SUMMARY: From Berlin, top enviro journalist Christian Schwagerl on his controversial new book "The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How It Shapes Our Planet". Then two eco-feminists, Charlene Spratnak and Susan Griffin on "Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth." Radio Ecoshock 141126
Are humans changing the planet so much that we have entered a new geological age? They call it the anthropocene, and we don't know if that's good. Our first guest from Berlin, Christian Schwagerl, literally wrote the book on it.
Then we'll hear a different view from two eco-feminists, American Green Party founder Charlene Spretnak, and author Susan Griffin.
First, to Berlin. Are we ready for technature, and human creation of new life forms?
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CHRISTIAN SCHWAGERL
I received an invitation to read a book newly coming out for English readers. The title is "The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How It Shapes Our Planet". Little did I know how deep and disturbing this adventure into ideas would become.
The author is Christian Schwagerl. He's been one of the best environmental journalists in Berlin for 25 years. Christian holds a Master of Science degree himself.
When the first German version of this book was published as Menshcenzeit, or the Age of Humans - the head of the United Nations Environment Programme, Achim Steiner spoke at the book launch.
From the launch, a series of German museums and cultural centers created an Anthropocene project - funded directly by the German Parliament. It became a "Welcome to the Anthropocene" exibit.
The Press Release for the book said:
"The book takes a hopeful look at our ecological crises and the solutions we're employing to correct our current trajectory toward a positive and sustainable future. It contains a foreword by Paul Crutzen, the scientist who popularized the term 'Anthropocene' - a new geological epoch in which humanity has the dominant influence on the planet’s ecosystems."
I wrote back that I was far less hopeful about our prospects, but Christian was willing to take on all questions, and did.
We can't understand the Anthropocene, or the movement developing around it, without knowing about the famous scientist Paul Crutzen. While Crutzen didn't coin the word , he brought it into reality when he stammered out to a group of scientists meeting in Mexico "we are already in the Anthropocene". That began a whole new branch of science.
In the book, Christian writes:
"Crutzen had melded humans and nature (two entities that I had previously thought of as separate, opposing forces), into a whole new science-driven idea. It described a connection that reaches back into the past and far into the future. After seeing, at first hand rainforests burning, land made toxic from mining, and species on the brink of extinction, this idea gave me hope that our ever evolving human consciousness might be about to enter a new phase."
Among too many accomplishments to list here, Paul Crutzen won the 1995 Noble prize for chemistry for his work on the ozone hole. Schwagerl spent a lot of time with Crutzen, and spoke at the scientist's 80th birthday celebration, recorded in a You tube video you can see . After a few minutes of formalities, it becomes a riveting speech, I think.
Of course, his hero Paul Crutzen added to our fears - when Crutzen suggested we need some kind of technocracy run by scientists and engineers, including geoengineering to save the climate. Even in his old age, Crutzen refused to promise hope we will conquer the problems we've created on this planet.
I liked Schwagerl's concept of a "Club of Revolutionaries" - the organisms which changed Earth. The early book chapters sparkle with amazing things I didn't know. For example, blue-green algae, or now the whole group known as cyanobacteria. They created the oxygen we breath, using solar power - extraterrestrial chemistry!
However, the further I went into this book, the more uneasy I became. But then Schwagerl isn't afraid to face the questions we all must face.
For example, he writes: "Wild nature no longer exists on land or out at sea....What remains of the wild is the result of human decision-making, such as when an area is perceived as being of lasting value and is then protected by the local population or by environmental organizations, or by a corporation that concludes that exploitation would not be profitable."
I don't like that idea at all! It may be easier for a European to say that all wilderness exists only because we say so. But in North America there are still plenty of wild spaces. But then I wonder, if that's only because governments proclaim them as parks, or only because mining and lumber companies haven't got there yet. Maybe he's right, even if it's unpleasant.
"Thus, there is no 'environment' any longer that surrounds our civilization. We are living in an 'invironment,' a new nature that is strongly shaped by human needs and that has no outside."
- Christian Schwagerl
Chapter Five is titled "Apocalypse No". He says the idea of the Anthropocene is in fact "anti-Apocalyptic". I ask him to explain that.
