itself chiefly as an alternative way of thinking the origins and the evolution of modern ecological crisis. According to this concept, the Anthropocene ignores historical facts indispensable for the proper understanding of the modern epoch and by shifting the attention from capitalism it falsifies the history behind planetary changes. While acknowledging the Anthropocene as a solid scientific concept providing the understanding of geological changes, many promoters of the Capitalocene claim that it fails to take into account primary socio-economic drivers of these changes caused by the expansion of capitalism.

In its further clarification, the alternative approach focuses primarily on the global events following the Columbian exchange and draws attention to some of the practices that enabled and enhanced the expansion of modern capitalism – beginning with the Cartesian dualism as a philosophical base and followed by colonialism, racism and the subsequent exclusion of certain groups of people, appropriation and depletion of natural resources and unfair distribution of profit.

The Plantationocene

Definition

Plantationocene is the concept that suggests that our current ongoing ecological crisis is rooted in logics of environmental modernization, homogeneity, and control, which were developed on historical plantations(Janae Davis et al 2018 p1). The plantation system depends on the relocation of the species including plants, animals, microbes, people. The systematic practice of relocation for extraction is necessary to the plantation system(Donna Harway et al  2016 p557).

Thus, Plantationocene represents the devastating transformation of diverse kinds of human-tended farms, pastures, and forests into extractive and enclosed plantations, relying on slave labor and other forms of exploited, alienated, and usually spatially transported labor(Donna Harway 2015).The Plantationocene makes one pay attention to the historical relocations of the substances of living and dying around the Earth as a necessary prerequisite to their extraction.

How the term generated

The term “Plantationocene” was first outlined in a 2014 interdisciplinary discussion on the Anthropocene and later released in the journal Ethnos (Haraway et al., 2015).

As the Anthropocene prevails, there are critiques of the approach to identify that the cause of the environmental crisis is humanity as a whole, not to consider social systems or historical processes set by minorities. Critiques of Anthropocene have emphasized the uneven causes and consequences of global environmental change, as well as the unmarked whiteness and Eurocentricity of Anthropocene discourses. There was a growing attention to the development of global capitalism through processes of settler colonialism and enslavement, organized and rationalized by the plantation system. Plantationocene offers important openings. Haraway stresses, the concept provides a means of decentering the narrative by which coal, the steam engine, and the industrial revolution constitute the epicenter of global environmental change, instead pointing to the crucial role of plantation ecologies and politics in shaping the present (Haraway, 2016, p. 48) (Janae Davis et al 2018 p4).

The Necrocene

Not a new age at all/Holocene

Since the Holocene became the official geological time, it implies that the current interglacial differs from the previous Pleistocene because of the influence of humans. It has been argued that an Anthropocene Epoch is not required, given that some human influence is already contained within the Holocene. Defining the Anthropocene would deprive the Holocene Epoch of its unique feature as the age in which humans live. Alternatively, the Holocene may not be required (Lewis and Maslin 2015)(Gibbard and Walker 2014).

Getting started