the geography of our future: understanding the consequences of the anthropocene
TRANSCRIPT
Mark Maslin and Danny Dorling
Geography of our Future:
Understanding the consequences of the Anthropocene
1
Are we already in the
Anthropocene?
2
Are humans a geological superpower?
3
4
Half of all Nitrogen fixed by humans
Greenhouse gases outside glacial-interglacial norms
>30% land surface cultivated
Sixth mass extinction?
5
6
We are currently in the Holocene Epoch
which started 11,650 BP
Geologic Timescale 2012
7
Holocene Epoch
Defined by the rise in Deuterium excess in Greenland ice core. That marks the first signs of climatic warming at the end of the Younger Dryas cold phase.
8
Stage 1: Early
Agriculture and the age
of Empire
9
Ruddiman 2013 Ann. Rev. Earth & Planetary Sciences
Agriculture developed independently
10
Have humans prevented a new glaciation?
Red, Holocene
Blue, mean of previous interglacials, plus standard deviation
11
Roman Empire – very little environmental impact
12
Scale of changes small compared to recent
Lewis & Maslin 2015 The Anthropocene Review13
Stage 2:
Globalisation of
humanity and the dawn
of Capitalism
14
1492 Columbus arrives in the Americas
15
Collision of Old and New Worlds
Alfred Crosby 197216
Species exchange
Benjamin M. Schmidt, Northeastern University, USA
18th and 19th century shipping logs
17
Orbis hypothesis Latin for “World”
50 Millionpeople died
in the Americas
Lewis & Maslin 2015 The Anthropocene Review
18
Should Anthropocene start at 1610 ACE?
Lewis & Maslin 2015 Nature
19
Our thinking changed after 1492
De revolutionibusorbium coelestium
(On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Spheres)
Imagined 1510Printed 1543
Nicolaus Copernicus
20
In 1631, René Descartes noticed that all around him
people had stopped thinking about much more
than earning money. He said: ‘In this great city
where I am living, with no man apart from myself not
being involved in trade, everyone is so intent on his
profits that I could spend my whole life without being seen by anyone.’
21
Angus Maddison’s world data sorted by 16th century rise – www.worldmapper.org
DemographicTurmoil 1600-1820
Population (millions)
Population change in century (%)
1500 1820 16th 17th 18th
Netherlands 1 2 58 27 23
United Kingdom 4 21 57 39 148
China 103 381 55 -14 176
Total Asia 284 710 33 6 77
Total Western Europe 57 133 29 10 63
India 110 209 23 22 27
Japan 15 31 20 46 15
Total Africa 47 74 19 10 22
United States 2 10 -25 -33 898
Total Latin America 18 22 -51 40 79
Mexico 8 7 -67 80 46
Peru 4 1 -68 0 1
Everywhere else 31 92 23 20 101
World Total 438 1042 27 9 73
22
About to explode
Charles Darwin – on slow breading mammals…“… after a period of from 740 to 750 years there would be nearly nineteen million elephants alive descended from the first pair. But we have better evidence on this subject than mere theoretical calculations, namely, the numerous recorded cases of the astonishingly rapid increase of various animals in a state of nature, when circumstances have been favourable to them during two or three following seasons. Still more striking is the evidence from our domestic animals of many kinds which have run wild in several parts of the world;
1849 (sixth edition 1873)
23
24
Stage 3: The Industrial
revolutions
c. 1800-1950
25
James Watt's industrial steam engine, 1788 26
With the industrial revolutions came a change in our thinking – with the emergence of socialism
27
Stage 4:The Great
Acceleration and the
birth of Neoliberalism
28
29
Increasing Global consumption
30
The ‘Great Acceleration’ relative to the bomb spike
Lewis and Maslin, Anthropocene Review (2105) using data from Steffen et al. (2015) 31
Over 3.5 billion extra people since 1950
32
Global distribution of Population
33
Light Pollution
Map by Benjamin Hennig – Sources: http://www.dannydorling.org/books/geography/
34
Croplands
Map by Benjamin Hennig – Sources: http://www.dannydorling.org/books/geography/
35
Wilderness
Map by Benjamin Hennig – Sources: http://www.dannydorling.org/books/geography/
36
Emergence of Neoliberalism in the 1980s
37
True state of the Modern World7 million children die needlessly each year
700 million people go to bed hungry every night1,000 million people no access to clean drinking water
38
• Richest 1% of adults owned 48% of global assets in 2014, 50% by 2015
• Bottom half (3.6 billion people) owned <1%
39
Stage 5:Potential
geographies of the
Future
40
All current trends are leading to the Perfect Storm
Development Population growth
41
Limiting carbon emissions will require substantial and sustained effort (IPCC 2013)
42
Paris COP agreement is very ambitious
43
Is this because we have to many people?
Discussions on Global Population and Climate Change seem to raise the same hysteria
44
UN Population growth forecast
The world population likely to increase from current 7.3 billion to 9.0 billion in 2100
It need not go higher if we are proactive - Family planning has dropped of the global political agenda over the last 20 years, as has concern over what makes people happier to have fewer children.
45
Your eye is drawn upwards…
The middle estimate is so much less shocking than the upper estimate. Hardly anyone ever comments on the lower population estimates the UN has been producing and yet fertility continues to fall. Especially after 2008.
46
Total and per capita emissions – target is 2 tons/capita
It is consumption not population that makes the difference
47
Population + Development = faster Climate Change
But are all people equal when it comes to polluting the atmosphere?
9 billion people - 2050
Rapid Development
>4˚C temperature rise?
48
Is it lack of money that is stopping us helping the poor?Or is tolerance of inequality peculiar to the UK – the most
economically unequal country in Europe…
GDP growth 1600-2010
UK GDP in 2014 was ~$3000 billionSo why are there poor people?
49
Will the future be a healthier one?
Source: https://healthyplanetpro.wordpress.com/world-health-stats/ 50
Is progressive and inclusive capitalism – triple bottom lineand wealth redistribution enough?
51
The Panama Papers will reveal the scale of our underestimate of the 1% wealth
52
Return to social democracy?Progressive taxation and adopt the universal basic income
53
Why do the
Anthropocene and
Capitalocene matter?
54
55
Does defining Human geological time unit matter?
The Time Wars
Anthropocene: reinstating human importance after 500 years
56
Good verses Bad Anthropocene?
57
We have a choice!