In the book "The Anthropocene" he writes: "Even if climate change turns out to be worse than scientists at the IPCC fear, it will not lead to the end of the world or the collapse of civilization. This won’t even come to pass if climate change, food crises and cyber wars all occur simultaneously."
Really? If the climate warms by 6 degrees or more in less than 200 years, you think civilization will still stand? It turns out even Schwagerl thinks that would be a miserable world, one he wouldn't want to live in, but some kind of human organization will continue. I found the man behind the book is not a seller of false hopes, but a very real person with deep experience.
A later chapter is equally frightening to me. The title is "Directing Evolution". Who is going to "direct evolution"? Will it be triumphant Jihadists, or a little cabal of multi-billionaires. Democracy is more or less dead here in North America. So who is going to direct evolution? Monsanto, I presume?
"Future technology has to consist of machines, materials and molecules that adapt to the biologic cycles of earth instead of perturbing them, and they have to enrich earth with life-enhancing stimuli instead of discharging poisons. What is needed, therefore, is a diff erent, new 'nature of technology, 'an evolution whereby technology adapts to its environment."
- Christian Schwagerl
There has been a small debate, from Andy Revkin in the New York Times to Elizabeth Kolbert, about whether there can be a "good anthropocene". Schwagerl wraps up his new book with his personal vision of how things might not turn out so badly as many think. I ask him to take us on that tour of how we may survive ourselves. He has a possible vision.
As far as science goes, the issue of whether humans have created a new age will be decided by a special panel of scientists in 2016. The group is called the Anthropocene Working Group of The Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy), headed by the geologist Jan Zalasiewicz, from the University of Leicester.
Our recent Radio Ecoshock speaker Kathleen Dean Moore thinks "Anthropocene Is the Wrong Word" (published in the Earth Island Journal in the Spring of 2013).
The book "The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How It Shapes Our Planet" is available now from Synergetic Press, at the very reasonable price of just $10 for the paperback. The electronic version is coming soon.
Note: there is already a new scientific journal for this "New Epoch": Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene.
Download or listen to this interview with Christian Schwagerl in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
EARLY GERMAN ECO SCI-FI
The German sci-fi author mentioned in this interview is Alfred Doblin. Find an interesting bio of this struggling writer here in Wikipedia.
The novel Christian references is the 1924 work "Berge Meere und Giganten" (Mountains Seas and Giants". Wiki says:
"Döblin's 1924 science fiction novel recounts the course of human history from the 20th to the 27th century, portraying it as a catastrophic global struggle between technological mania, natural forces, and competing political visions. Berge Meere und Giganten (Mountains Seas and Giants) presciently invokes such topics as urbanization, the alienation from nature, ecological devastation, mechanization, the dehumanization of the modern world, as well as mass migration, globalization, totalitarianism, fanaticism, terrorism, state surveillance, genetic engineering, synthetic food, the breeding of humans, biochemical warfare, and others.[94] Stylistically and structurally experimental, it was regarded as a difficult work when it first came out and has often polarized critics.[95] Among others, Günter Grass has praised the novel's continued relevance and insight"
That is from the main Wikipedia entry for Doblin. You can find out more about this early German eco novel here.
TECHNO-UTOPIANISM AND FEMINISM
It seems appropriate that we are now going to two speakers from the recent conference "Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth." It was held in New York City on October 25th and 26th, 2014. This teach-in was presented by the International Forum on Globalization and the New York Open Center. It was recorded by Dale Lehman or WZRD radio in Chicago (which also broadcasts Radio Ecoshock..
In the show, I'm reversing the order of speakers at the conference, starting with Charlene Spretnak on "The Resurgence of the Real".
Charlene Spretnak is a founder of the U.S. Green Party, author, and eco-feminist.
Charlene Spretnak
The next speaker from the forum "Techno-Utopians and the Fate of the Earth" is the famous eco-feminist Susan Griffin. Her topic is "Women & Nature" Speed, Consciousness & Quantification". Find Susan's web site here.
Susan Griffin
To meet our time limitations, I removed a few minutes of Susan Griffin's comments on education in the United States. to the full talk.
You can see videos of the presentations and panel discussions here.
