History
The geology of lake Crawford… very interesting…
There are interesting specimens in regards to the history of environment. Scientists love this lake.
They trace co2 and other such constructs, together with plutonium, in order to measure the atmosphere during different epoches of geology. This lake is the proof that there is such a thing as the anthropocene, meaning the holocene is over: ie. Humans determine how the planet is changing.
The anthropocene is not just climate change. It is about land use, it is about a lot of different gases working in the atmosphere, it is about extinction and it is about how humans are fundamentally altering the DNA of the creatures around them. Humans have domesticated everything.
It is change on a planetary scale in a multude of ways, with human kind as its driving force.
The person who came up with the concept of the anthropocene is Paul Crutzen in 2000. He worked with atmospheric chemistry. In his measurements he saw that the atmosphere has been fundamentally changed.
It is not a scientific term yet. There is a commission that decides what kind of terms are okay and not, and they have thus far entirely rejected the term of anthropocene, saying that there isn’t enough proof and that it is still too recent of a phenomenon to be sure about.
Environmental concern is as old as industrialisation and economic development.
The noösphere: it entails the transformation of the earth system by humans, as such is similar to anthropocene.
Earth rise was an important part of the post-war environemntal movement; much like Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring.
Some argue that the anthropocene started more or less with humans themselves. The moment humans surivived through tools and fire, using coal and so on, as well as maybe killing the last megafauna. Same kinda thing for the neolithic revolution onwards.
However, the article critiques these ideas in saying that yes, we did impact the environement, but not in fundamentally transforming ways.
The industrial revolution was not a revolution everywhere, was it then a revolution???
Thermo-industrial revolution: it is not about all industries, but rather about the ones that burn fuel. The energy help in that combustion of coal means you can provide any kind of energy from it. The heating point is as such very crucial, as it releases and uses a lot of gases.
This part of the revolution crucially spurred population growth, together with urbanisation.
Is this enough to talk about global environmental change?
McNeill speaks of the Great Acceleration: ie. Saying that it only crucially started post-war II. At this point population booms in the entire world, we enter a consumption society, our economy relies on the combustion of petroleum instead of coal. The entire world enters a system of capitalism, together with neoliberalism, led by the United States, allowing the consumption society to grow without any limits at all. As such the birth of the free-trade world together with the reliance on science and technology, and as such technocrats.
Everything fucking dies after the 40s: ie. After the capitalistic golden age. The great acceleration certainly is an acceleration, but it wouldn’t have happened without its preceding parts.
Coal oil and natural gas consumption is still up. With barely any actual declines.
Today we consume more coal than we did during the industrial revolution, more steel, more cement. Things we associate with the 1800s, 200 years ago, is still an integral part of our current-day economy.
CO2 emissions however are slightly going down.
US use of fossil fuels has gone down slightly, but is still the highest in the world. Generally in the world it is still going up, partially because of the economic growth being seen in India and China. Their growth currently relies on these.
Low-income countries however are starting to use less and less co2.
One of the impact on the environment then is climate change. Oceans are heating up, being acidified, and the atmosphere is getting thicker. Yeah yeah everyone knows this.
This environmental impact however is not proportionate. 20% of the worlds countries produce 80% of the co2 emissions that are relevant in the world.
Disasters are more prevalent now than ever. Just a few years ago there was even a flash flood in Belgium, a huge one in Germany, and one in Poland just this year. The amount of extreme weather events are increasing. However, extreme weather events do not always have to lead to a disaster.
Fuels used:
Preindustrial time: wood, peat, water, wind.
These are not very efficient: as such its use reaches a bottleneck.
Almost no forests in Europe ar eold, real forests. SAD. Most of europe was completely deforested by the 1700s. All forests that exist now are planted meticulosly in monocultures.
As such, we need a new energy source which initially was coal. This happened initially in England (and China at the same time). England then developed the steam engine and as such started the industrial revolution. After WWII oil and gas were used as more efficient fuels.
Coal mines in Limburg, dangerous and sucked. Same with Charleroi.
In 1956, huge mining accident wherein over 200 people died. Mining accidents like this still happen today.
Al lot of people also died of pneumonia from inhaling the bad minerals and so on in the mines. Eg. what led to there being a lot of widows here in Belgium.
Thermo-industrial revolution then, is the idea that coal can be burned to produce steam, which can then be utilised for energy.
This was initially meant for coal mining, and then later for steam locomotives.
Humans initiate movement through boiling water.
The next step is electrification. In the beginning of the 20th century there were the first electricity power plants.
Energy came from wood, wind and water, and this provided energy in very spread out places. But with the thermo-industrial revolution energy was concentrated to one specific and efficient place.
Steam engines become bigger and bigger throughout the revolution. The other kinds of power are entirely based on nature, whilst the steam engines can be run althroughout the night. However, this needs them to be tended to. As such people are needed instead to keep them going. As long as humans act out, we can keep these things running.
