Lecture 6: Welcome to the Anthropocene Flashcards
What factors led to human dominance of the Earth System?
1) industrial revolution
- - global expansion of industrial capitalism (200 years ago)
2) Great acceleration
- - global expansion of consumer capitalism (70 years ago)
Anthropocene =
Human activities push the Earth System (especially climate) beyond range of natural variation (holocene)
How climate varies naturally without human impacts
- Orbital forcing of climate via MILANKOVITCH cycles
- orbital shape
- axial tilt
- axial precession
- different amounts of radiation fall on northern hemisphere
- using ice cores = you can see past climates & Atmospheres
CO2 ppm 2019
412.8ppm
CO2 = ghg so causing temp to rise
CO2 and Temp holocene, still natural?
BOTH exceed natural holocene range
When did the anthropocene begin?
debatable
Industrial revolution: 1800 AD
Beginning of 19th century (1800)
- fossil fuel based manufacturing replaced human/animal labour
- transition from rural –> industrial economies
- migration into cities
- improved sanitation & health care = pop. growth
growing population fed by fossil fuel: industrial fertiliser
- industrial fertiliser production from 1908
- Haber-Bosch process (fixation of atmospheric N to form ammonia)
- high energy demand
- Green Revolution based on this
- estimated half the worlds pop fed on Haber-Bosch process
What drove green revolution
- yields improved
- application of large amounts of fertilisers
- Haber-Bosch process
estimated ___ worlds pop fed on Haber-Bosch process
half the worlds pop.
Cumulative CO2 emissions UK compared to world
UK high, due to long history industrialisation
- US now catching up
- UK way above global mean
Great acceleration driven by
globalisation expansion & economies
- last 70 years
- graphically represented (water use, CO2, other GHG, urban pop) = ALL SKI SLOPE graphs
Great acceleration cause & when
post WW2, by totals wealthy countries
- rapid economic growth built on
- – cheap fossil fuel resources
- – abundant natural resources
- – global expansion of farmland
reduce pop the answer to solving industrial revolution
- not necessarily, since 1970’s fertility rate been lower than replacement value (no. needed to keep stable population)
- only in certain places (lease development countries = Africa) fertility rates higher
- majority around 2
BUT pop growth is expected
— mainly in less developed countries (Sub sahara africa expected to double in next 40 years)
– Rich countries pop stable, but where most resource consumption growth occurs
global inequality: half the wealth of earth is controlled by
less than 1%
46% of wealth controlled by richest 0.7%
inequality in CO2 emissions: Wealthiest 10% are responsible for __ of global consumption emissions
50% (Oxfam 2015)
if this 10% reduced their emissions to those of the average European, that would produce 30% cut in emissions
(Anderson 2018)
Urbanisation ___ per capita energy consumption
increases
more than half the worlds population live in
cities
- set to rise, 2050 more than 70% expected to
__ countries consume resources the fastest
wealthiest
Earth overshoot day =
since 1970’s now pushed further later in year (august) compared to jan 1st
- day we no longer live sustainability
Europeans can’t keep living like
europeans
- we need to cut resource consumption
Doughnut economics
there is are planetary boundaries (limit) to how much we can consume, but we also need to recognise less developed countries have right to consume more
– inside doughnut = things for healthy life, sanitation, health care, etc
– outside doughnut = climate change, ocean acidification etc
things to keep an eye on
- Raworth 2012
what would a sustainable future look like?
achieving human health, well-being and prosperity within the finite resources of Planet
Earth
how many nations on Earth currently meet the basic needs of its citizens within the limits of Earths resources ?
none,
only few achieve social thresholds (aspirational targets) on inside of doughnut economics, but many over transgress biophysical boundaries
USA vs Sri lanka
- USA majority of biophysical boundaries transgressed, not all social thresholds (employment) met
- sri lanka no biophysical boundaries transgressed, social thresholds not met
basic physical needs for everyone ___ be met within Earths limits i.e., Other goals more challenging i.e.
can be met
– nutrition, sanitation, acces to energy
others more challenging = life satisfaction, education, life expectancy, social support
economic growth & capitalism as a measure of success
need to move beyond economic growth to new measures of progress
== money isn’t everything!
