Anthropocene

Are humans the primary driver of environmental change?
Humans have been altering the planet ever since the dawn of agriculture

What were the outcomes of the 2020 Australian bushfires?
More than 27 million acres burned
25,000 koalas died in Kangaroo Island
People lost homes, health issues (smoke), PTSD, Depression, etc
Economic Burden

What positive impacts to the environment were seen from the shut downs across the world due to COVID?
Air pollution (nitrogen dioxide levels) in China has decreased
Water ways in Venice are clearer
Wildlife benefitted from less noise and traffic

The balance between what we need as a population and the impact that has on the environment
comes down to what we personally believe

What is the Anthropocene and who proposed it?
 2002 Noble Prize wining Chemist, Paul Crutzen
Relating to or denoting the current geological age
viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on the ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE
the point in time where we dominate environmental change
geologists hate this

What is the geological time scale?
system of dating that classifies geologists strata (rocks)
they use it to look at the geographic timing of events that occurred

Why do geologists not like the Anthropocene?
They say it is really hard to pinpoint when humans began to impact the rock strata (definition of a new epoch... a.k.a. what anthropocene is)

Why is there argument about when the Anthropocene began?
because it hard to pinpoint if/when the point of irreversible environmental change is

What are some of the suggested times for the start of the Anthropocene and why?
when we started making fire and eating meat
when we began farming (the start of agriculture)
 when mining began
European conquest
The Great Acceleration
Some believe it has not even started

Paul Crutzen believed it to be at start of the Industrial Revolution because if you look at Ice Cores (they trap air) here was an increase of CO2 and Methane

Why do some people say the Anthropocene has not yet begun? How do they define it?
They point out that clear-cut evidence for a new epoch simply isn’t there. To define it, they want us specifying exactly when human beings began to leave their mark on the planet: The atomic era, for instance, has left traces of radiation in soils around the globe, while deeper down in the rock strata, agriculture’s signature in Europe can be detected as far back as A.D. 900.

What is the Great Acceleration, why did it happen, and what are some of its effects on (1) economic development and consumption and (2) ecology
Mid 20th Century to now (end of WW2... 1950)
The dramatic continual & roughly simultaneous surge in growth rate across a large range of measures of human activity
(1) mass production and mass industrialization, we are consuming more, increase in water, fertilizer because we are creating more food
(2) CO2 increases, a shift in surface temperature and ozone

6th mass extinction
We are now considered to be in the 6th mass extinction, an inter-glacial period
The sixth mass extinction is likely being caused by human-induced events which destroy species habitats

What do the terms threatened and endangered actually mean?
(1) threatened: that population is low and likely to become endangered
(2) endangered: close to becoming extinct

What are some of the issues we are currently dealing with right now due to a growing population?
825 million are seriously underfed
every 5 seconds a child dies
increasing stress on farms and farmers
food supply is not even across the country or the world
fertilizer is harmful to the environment but global fertilizer use is on the rise as we the need to produce more food increases
air pollution
water supply and quality

What are the commons?
resource that is used in common by many people
forests, water, food, land
natural resources that we empty either privately or publicly owned

What did Garret Hardin suggest in the Tragedy of the commons?
individuals act according to self interest but contrary to best of interest by the whole depleting resource in the commons
Garret Hardin (1968): 'the population problem has no technical solution; It requires a fundamental extension in morality'

What else did Garret Hardin do/believe?
we have to bring a population problem under control
opposed aid to 3rd world countries because he believed we should control their population trough starvation and disease
fundamentally opposed immigration because he wanted to keep the U.S. as an 'island of wealth'
compassion is a human weakness and will eventually be depleted through natural selection

What trend has global poverty taken in the last 200 years? How is extreme poverty defined by the world bank? What percentage are currently in extreme poverty?
the global poverty rate over the past 200 years is declining
'less than a $1.90 per day'
still 10% of the global population is in extreme poverty

Define environmentalism
concern about and action aimed at protecting the environment

Why do some say environmentalism has its roots in Romanticism? Be able to define both terms.
Romanticism: a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual
appreciating thing fro their beauty as opposed to their scientific value
colonial environmentalism came from romanticism (1800s)
came from Europe during the Industrial Revolution as they realized the air was becoming hard to breath, and they were losing free land spaces

Why was there a growth in the environmental movement in Europe in the late 1800s?
Industrial Revolution
No regulations in place to stop expansion or pollution
RSPB (giving nature a home)
National Trust
British Ecology Society

Gifford Pinochot - who was he?
Formed the society for American Foresters
First chief of the U.S. Forest Service
 Was a conversationalist

Definition of forester and what that means
'the art of producing from the forest whatever it can yield for the service as man'
 Lets use the forest for what it can provide for us (homes, work, etc) not lets save the forest because they are beautiful

How did Jeremy Bentham define utilitarianism and how did Pinochot change that definition?
'Resources should be used fort he greater good for the greater number **for the long run'
What can we do to make the most people the most happy
**Pinochet added: for the longest time

How did Roosevelt become interested in conservation?
Went to the Badlands in 1883 and saw he the effects of overgrazing
Wanted to protect wildlife and public lands
Created the U.S. Forest Service

1906 American Antiquities Act
created many national forests, bird reserves, game reserves, national parks, national monuments and preserved a lot of land

Who was John Muir and what did he believe?
One of the founders and President of the Sierra Club
Renowned naturalist, explorer, writer
1901 published 'Our National Parks' which gained the attention of Roosevelt
Moral & Aesthetic/Biocentric Preservation
 Nature should be preserved not conserved

Why is John Muir connected with Roosevelt?
In 1903 the two of them went on a 3 day hiking trip in Yosemite where they laid out a lot of environmental acts Roosevelt is still famous for today

Definitions of conservation and preservation
Conserve: protect (something, especially an environmentally or culturally important place or thing) over harm or destruction... sustainable usage

Preserve: off-limits, maintain (something) in its original or existing state.

Definition of moral and aesthetic nature/biocentric preservation
'Nature's object in making animals and plants might possibly be the first happiness of each of them'
A belief that we should use land with love and respect because 'land is a community to which we belong'
Emphasis on the fundamental right of other organisms to exist; this point of view is
called biocentric preservation

Who was Rachel Carson and why was her work significant?
Environmentalist
'Silent Spring' (1962)
Anti-pesticides
Got DDT banned
Led to the movement that started the EPA

What was the decade of awakening and what happened?
1970s
First Earth Day
First UN Environmental Conference
Green Peace formed
Oil Spill in SB
By the end of 1970 the EPA had formed and a lot of acts passed
Earth Day went global in 1990

What are the 4 stages of conservation development?
1) Pragmatic Resource Conservation
(Utilitarian Conservation)

2) Moral & Aesthetic Nature Preservation
(Biocentric Preservation)

3) A Growing Concern about Health & Ecological Damage caused by Population (Environmentalism)

4) Global Environmental Citizenship
(Global Environmentalism)