This week we discuss the impact of the Anthropocene, as well as US Environmentalism historically. Throughout history, there have been 5 types of human societies globally, hunter-gatherer, agricultural, mercantile capitalist, industrial capitalist, and consumer capitalist. The first humans we believe had an impact on the environment were the indigenous people, or the hunter-gatherers. These communities lived low-impact lifestyles, they did not engage in transcontinental shipping and were largely homogenous before the arrival of Europeans around 1493. With the arrival of European settlers as well as African people brought to the Americas to do forced labor, a host of new pathogens were introduced to the continent, killing over half of the indigenous population. It is estimated that 70% of the people who were in contact with Europeans died, due to disease. 

The colonization of the Americas did allow for more people to live off of the land and was considered one of the largest agricultural improvements since the original agricultural revolution. Pathogens and disease were not the only new lifeforms the Europeans spread to the Americas and across the world. Once the period of the Colombian exchange began, the homogenization of plant and animal species across the world began as well. This is why we see many of the same animals and plants no matter where we are in the world. An example of this is the Italian Oxford Ragwort, which is a species of daisy originally from Italy. The plant stowed away on ships during the Colombian exchange period and hybridized with native species so that it could survive. Because these new hybridize species had no natural enemies, they often overran their new environments. 

Transatlantic shipping worked backward in a way, undoing what Pangea had done over 200 million years ago. Before international trade and colonization began, each continent was thriving individually, each with unique plant and animal species. In fact, before the Colombian exchange began, humans’ geological location could be identified by examining the different ratios of the isotopes in Strontium, an element present in human teeth and bones. This is because each continent had a unique chemical signature of Strontium in its soil. The conquest of the Americas brought a lot of wealth to Europe, especially Spain, and linked Western Europe with China and the Americas in a global trade system for the first time in history. Because all of the wealth derived from farming in the Americas went back to Europe, they relied on slave labor, and there was no regard for how people or the environment were treated. As Lewis and Masin write in their book The Human Planet, How We Created the Anthropocene “ “The logical endpoint of reducing people to economic units and reducing costs as far as possible was the inhumanity of slavery” (page 137). 

Amidst this sudden trend of mercantile capitalism, humans began to search for more energy sources to power their businesses. Britain was the first to begin manufacturing steam engines during the industrial revolution, which were somewhat environmentally friendly, as they did not burn any fossil fuels like the use of coal would. Factories were fully functional using water mills as an energy source, as well as the Newcomen engines, which pulled up about 2000 liters of water per minute from deep water wells. Many factory owners decided to make the switch to coal-powered engines following a moral outrage about child labor laws and worker’s rights, as it was often children working long 69 hour weeks at the watermills. At the same time, the idea of the abolition of slavery was beginning to gain traction in the Americas. Once this occurred, farm and factory owners alike decided it would be more economically effective to not only switch to the use of fossil fuels but to pay workers minimum wage rather than continue with slavery. There were many negative environmental consequences, one of which was the release of CO2 into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels. CO2 levels rose from approximately 280 to 404 ppm during the industrial revolution, far greater than the amount of CO2 released in the period between the final glacial maximum and end of the Holocene. Most of this excess CO2 dissolves into the ocean’s surface, causing an acidic environment for marine life. This leads to slowed growth rates and misshapen shells among many species.  Once this industrial revolution began the population increased globally, leading to a few unforeseen issues. For one, the Great Stink occurred in London, where overpopulation had backed up the city’s human waste management system, and the streets began to flood with sewage. Their solution to this problem was to set up 1,100 miles of street sewers, which would carry London’s waste away from the city to be dumped, untreated, into the river Thames. Several other cities around the world took influence from London in doing this. Eventually, laws were put in place and organizations came around to prevent environmental harm to a certain extent. For example, the Coal Smoke Abatement Society required ash and soot particles to be filed under the clean air laws. This only occurred after the Great London Smog killed early 8,000 people.

Although Anthropocence refers to the impact that all humans have had on the environment over time, not all people have the ability to make the same impact, positive or negative. There are many who can afford to be environmentally conscious by doing things like following a vegan diet or installing solar panels, but there are ways for everyone to reduce their carbon footprint. Simple tasks like turning off the lights when leaving a room, or taking public transportation rather than driving can greatly reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.  

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Works Cited “Globalization 1.0,” “Fossil Fuels, the Second Energy Revolution,” and “How We Became a Force of Nature,” The Human Planet, Simon L Lewis and Mark A Maslin,  pp. 149-225, 329-365.