The Anthropocene, or the age of man, is a brand new geological time interval outlined by humankind’s large affect on our planet. The frequent use of the time period Anthropocene dates again to 2000 and is attributed to chemist Paul Crutzen and diatom researcher Eugene Stoermer. It now has a e-book and podcast named after it, each by well-known writer John Inexperienced.
I’ve been fascinated by the Anthropocene for the reason that first time I heard about it. The concept one species can so basically change the trajectory of a planet boggles my thoughts, at the same time as I learn proof fairly usually that we’re doing simply that.
The techno-optimist in me needs to consider the issues we’ve induced are solvable. It is usually the a part of me that gives me with the hope to proceed working within the subject of round economic system. The thought that always creeps in, although, as I take into consideration how people can clear up the mess we’ve created, is definitely fairly completely different: What if people immediately disappeared tomorrow? Then what?
“The World With out Us” by journalist and award-winning writer Alan Weisman was printed in 2007. The e-book was named greatest nonfiction e-book of 2007 by Time Journal. I learn it over a decade in the past, however nonetheless give it some thought virtually day by day and picked it up once more just lately for one more look. The e-book was described as “one of many grandest thought experiments of our time” by educator, writer and environmentalist Invoice McKibben. When you ask me, it nonetheless reads like that immediately.
Weisman imagines in nice element what would occur to Earth if people disappeared fully and virtually instantly. You may envision Kang and Kodos (from “The Simpsons”) choosing everybody up unexpectedly of their spacecraft to take us again to Rigel VII.
The e-book attracts on the actual outcomes of locations that have been as soon as dominated by people however then deserted, such because the deserted nuclear web site Chernobyl and the war-stricken and abandoned resort city of Varosha. It additionally asks specialists from atmospheric scientists to grease refiners to weigh in on what would occur if people not inhabited the Earth. A couple of of my favourite examples embrace anecdotes about Houston, the poisonous and unnatural soil signature we’ve left and the downfall of the Mayan folks.
Houston and the story of rubber
The story of Houston’s petrochemical legacy in some methods begins, oddly sufficient, with a pure materials. Pure rubber has many sensible makes use of however does undergo from brittleness when too chilly and softening when too sizzling. Charles Goodyear modified all that along with his discovery of vulcanization in 1839.
The remainder of the story is one which tracks very neatly with our linear economic system. The tire trade exploded within the early 1900s, and by the beginning of World Struggle II, pure rubber demand and using vulcanization have been each hovering. Many of the U.S. rubber provide at the moment got here from Southeast Asia, and being locked out of that market throughout the conflict led U.S. scientists to develop artificial rubber.
In different phrases, like many issues in our linear economic system, a pure materials that would biodegrade was supplanted by an artificial materials that can’t, and it was all fueled by petrochemicals.
“The World With out Us” goes on to explain what would ultimately occur to Houston if people have been gone (suppose fires, explosions, poisonous plumes and a really gradual restoration), however I received’t go into these gory particulars right here.
Soil well being or the dearth thereof
The human legacy on the Earth’s soil looks like segue from the petrochemical trade to the story of the Mayan civilization. With regards to soil, let’s simply agree that people haven’t completed it any favors.
We’ve deliberately and unintentionally added artificial chemical compounds, and we’ve deteriorated soil high quality and amount via monoculture farming and different human actions. We’ve additionally completed fairly a poor job of utilizing the vitamins we’ve pulled from soil and returning them again to the place they belong.
The poisonous fingerprints of our existence embrace will increase in heavy metals, persistent natural pollution and acidification. That is, once more, in service of an extractive economic system that favors short-term acquire over long-term sustainability.
The collapse of the Mayan civilization
The story of the Mayan folks nonetheless astonishes researchers. All proof factors to a society that survived — nay, thrived — in a largely peaceable existence for not less than 1,600 years.
In some unspecified time in the future, although, that order broke down, and some mixture of drought, meals shortages, greed and conflict rapidly destroyed the whole lot that had been constructed. Inside solely 100 years, the Mayan civilization was gone.
Whatever the mixture of things that led to the demise, although, extractive practices, greed and progress at any value have been on the core.
Use your creativeness
So what will we do about it? I typically speak about the necessity to use creativity and to unlearn our deeply ingrained linear habits and practices to step ahead towards a round future. I feel studying a e-book comparable to “The World With out Us” and enthusiastic about this new geologic period we’ve created may be instructive in doing simply that.
With that, my problem is to ask your organizations to check what indelible mark any new services or products would possibly depart on the planet, both positively or negatively, and weigh that in opposition to the general worth of placing it out on the planet within the first place.
It’s intriguing for me to suppose that as a result of we’ve altered the planet so rapidly and so completely, that possibly we even have an analogous potential to repair it? If the planet’s degradation was brought on by exterior forces, it is perhaps troublesome to wrap our heads round fixing the issue. Being that we’ve created the issue, although, possibly we will simply reverse-engineer our solution to higher outcomes?
