ENV222H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Anthropocene, Consumerism, Nitrogen Cycle
9 May 2018
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ENV222 Lecture 6 Feb 27
Office hours: Tuesday 11am-12pm ES2104
Assignment 2&3 go hand in hand
Posted a template for assignment 2
- Formulating a thesis statement
- Looking for articles to help with your thesis
Last class
- Environment as a policy problem
- Introduce different ways of looking at the environment (policy, technical, moral,
science) and problems we have in the environment
o Way that you frame something matters – to get people thinking some way to
introduce a solution
- Next week: Frameworks on how to bring different perspectives together –
interdisciplinary
Understanding the problem in the context
Human Interactions with the environment
o Current problems are not oly ooted fo uet, it attes ho e got hee
▪ GHGs were being researched by scientists from 1940s, problem did exist
back then
▪ Global warming mitigation has a lot of possible implications when we
siply stop
▪ How we solve the problem without causing more issues?
o Painting of anthropogenic burning practices in Australia at the time of contact
▪ Humans have been modifying their environment for a long time
▪ Global warming (GHGs) is not the only way humans have modified, can
be compared on their scales
o LiDAR study mapping the Mayan Biosphere Reserve
▪ Giant rainforest – mine ruins at the tip of the forest (reading)
▪ ‘estoed the uis, thought it as elatiely sall opaed to todays
cities
▪ Did a study with LiDAR, to map out the city and the structures
• There are lot of structures that are still buried down
• Revealed how huge the settlement was
▪ 1500 years ago – the city was at its peak
▪ Implies there had to be a lot of agriculture to feed the big population
• Estimating 10-15million people
• Active managers of their environment, did it on a large scale
• Grew intensive agriculture, but managed water (canals)
▪ Wee ot the oly iilizatio that aaged the eioet
Snippet of the geological timescale (from when earth was formed)
o Quaternary – evolution of humans
▪ Holocene – humans have more active role in managing the environment
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
▪ Corresponds with the current interglacial period
▪ Difference between glacial and deglacial periods are not that big – 5
degrees
▪ We are looking at 4 degree difference in next 100 years if we keep doing
what we are doing
Stratigraphy (branch in geography) -study that looks at rock layers, sediments etc. in
relationship to geological time scale
o Look for certain clues, signals
▪ Deeper you go, more ancient rocks you have
▪ Infer something related to environment relating to the timescale
▪ Isotopes (like oxygen), air bubbles, chemical characteristics, minerals,
fossils 9 date to determine their ages), pollen grains (vegetative
composition of the area)
Anthropocene
o Holocene – debate in geology and other disciplines for the possibility of naming
another period
▪ Whe huas eae suh a ipotat fato i the eaths
environment that they should be recognized as new type of epoch
o New epoch in geological time
▪ Emergence of humans as important driving force of change on a global
scale
▪ Many debates – if ee goig to ae it, hee is it goig to stat?
• No formal agreement among scientists or other disciplines
o Long-lasting changes during this time period, documented change, long term
(not short-term peak), pinpoint a time period in the stratigraphy (clearly
recognizable, observable and on global scale)
Defining the Anthropocene
o Disagreement between disciplines
o Implication beyond science
▪ normalizing global environmental change?
• Framing the issue – eogizig a statig poit i Athopoee
by saying everything before it was normal – industrialization
idustial eolutio
o Interpret as something that happened before that as
something natural
▪ Scientists arbitrating human-environmental relationship?
• Evolution of interactions beyond arbitrating human-
environmental relationship
• Do we care more about the human behaviors? (bit of a
philosophical debate)
• Scientists concerned about finding type of measurement
• Scientists as arbitrators of human-environmental relationship
(puts them in a weird position)
▪ Evolution of ecosystems
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
13
ENV222H1 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Looking for articles to help with your thesis. Introduce different ways of looking at the environment (policy, technical, moral, science) and problems we have in the environment: way that you frame something matters to get people thinking some way to introduce a solution. Next week: frameworks on how to bring different perspectives together interdisciplinary. Stratigraphy (branch in geography) -study that looks at rock layers, sediments etc. in what we are doing relationship to geological time scale: look for certain clues, signals, deeper you go, more ancient rocks you have. Infer something related to environment relating to the timescale. Isotopes (like oxygen), air bubbles, chemical characteristics, minerals, fossils 9 date to determine their ages), pollen grains (vegetative composition of the area) Defining the anthropocene: disagreement between disciplines. Implication beyond science (cid:494)normalizing(cid:495) global environmental change: framing the issue (cid:862)(cid:396)e(cid:272)og(cid:374)izi(cid:374)g a sta(cid:396)ti(cid:374)g poi(cid:374)t i(cid:374) a(cid:374)th(cid:396)opo(cid:272)e(cid:374)e by saying everything before it was normal industrialization (cid:894)i(cid:374)dust(cid:396)ial (cid:396)e(cid:448)olutio(cid:374)(cid:863)
