#2 Road to Earth 2.0: How Did We Get from Eden to the Anthropocene?
Discover major sustainability news in Green Swan Pursuit, dive into imaginative thought experiments in Thought Seeds Lab, and find inspiration in Discovery Den.
Contents
Green Swan Pursuit
Thought Seeds Lab
Discovery Den
Green Swan Pursuit
Stay updated with major sustainability news and insights.
Ecojet Signs Agreement for 22 ZeroAvia Hydrogen-Electric Engines
Insight: ZeroAvia's hydrogen-electric engines, set to be adopted by Ecojet, offer a groundbreaking reduction in aviation emissions. These engines eliminate up to 90% of carbon emissions compared to traditional jet turbines and significantly reduce other harmful pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides. With aviation's share of climate impact expected to reach 25-50% by 2050, innovations like ZeroAvia's are crucial. ZeroAvia not only promotes environmental sustainability but also enhances economic efficiency, marking a significant advancement in green aviation technology.
Mars Materials: Transforming CO2 Into Every Day Products
Insight: Mars Materials is revolutionizing the production of everyday industrial products with an innovative and environmentally friendly approach. By converting water, electricity, green ammonia, and captured carbon dioxide into acrylonitrile, Mars Materials provides a sustainable alternative to traditional fossil fuel-based methods. Acrylonitrile, used in products like carpets, keyboard keys, and car dashboards, has a significant CO2 footprint. Mars Materials’ technology, tapping into a $14 billion market, has the potential to kickstart the transition to CO2 utilization, exemplifying how green innovation can sustain our quality of life while significantly reducing environmental impact.
New Wood Type Efficient at Carbon Storage
Insight: Researchers have identified a unique type of wood in Tulip Trees, which are related to magnolias and can grow over 100 feet tall. This discovery may explain why these trees, which diverged from magnolias 30-50 million years ago during a period of low atmospheric CO2, grow so tall and rapidly. Tulip Trees have secondary cell walls with an enlarged macrofibril structure, making them exceptionally efficient at carbon storage. This revelation opens new opportunities to enhance carbon capture in plantation forests by planting this fast-growing tree or engineering Tulip Tree-like wood into other species. This research underscores the potential of botanic gardens in contributing to modern carbon capture efforts and addressing climate challenges.
Ghana's Energy Planning: A Global Model
Insight: Ghana's recent advancements in energy planning are setting a global example, demonstrating the integration of renewable energy sources with local economic and environmental considerations. This approach not only aims to reduce Ghana's carbon footprint but also supports the development of sustainable, community-based energy solutions. By focusing on renewable energy and local needs, Ghana is paving the way for a cleaner and more equitable energy future, benefiting both the environment and its citizens.
GIX: First U.S. Green Economy Stock Market
Insight: The Green Impact Exchange (GIX) is set to become the first sustainability-focused stock exchange in the US, pending SEC approval. Founded by former NYSE executives, GIX aims to list companies committed to sustainability, ensuring adherence to Green Governance Standards. This new exchange will provide transparency and accountability, with regular public reporting on sustainability metrics. GIX's innovative approach could simplify sustainable investments, supporting a sustainable finance projected to be worth US$2.6 trillion by 2030, and offering investors a clear path to impact-driven financial growth.
Thought Seeds Lab
Explore thought experiments about the Earth 2.0.
I invite you to ask yourself the initial question and join me in a deep examination of these topics in the comments. Together, we will create our own vision for the future and find alternatives worth fighting for.
How Did We Get from Eden to the Anthropocene?
"The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men's eyes."
- Ursula K. Le GuinAs we embark on our journey to Earth 2.0, we must first understand where we've been and how we arrived at this crucial juncture in our planet's history. Le Guin's words challenge our romanticized view of nature, reminding us that Earth embodies both creation and destruction, beauty and horror. Her vivid imagery compels us to confront the full spectrum of existence. But in recent times, a new force has emerged on this stage: us.
Remembering the Holocene, Our Geological Garden of Eden
Our story begins with the Holocene, a 12,000-year period of remarkable climatic stability that allowed humans to settle, farm, and create civilizations. This wasn't a smooth transition - our ancestors endured massive flooding as ice sheets collapsed, briefly plunging the planet back into ice age like conditions. But as the ice retreated, forests expanded, and a new era dawned.
The Holocene, derived from the Greek words meaning "new whole" was Earth's version of Eden. It was a climatic paradise where global temperatures varied by just one degree Celsius over millennia. This stability was the fertile ground from which human civilization sprouted. For the first time in our species' history, we experienced predictable seasons and reliable weather. We wasted no time in taking advantage of this gift, domesticating crops like rice, wheat, teff, maize, and sorghum across different continents.
We call it the Goldilocks epoch because it was not too hot and not too cold – just right for human flourishing. It's this friendly environment that enabled us to develop from scattered hunters and gatherers to the hyper-connected globalized society we live in today. The Holocene began some 12,000 years ago and, by geological standards, was remarkably young. While most epochs last for millions of years, the Holocene's brief tenure ended in the 1950s. We can calculate the predictable shifts in Earth’s tilt and wobble and figure out that our Goldilocks epoch could have been expected to hang around another 50,000 years if the trigger had not been squeezed so hard.