This requires steel. And the ability to produce it is crucial, eg. why Belgium is an important center of industrialisation.
What many forget, is that coal is also used today for the home.
Human society carried by boiling water meme.
Nuclear factory: look inside
boiling water.
The use of fossil fuels then leads to pollution
Pittsburgh, essential for the fossil fuel economy in the US. The rivers there are entirely toxic and even lethal.
One formative event was the Great Smog of 1952 in London. It is estimated that 12 000 people were killed by a smog that lasted for a week. Everyone at home was burning coal all the time. Fossil fuels as such then great very localised problems as well.
In the postwar period, one becomes entirely dependent on fossil fuels. Coal looses its dominance with coal mines closing down. Here in Belgium, in the 50s and 60s lots of coal mines closed down and lots of people lost thier jobs, similar to the UK.
These goal mines closed down because they were dangerous but also because producing goal here in Belgium became unfeasible due to goal production elsewhere in the world, together with a cheaper electicity source, like oil. Not everyone in the world has oil, so most people have to import it. This fuelled the economy of trade, as everyone needed to become on oil imports. This led to the energy crisis of 1970s.
They had to organise car-free sundays, in order to ration oil and benzene.
Fossil fuels is also a history of geo-politics about import and about from who we import from.
Interesting that much of the class is pro-nuclear.
France produces 70% of its energy in nuclear.
60% of Belgium is nuclear.
Former USSR-countries has a lot of nuclear.
China, south Korea, and Japan has a bit of nuclear, with Korea having the most.
Nuclear powerplants cause radioactive pollution.
There are some remnants at points of nuclear testing like the Bikini Atoll and in the northern islands of the USSR.
You need mine uranium, which is usually quite a dirty job. It is done mainly in africa and central asia, and especially then done in incredibly bad conditions.
Nuclear powerplants use enormous amounts of water, consume almost most water of all kinds of energy facilities. And the water that comes out is actually warm. Particularly with smaller rivers this can impact the flora and fauna of the river. When rivers dry up also, like in some places in France, they have to close down.
It is difficult to store the nuclear waste of the facilities. Most nuclear waste is not very dangerous. But there is a small portion of nuclear waste which is highly radioactive. For about 1 million years, these burned up uranium fuel rods will remain radioactive.
It seems small nuclear power plants make more waste/bit of energy produced.
Manhattan project and then powering submarines with nuclear reactors, it can stay under water for many years without fuel! The first designs for nuclear reactors were made by the navy, and as such it has a clear military origin.
In 1953, Atoms for peace became a thing. Kickstarted a global enthusiasm for atomic energy. Professor thinks it is similar to the enthusiasm for AI. People thought they could power literally everything with nuclear energy.
As such, the thermo-industrial revolution was scaled up.
Belgium went nuclear very early.
The manhattan project was largely dependent of the Belgian Congo, specifically the area of Katanga. They had the best uranium mine in the world.
Belgians then had great expertise already at the ready through belgian companies on the building of nuclear reactors and as such could begin with this very early.
After this, there was a kind of internationalist idea in developing nuclear power: Expo 58 was heavy on this idea that nuclear power must be spread to the world.
Belgium was also very prevalent in the Euroatom institution.
One of the prime nuclear laboratories in Europe is built in Nantes, which is a heavily nuclearised region, built with American expertise.
Belgium then built 2 nuclear power plants with a total of 7 reactors.
Some of the nuclear power plants in Belgium have been closed down, because they have cracks in them. Ie. Due to safety reasons. Then there was a nuclear phaseout law which wishes to close 3 reactors in 2025.
Much has to do with the anti-nuclear movements. There is an increased concern with the environment. This started on a local level in Sweden, Netherlands and West Germany. This movement became transnational after a while. People go protesting in other countries to support each other and provide expertise.
The result was generally mixed. In some countries very successful. In France, not at all. In West Germany they were very successful, particularly after Fukushima. Merkel took the decision to phase out nuclear entirely.
In Austria it is in the constitution that no nuclear power can be built.
Italy had built nuclear power plants and phased them out entirely.
Chernobyl did not lead to any considerations in the west. It seemed to have been allowed by the soviet political system rather than something that the western anti-nuclear movement could care about for itself.
Pripyat: an anthropocene place.
Before, this was a kind of almost utopian town, a lot of people wanted to live there. It was a kind of ideal modernist city. The city was then evacuated and the city was just entirely left alone. Whilst nature is taking back its place in the city.
We see a faster impact on insect there, given that they have shorter lifespans and as such evolution is more easily measureable.
Is the anthropocene a useful concept?
Remains to be seen.
Fossil & Nuclear are two sides of the same thermo-industrial revolution. They are anthropocene technologies and are impacting the planet in their own way as human earth changers.
Degrowth is a big thing: we need some kind of revolution and scale down our economic development
Then there are some ecomodernists who think we should have more science which will solve the ecocrisis (it seems ecomodernists currently gain the most political power).