The Anthropocene and the Industrial Revolution

The next chapter in our story of global food production through time brings us to the Holocene, and more specifically, to the last few centuries of our present geologic epoch. Before exploring the modern environmental impacts of global food production, this post will highlight some of the background on modern global environmental change by examining the Anthropocene, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Acceleration.

Source: Images of the Industrial Era in Great Britain

The Anthropocene

The dramatic increase in human-induced environmental change over the past three centuries has led to the recognition of a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene (Ellis, 2011; Crutzen, 2002; Steffen et al., 2007; Zalasiewicz et al., 2011). This novel geologic epoch is still informal, and its start date is currently being debated by scientists. However, the term is generally tied to the period of time associated with the alteration of the Earth's lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere by means of collective human activities. The term Anthropocene signifies "the recent age of man" and is derived from Greek (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013). One possible starting point that has been suggested for the Anthropocene is the onset of the Industrial Revolution (IR) (Crutzen, 2002; Price et al., 2011; Steffen et al, 2007).  

The Industrial Revolution (Stage 1 of the Anthropocene?)

The IR mechanised the world by altering economies to become driven by industry and machine manufacture. The movement originated in Great Britain between 1760 and 1830, and later spread to other areas of the world. The main technological features of the IR include the use of new base materials (iron and steel), as well as the use fossil fuels (coal, in particular) as energy sources. In addition, the invention of new machines, the introduction of the factory system, improved communication, and the application of science to industry were all central to the revolution. These technological advances allowed humans to harness a significantly larger amount of natural resources. The IR also allowed for major developments in areas such as agriculture, where it became possible to mass produce food to supply the world's growing populations (Encyclpaedia Britannica, 2013).

Though the IR was undoubtedly advantageous for the growth of global economies and societies, it also contributed to the creation of the environmental problems of our time. The exponential increase in the use of natural resources associated with the IR resulted in the increased input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (Price et al., 2011), deforestation and conversion to agriculture in the mid-latitudes (Steffen et al., 2007), the diversion of water in rivers by dams (Steffen et al., 2011), and ocean acidification (Tyrrell, 2011), to name only a few. Kasa (2009) argues that current environmental problems have in fact been created as a result of the development that followed the IR. Kasa (2009) further breaks down the IR into five smaller revolutions, and associates them with their specific environmental impacts, as shown in the figure below. 

The five industrial revolutions and their environmental problems (Kasa, 2009).

The massive explosion that was the IR resulted in the skyrocketing of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use over the past 150 years, as can be seen from the figure below. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have increased to levels never experienced before. CO2 concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, attributed primarily to fossil fuel emissions and secondarily to net land use change emissions. Today, it is widely accepted by the scientific community that human influence on the climate system is clear (IPCC, 2013).

Annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions from 1750 to 2011 (IPCC, 2013)

The Great Acceleration (Stage 2 of the Anthropocene?)

Following the Second World War, the human enterprise quickly accelerated, as shown by Steffen et al., (2007). The First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War were all factors which had the net effect of slowing global population and economic growth. From the middle of the 20th century, sharp increases in human populations, total real GDP, damming of rivers, and fertiliser consumption, among others, can clearly be seen. According to Steffen et al. (2007), almost 75% of the anthropogenically driven increase in CO2 concentration took place since 1950, and nearly 50% of the total increase in CO2 has occurred in the last 30 years.

The change in human enterprise from 1750-2000 (Steffen et al., 2007)

Final Thoughts

How does this all link back to global food production? In short, the IR industrialised all economic spheres, including agriculture. The use of machinery, factories, and fertilisers in the food system were all results of the IR. The Great Acceleration allowed for an exponential growth in food production, and also allowed for the internationalisation of our food system. 

I hope that trough this post, I have provided the background for future posts here at PP&P. The next set of posts will examine some of the impacts of modern global food production. If there's anything you're dying to learn about or simply would like me to find some information for you, please let me know in the comments below!

To conclude this post, I found this very interesting BBC documentary about why the IR occurred in Britain. I definitely recommend it if you'd like to learn a little bit more on the subject.

Thanks for reading!

Progress Report

Having reached the halfway point of the term, I thought it'd be nice to take a step back and have a look at what we've covered here so far. 

The objective that I set out at the beginning of this blogging experience was to examine the environmental impacts of global food production through time. To do this, it was first necessary to understand the origins of agriculture (e.g. Bar Yosef, 1998; Price & Bar Yosef, 2011; Zeder, 2011)  and the environmental impacts associated with the Neolithic Revolution (e.g. Zeder, 2008; Zhou et al., 2011). We are now going to fast-forward several millennia to quickly examine the environmental impacts of the industrial revolution with respect to agriculture. After that, the remainder of the posts will deal with what has been referred to as the Great Acceleration of the Anthropocene (Steffen et al., 2007). We will examine how agricultural production has boomed over the past century to meet the needs of a rapidly growing global population and how this expansion has altered the environment.