I'm sorry I don't have the energy this week to give a full review of these worthy talks in my blog. If any listener would like to comment on these speakers, please do.
That's it for this week. Join me again for Radio Ecoshock.
I'm Alex Smith.
13 comments:
"I found the man behind the book is not a seller of false hopes, but a very real person with deep experience."
Hahahaha!!! You mean you found the man UNEXPERIENCED in the things that he has claimed - and didn't realize it!
Nobody has experienced the temperatures of a 6 degree or more hotter planet! Which means they have no FUCKING IDEA WHAT THEY ARE WRITING ABOUT when they argue we can survive this.
Get real. Science KNOWS that the biosphere whiche we all depend on for sustenance CANNOT SURVIVE THESE TEMPERATURES and therefore, this idiot is just selling you garbage. Buy it if you want, but it makes no cents [sic] at all except to the guy selling his book.
Revkin and Annalee Newitz are whack jobs who think that humans will survive mass extinction by living in "self-healing" cities.
The Green Party woman is swimming in her secular expanded enlightenment of relational superiority she feels compelled to condescendingly and mechanistically share with us.
The third women obviously needs a lover. I guess the Apollo moon project must have really done for her.
Money is the root of the problem. That's why we need a new world carbon currency to circumvent nation-state regulatory and policy differences. This currency can be based on 100% private carbon tax dividends with absolutely no share for governments and corporations. That's why the Rockefellers fund egomaniacal dimwits, Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein at 350.org to make sure any future carbon tax dividends are controlled by corporations and governments and not 100% controlled by private citizens as James Hansen advocated. Klein and McKibben both came out in support of the Sanders-Boxer Fee & Dividend bill designed to give government control of carbon taxes.
We cannot have a Hi-Tech Green Energy world without Heavfy Rare Earth Elements (hREEs). We can't mine hREEs without digging up radioactive Thorium, which is a radioactive waste byproduct of hREE mining. This is why China and India are on a space-race style competition to see who can develop Thorium nuclear power first.
This is important because we are approaching peak minerals. We will never run out of minerals, but their concentrations will soon be so low that we can't afford to mine them. The only way we can mine lower ore concentrations is by using the Thorium that gets dug up with hREEs.
Google's own green energy experts, 2 Standford PhDs who have been working on renewable energy since 20007, have recently came out of the green energy closet to declare that Green Energy will simply not work.
We have to grow up and stop thinking that Green Energy will somehow save us from ourselves. We have to embrace nuclear Thorium power because we can't have Green Energy without it. My next post explains all this in detail.
How To Talk To Your Climate Denier Uncle This Thanksgiving
Get him drunk and tell him these jokes to soften him up, then tell him the following...
TURKEY TALK: RACE TO THE OUTHOUSE.
written by WILLIE MAKEIT, illustrated by BETTY WONT.
► 40 years ago they told me my cereal box was more nutritious than my cereal.
► Now they put the cardboard right into my cereal and say it's better than the box.... DRUM ROLL
THE BIG GREEN ENERGY PICTURE - or, I DON'T SAY?
► In just 13 years, we will "lock in" an inevitable near term 6°C earth temp rise because we continually exceed the worse-case emissions scenario set out back in 2007 says climate scientist, Dr. Michael Jennings.
► Energy demands to increase 100% by 2060 says the IEA.
► Emissions have to decrease 80% by 2030 says climate scientist, Kevin Anderson.
► To power England with 100% solar & wind, requires 25% of its land says physicist, David MacKay.
► 40% Green Energy requires 200% more copper says John Timmer of Ars Technica.
► Peak copper hits 2030 – 2040 says Ugo Bardi.
► Post peak copper production cannot accelerate at any price says Dave Lowell.
► This is true of any post peak mineral production.
► There is no real substitute for copper says Mat McDermott of Motherboard.
► We mined 50% of all the copper in human history in just the last 30 years.
► 100% green energy requires 500% more copper.
► Peak minerals includes more than just copper.
► By 2050, expect to be past peaks for tin, silver, cadmium and more.
► We now move 3 billion tons of earth per year to get 15 millions tons of copper.
► We can’t afford to mine 500% more copper at ever lower concentrations.
