More resources on the "Anthropocene" theme

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Alex Brown

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Jan 21, 2015, 6:07:33 PM1/21/15
to Listserve UML Climate
Re:  Steffen et al. "Planetary Boundaries" and "The Great Acceleration" published this week 
(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uml-climate-network/vF33mllPUWI)
  • This research based on work of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (http://www.igbp.net/) was apparently intended for use in a major education effort for the World Economic Forum meeting this week at Davos, Switzerland.  ("Davos Men" may or may not be repsonsible for the Anthropocene, and may or may not be at the helm of the planet, but Davos has become an annual "State of the Planet" occasion.)
  • This perspective on the fossil energy resource crisis and atmospheric change, is developed with strong relationships to other aspects of human environmental damage, esp. the prospect of a "Sixth Great Extinction" -- clearly identifying life science related issues in energy technology, pollution, and land/ocean destruction.
  • It's echoed in various forms this week by other organizations. 
  • From Howard Hughes Medical Institute / BioInteractive.org, streaming videos of lectures, and classroom visual resources:
Biodiversity in the Age of Humans  (2014 Holiday Lectures on Science)
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/biodiversity-age-humans

Lecture 1: Learning from Past Extinctions, by Anthony D. Barnosky PhD

Lecture 2: Humans, Biodiversity, and Habitat Loss, by Elizabeth A. Hadly PhD

Lecture 3: Rescuing Species, by Elizabeth A. Hadly PhD

Lecture 4: Extreme Life of the Sea, by Stephen R. Palumbi PhD

Lecture 5: Ocean Species Respond to Climate Change, by Stephen R. Palumbi PhD

Lecture 6: Dodging Extinction, by Anthony D. Barnosky PhD



Alex Brown

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Jan 22, 2015, 3:46:45 PM1/22/15
to Listserve UML Climate
Barnosky's "Dodging Extinction" (Lecture 6 and book, below) summarizes the biodiversity and sustainability issues surrounding the energy/climate crisis of the Anthropocene --- and provides an optimistic assessment of our ability to correct our course.  Highly recommended.

I wrote:
Biodiversity in the Age of Humans  (2014 Holiday Lectures on Science)
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/biodiversity-age-humans
Lecture 6: Dodging Extinction, by Anthony D. Barnosky PhD

Dodging Extinction:  Power, Food, Money, and the Future of Life on Earth
Anthony D. Barnosky (Author)

"... Optimistic that we can change this ominous forecast if we act now, Barnosky provides clear-cut strategies to guide the planet away from global catastrophe. In many instances the necessary technology and know-how already exist and are being applied to crucial issues around human-caused climate change, feeding the world’s growing population, and exploiting natural resources. Deeply informed yet accessibly written, Dodging Extinction is nothing short of a guidebook for saving the planet."

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520274372
Read Chapter 1  (E-book available)
Hardcover, 256 pages
ISBN: 9780520274372
October 2014
$29.95, £19.95

Alex Brown

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Jan 23, 2015, 9:49:06 AM1/23/15
to uml-clima...@googlegroups.com
Al Gore and the Davos Men:   coverage from TheGuardian.com much of it "Sponsored by The B-Team" (http://bteam.org)

Alex Brown

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Jan 26, 2015, 9:24:09 PM1/26/15
to uml-clima...@googlegroups.com, Craig Slatin, mgha...@yahoo.com, John Duff
"The Anthropocene" as an idea, in its gestation, as a Malthusian catastrophe ...

The Tragedy of the Commons
Garrett Hardin
Science 13 December 1968:
Vol. 162 no. 3859 pp. 1243-1248
DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3859.1243
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
(Open access to full text)

... A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero. (The case of perpetual wide fluctuations above and below zero is a trivial variant that need not be discussed.) When this condition is met, what will be the situation of mankind? Specifically, can Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" be realized? No ... The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum. The difficulty of defining the optimum is enormous; so far as I know, no one has seriously tackled this problem.  ...

We may well call it "the tragedy of the commons," using the word "tragedy" as the philosopher Whitehead used it (7): "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things." He then goes on to say, "This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama."... Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy. ...

We can make little progress in working toward optimum population size until we explicitly exorcize the spirit of Adam Smith in the field of practical demography. In economic affairs, The Wealth of Nations (1776) popularized the "invisible hand," the idea that an individual who "intends only his own gain," is, as it were, "led by an invisible hand to promote . . . the public interest".  Adam Smith did not assert that this was invariably true, and perhaps neither did any of his followers. But he contributed to a dominant tendency of thought that has ever since interfered with positive action based on rational analysis, namely, the tendency to assume that decisions reached individually will, in fact, be the best decisions for an entire society. If this assumption is correct it justifies the continuance of our present policy of laissez-faire in reproduction. If it is correct we can assume that men will control their individual fecundity so as to produce the optimum population. If the assumption is not correct, we need to reexamine our individual freedoms to see which ones are defensible. ...

(Thanks to Craig Slatin and Mike Hanauer https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/uml-climate-network/hanauer/uml-climate-network/f3G7wzAChQU/atl1LXtU-PkJ, and a tip of the hat to J.A.Duff)



On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 6:07:33 PM UTC-5, I wrote:
Re:  Steffen et al. "Planetary Boundaries" and "The Great Acceleration" published this week 
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