During our very first lecture in Global Environmental Change, Professor Mackay showed us a Wordle he had made on the Internationalisation of Science and Technology. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Wordles, they work by assigning different sizes to words from a certain text to denote their importance. Larger words are those that showed up repeatedly throughout the text, while smaller words were those that didn't show up as much. I created the above Wordle using the entirety of the text in Picnics Past and Present to date. The words that showed up the most were food, agriculture, environmental, and diet. 

To evaluate the progress of this blog's content and how it's keeping in line with these objectives, I'll repeat the same exercise in the new year. I'm very interested to see how the picture will change!

I'll be back as promised to introduce the industrial revolution in terms of global food production. Thanks for reading, and have a lovely weekend!

Picnics Past and Present

Good afternoon, and welcome back to Picnics Past and Present. Today we will be setting the stage for discussions to come by providing a very brief overview of the evolution of food production through time, starting with early humans and moving toward the present date. I feel that it’s necessary to review the basics before we dive into specific topics, so I apologise in advance for the length of this post. I’ll be back after the weekend for a lighter (and more delicious) post – promised! And so we dive in…

Early humans did not have the luxury of wandering to their local Sainsbury’s supermarket (which is coincidentally located next door to a Waitrose supermarket) to pick up a ready-made meal in time for supper. They also didn’t have the option of heading to a fast food chain instead of braving the cold for a hunt, having a cosy meal in a restaurant instead of rationing provisions, or visiting a farmers’ market instead of foraging in nearby forests. Instead, these early humans lived in small groups and relied on hunting and gathering to satisfy their daily demands in energy and nutrients. Contrary to popular belief, these early humans did not live in total harmony with their surroundings. Recent research has brought to light evidence of the significant impact of early humans on their environments in part due to their extensive use of fire, with earliest impacts being as drastic as potentially contributing to the extinction of megafauna in the late Pleistocene (Steffen et al., 2007).

My local supermarkets (Google Maps, 2013)

Transitioning away from this hunter-gatherer lifestyle brings us to the advent of agriculture, some 12,000 to 10,000 years before present (BP). This transition marks a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and their environment, and is one that did not occur uniformly across the globe. The first traces of agriculture are dated back to the end of the last Pleistocene glaciation around 11,700 BP, though in some parts of the world traces of cultivation date as far back as 15,000 BP. (Crawford et al., 2012). Environmental impacts of this transition include the alteration of global biodiversity through domestication and the modification of landforms. For instance, in the large islands of the Mediterranean basin, this transition resulted in the replacement of endemic fauna by domesticated and wild mainland fauna (Zeder, 2008).

Comparisons of domesticated wild species (left of each pair) and their never-domesticated close relatives (right) (Diamond, 2002)

If we fast-forward several thousands of years to the 1800’s, we come to the onset of industrialisation which is characterised by a shift from an agrarian-type economy to an economy based on industry and machine manufacture. The most important features of this transition include the use of new materials such as iron and steel, the new use of fossil fuels and motive power, the invention of new machines and the factory system, improved methods in transportation and communication, and the application of science to industry (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013). The transition towards a mechanised world gave humans the ability to harness energy in order to feed their needs, resulting in a massive growth in global populations. The environmental impacts of this transition were clearly noticeable by the early to mid-20^th century, and include large-scale deforestation for agriculture, the anthropogenic transformation of hydrological systems, and the increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O). Progresses in global industrialisation were paused during the Great Depression and the First and Second World Wars, however greatly accelerated following 1945. This “Great Acceleration” has brought us to current-day conditions, and is characterised by exponential growth of population, high rates of urban migration, enormous increases in the use of fossil fuels, among others (Steffen et al., 2009). In terms of global food production, this transition to an industrialised world means that humans are able to produce food at rates never experienced before, and with this comes a variety of environmental impacts ranging from the eutrophication of freshwater systems through agricultural nutrient inputs (Withers & Lord, 2002) to the increased emissions of greenhouse gases from intensive agriculture (Friel et al., 2009).

Intensive agriculture (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013)

This brings us to the end of this very quick overview of food production through time. To summarise, the need for humans to obtain and produce food has had fundamental environmental implications, today and in the past. However, the shift towards the industrialisation of food production means that the food we rely on for survival today stresses the environment at a much greater rate than ever before. A major modern-day challenge for generations to come will be to feed the growing global populations in a more sustainable way.