► We cannot recycle it into existence.
► We cannot conserve it into existence.
► Substituting aluminum for copper takes 5X the energy and is less safe.
► Google's own green energy experts say renewable energy simply won't work.... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
p.s. We cannot afford the energy-ecology costs of flooding the world with billions upon billions of tons of toxic lead, liquid metal, or molten salt batteries that have to be "recycled" all the time, usually involving smuggling and the mafia. This is not environmentally sound. Even an idiot can see this.
Our Hi-Tech world absolutely requires Rare Earth Elements and mining them is a dirty-dangerous dirty business no holds barred. We will soon not be able to mine Rare Earth Elements without Thorium Power because mining Rare Earth Elements produces Thorium as a radioactive waste by-product that we can't afford to handle safely. We can't have one without the other. In other words, we can't have a Hi-Tech Green Energy world without digging up the radioactive Thorium with which we don't know what to do. India and China are on a crash course race to the moon of Apollo proportions to be the first to produce commercial Thorium Power. China wants at least 400 Gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050 (400 power plants in 35 years) and they are going to git it one way or t'other. I guar-r-rantee it.
Careful what you wish for.
Going green could kill us all.
Cheers and Season's Greetings.
Do you ever wonder why FOX NEWS always repeats themselves over and over and over again? Because repetition works. Remember how G.W. would purse his lips to say WMD over and over again until we attacked Iraq?
THE RUNDOWN
► Humans and livestock were 0.01% of land vertebrate biomass 10,000 yrs. ago.
► Humans and our livestock are now 97% of land vertebrate biomass.
► Humans and our livestock eat over 40% of land chlorophyll biomass.
► 50% of vertebrate species died off in the last 50 years.
► 50% of remaining vertebrate species will die off in the next 40 years.
► +50% = Unstoppable Irreversible Catastrophic Cascading Extinctions Collapse.
► 75% Species Loss = Mass Extinction.
► Ocean acidification doubles by 2050, triples by 2100.
► in just 13 years, we will lock in a near term 6°C earth temp rise..
► World Bank says we have 5-10 years before we all fight for food and water.
► We've known about the Limits To Growth since 1972, and have done nothing.... https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#tbm=vid&q=ugo+bardi
► We've known about climate heating since at least 1958, the year I was born.... We have done nothing but talk about it for 56 years.... But, we did accomplish some things. Let's talk about that after this video.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-AXBbuDxRY
WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED SO FAR.
► 90% of Big Ocean Fish gone since 1950.
► 90% of Lions gone since 1993.
► 90% of Monarch Butterflies gone since 1995.
► 75% of Freshwater & Riverbank Species gone since 1970. **
► 50% of Great Barrier Reef gone since 1985.
► 50% of Human Sperm Counts gone since 1950.
► 50% of Fresh Water Fish gone since 1987.
► 30% of Marine Birds gone since 1995.
► 28% of Land Animals gone since 1970.
► 28% of All Marine Animals gone since 1970.
► 93 Elephants killed every single day.
► 2-3 Rhinos killed every single day.
► Bees die from malnutrition lacking bio-diverse pollen sources.
► Extinctions are 1000X faster than what geological history says is normal.... http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/7350/Call-of-Life--Facing-the-Mass-Extinction... http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/earth-lost-50-wildlife-in-40-years-wwf
WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 6TH GREAT MASS EXTINCTION EVENT.
► Green Energy is our solution to Climate Change.
► But, Climate Change is only 1 of 6 Direct Drivers for Mass Extinction.
► The 6 Direct Drivers of Mass Extinction are:
... 1) Invasive Species
... 2) Over-Population
... 3) Over-Exploitation
... 4) Habitat Loss
....5) Climate Change
....6) Pollution
► Therefore,... GREEN ENERGY WILL NOT STOP THE END OF LIFE ON EARTH! Not all life, but life as we know it will be gone because civilization will go first.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6uVnyjTb58
POPULATION OVERSHOOT +.
ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE +.
CLIMATE OVER-HEATING +.
PEAK MINERALS =.
—————————————–
MASS EXTINCTION
** The U.S. has 75,000 dams. Coincidence? I think not.
Going green could kill us all.