The Dawn of the Anthropocene
But paradise, it seems, wasn't meant to last forever. Enter Homo industrialis and Homo economicus, who have burned through the planet's resources at a dizzying rate. We're now entering what some call the "Age of Consequences," or more formally, "The Anthropocene."
The word Anthropocene is derived from the Greek words anthropo, for “man,” and cene for “new.” In 2000, atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen had a startling realization: we were no longer living in the Holocene. Humanity had become a force of nature, shaping the planet on a geological scale—but at a far faster than geological speed. Human action has transformed the planet—from its climate to its life forms, to its hydrology and chemistry. From trawlers scraping the sea floor to dams impounding sediment by the gigatonne, from stripping forests to irrigating farms, from mile-deep mines to melting glaciers, we were bringing about an age of planetary change.
Crutzen, along with biologist Eugene Stormer, proposed a new name for this age: the Anthropocene – "the recent age of man." This marked the first time in Earth's 4.5 billion year history that a single species had a global impact akin to geological forces.
In 2016, the Anthropocene Working Group agreed that the Anthropocene is indeed different from the Holocene and pinpointed its beginning to the year 1950 when the Great Acceleration, a dramatic increase in human activity affecting the planet, took off.
Recent Developments in the Anthropocene Debate
While the concept of the Anthropocene has gained widespread traction in scientific and public discourse, its formal recognition as a geological epoch has faced challenges. In March 2024, the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) voted on a proposal to officially recognize the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch. The proposal was decisively rejected.
Despite this setback in formal recognition, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) has performed an invaluable service to the scientific community. Their extensive research has assembled a comprehensive body of data on human impacts on global systems. This database will continue to be an essential source of reference for years to come.
It's important to note that even without formal geological recognition, the concept of the Anthropocene will continue to be widely used. The Anthropocene as a concept will continue to be widely used not only by Earth and environmental scientists, but also by social scientists, politicians and economists, as well as by the public at large. The term remains an invaluable descriptor in discussions of human-environment interactions.
Moving forward, while the Anthropocene will not be recognized as a formal geological term, it will continue to be employed informally. Its use will be particularly valuable in future discussions and research concerning anthropogenic impacts on Earth's climatic and environmental systems. (...)
This development underscores the complexity of formally defining epochs in geological time, especially when dealing with ongoing and rapidly evolving human impacts. It also highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the Anthropocene concept, bridging natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities in our understanding of humanity's relationship with the planet.
Earth's Potential Sixth Mass Extinction
As we reshape and modify the planet, we're triggering what scientists are calling the Sixth Mass Extinction. Extinction is a natural part of life, with about 98% of all organisms that have ever existed now extinct. Earth's 'normal' background extinction rate is between 0.1 and 1 species per 10,000 species per 100 years.
However, a mass extinction event occurs when species vanish much faster than they are replaced – typically defined as about 75% of the world's species being lost in a short period of geological time (less than 2.8 million years). The current biodiversity crisis exhibits many characteristics of past mass extinctions, including high extinction rates, broad taxonomic impact, and global reach.
While not yet formally recognized as the sixth mass extinction, the accumulating evidence strongly suggests that we are in the midst of such an event. By 2100, 50% of all species may face extinction. This isn't just about losing a few species – it's about unraveling the very web of life that supports us.
A Crossroads for Humanity
So here we stand, at the dawn of the Anthropocene, facing a future we've sculpted with our own hands. The Holocene, our geological Garden of Eden, is no more. We've changed the world so profoundly that our future lies in a realm beyond the stable cocoon that nurtured our civilizations.
The question now is: Will the Anthropocene be nothing more than a geological blip, a brief era where humanity blindly careened forward, transforming the Earth until it could no longer support us? Or will it be the chapter where we finally grow up, acknowledging our power and wielding it with the wisdom and responsibility it demands?
In the coming blogs, we'll explore the post-Anthropocene possibilities. The journey from Eden to the Anthropocene has been long and transformative. Now, as we stand at this crossroads, the road to Earth 2.0 beckons.
Are you ready to take the next “Thought Seed” and explore the first possibilities with me?
Discovery Den
Find inspiration through book, event, game, etc. recommendations.
Podcast: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green John Green reviews different aspects of our human-centered planet on a five-star scale. Dive into his insightful and entertaining perspectives on the Anthropocene. Listen on Spotify
Book: Field Guide to the Patchy Anthropocene: The New Nature by Anna Tsing, Alder Keleman Saxena, Feifei Zhou, Jennifer Deger From the author of The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing brings us an up-to-date and impressive exploration of the Anthropocene. This book offers a fresh perspective on our evolving relationship with nature. Book
Green Brainfood: What is Missing? Explore a connective map highlighting memory, action, and hope. The website invites you to browse in detail and add your own memory, transforming a global memorial into something personal and close to home. Visit What is Missing?
Game: Raft After a long day, escape to the world of Raft. This immersive game delivers a powerful environmental message through its unique setting. The music is one of my favorite background playlists that I listen to over and over again. Learn more
Eco Calendar
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Thanks for sharing these interesting ideas:)