Cheers and Season's Greetings.
If you read my previous posts, and thought about, you'll soon see that we can't have a solar and wind powered world. They are land-owner class solutions that belong in the perma-culture world of utility tractors and farms. Most of us live in cities near the oceans. Do you want to have solar panels and wind turbines in the new mega-storm era? Do you think solar and wind panels would have helped much in the typhoon that hit the Philippines a while back?
In my last post I told you that China wants 400 nuclear stations in 35 years and that's why we have to get behind Thorium research. We currently cannot mine without fossil energy, only nuclear Thorium power will provide the low-emissions reliability our new climate demands. Why is China so important?
Let's take a look at why:
► 60,000 U.S. factories moved to China in the last 10 years.
► China has produced 6 gigatons of cement in just the last 3 years.
► America has produced just 4 gigatons of cement in the last 100 years.
► China's banks have produced $15 trillion in debt in the last 5 years.
► U.S. commercial have produced $15 trillion in debt in the last 100 years.
► $15 trillion the U.S. annual GDP.
I am not a scientist, I cut grass at a trailer park in Canada, so I know stupid when I see it, and since I can't cut grass in the winter up here, I get bored and mischievous. Solar panels and wind turbines only last 25 years, expensive batteries and power inverters last much less, needing constant replacement. After the fracking bubble pops and your green energy systems break down, America will face the serious danger of energy poverty without firing up the old coal power plants. Good Luck with your $40,000 coal-fired Tesla electric car because it will cost $10,000 to change the batteries when they wear out. We can cheaply convert today's cars to burn 100% clean hydrogen or ammonia gas, both which act more like a Green Gas Battery than an Energy Source. American-made carbon-fiber gas tanks are nearly indestructible and small enough to fit in your trunk. The hydrogen or ammonia can be generated directly with Thorium Power, or indirectly with solar and wind power since solar and wind power will both depend on Thorium Power. Right now, it takes one whole ton of coal to produce just six solar panels. This new way of doing things means we just have to harden our current power grids and make the best of what we already have and stop wishing for more of something new, the hardest thing of all.
Solar panels and wind turbines hold a lot of appeal to Americans because they fit in with the current libertarian independence zeitgeist. They also dovetail nicely with techno-fetishism.
That's why I laugh at people who raise chickens and goats thinking they'll outwit the end times. The feed they buy for these pets comes from clearing the rainforests of Brazil. When the shit hits the fan, and millions fan out from the cities to the countryside hunting for food, how long do you think you'll last? No, we are all in this together, whether we like it or not, and believe me, I like it not.
"The third women obviously needs a lover. I guess the Apollo moon project must have really done for her. "
Thank you, Robert, for making so clear that you are deeply misogynist, and that therefore all your lengthy opinions on anything these, or any other, women say are informed by anger and sexism, and so are utterly irrelevant and not to be taken seriously.
Also, Alex:
You're just going to let this kind of thing stand around here? You do know that if you don't at least show your disapproval, you make it look like you agree with it, right?
If one of your guests' dog were to shit on your doorstep, you'd remove it, to avoid your other guests stepping in it, wouldn't you? To leave it would be rude and embarrassing, right?
But I guess, if you don't find this sort of thing offensive, it's hard to feel for the people who are targeted by such insults, or to care that you are making half of humanity unwelcome by showing them that this is a place where insulting them is tolerated by the host.
Cherioloa
I didn't see this comment. Being a one-person program, I don't always have time to read the comments.
Robert Callaghan likes to be provocative. Obviously I don't agree with his views, and agree this comment is tasteless and senseless. But unless things get really gross or illegal, I refrain from censoring blog comments.
Alex
I think it would be appropriate to ask Mr. Callahan to condense his thoughts and rewrite them, since they are a lengthy list of sometimes inconsistent complaints and not entirely logical predictions. However, it is not really your responsibility or burden to become a comment critic.
I felt the show was very good and your questions brought out the guest's views.
Thanks
Here I am spilling my guts out about the inevitable end of life on earth with nary a peep from anyone, but if I say something that can be interpreted as misogynistic, someone goes ballistic. Yep, doesn't mean a thing. Does it?