Geol 285, Spring 2010: The Anthropocene

Assignments

For Tues 11 May: No mini-paper! Be ready to discuss, solo or in a group, (1) the highest-priority challenges of the Anthropocene, (2) actions that can be taken to mitigate or adapt to troublesome changes, and (3) obstacles faced by these actions.

For Tues 4 May: (1) Read Jeremy Jackson’s Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean, PNAS 2008. (e-mail me if you cannot download the PDF) (2) Watch/listen to Jeremy Jackson’s talk Brave New Ocean, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fRPiNcikOU. His talk starts at 3:00, ends at 52:45. Q&A until 1:08:30 is worth watching, but optional.

Mini-paper: What is your reaction (intellectual, emotional, both, other) to Jackson’s analysis of the marine biosphere?

(3) [optional; recommended for understanding N problems] Read/page through the PDF of James Galloway’s presentation Nitrogen: An essential ingredient for life and food (to a point).

For Tues 27 April: (1) Read (skim as needed; it's 85 pages long) the Biodiversity Synthesis of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (2nd of 6 Synthesis reports). (2) Read the Wikipedia entry for Holocene extinction. (3) Read the Wikipedia entry for IUCN Red List.

Mini-paper: What is your reaction (intellectual, emotional, both, other) to these reports of human impacts on the terrestrial biosphere?

For Tues 20 April: Read the following selections, then write a mini-paper explaining how the selections illustrate human influence on food quality and quantity. Key words might include soil, nitrogen, phosphorus, and fossil fuels (that's a hint).
(1) Land degradation: particularly for the causes and processes of soil degradation
(2) Global human-induced soil degradation: bring a color copy of the map to class
(3) Michael Pollan's Open Letter to the Next Farmer-in-Chief
(4) Peak Phosphorus
(5) The Nitrogen Cycle: bring a copy of the diagram to class
(6) The Nitrogen Bomb

For Tues 13 April: Read the following short selections, then write a mini-paper summarizing how the selections illustrate human impacts on fresh water (as part of the Earth system, i.e., the focus of this course):
(1) Water Wars: “Introduction to the Issues,” plus the short PDF (“Key Facts and Statistics”) obtained from the link at the end of this very short web page.
(2) Alternet: Polluted Water More Deadly Than War, 3/19/10
(3) New York Times: Toxic Waters, 9/12/09
(4) Colorado River Compact (Wikipedia entry)
(5) Ogallala Aquifer (Wikipedia entry)
(6) USGS Groundwater Atlas: California and Nevada

Tues 6 April: No Class (RS furlough day)
Tues 30 March: No Class (spring break)

For Tues 23 March: (1) Skim the Clean Coal USA web site ( Home of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity) (2) Read Richard Heinberg’s Is Clean Coal a Dead End? (Dec 2009). (3) Read Coal-to-liquids: Can fuel made from coal replace gasoline? (Earth, April 2009).Mini-paper: What questions do you have after reading or viewing all of these? Perhaps regarding assumptions made, bias of authors, additional data needed, evidence for interpretations, etc.

For Tues 16 March: Watch the 2007 documentary Crude. Mini-paper: Write a movie review! Intended audience: non-scientists/general audience/family and friends.

For Tues 9 March: Read these for historical background, not for the details:
(1) History of Energy — What’s missing from this story?
(2) History of Energy in the U.S. (sections Introduction, Total Energy, and Petroleum).
Then read the following two articles by Joseph Tainter.
(3) Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies
(4) Human Resource Use: Timing and Implications for Sustainability

Mini-paper: What does Tainter mean by "complexity?" How is energy related to Tainter's "complexity?"

For Tues 2 March: Read the following five articles (none are very long):
UN Wrongly Linked Global Warming to Natural Disasters
The UN Climate Panel and the Rainforest Claim
Africagate: Top British Scientist Says UN Panel is Losing Credibility
Amazongate: How the...Feeds the Press
IPCC errors: Facts and Spin

Mini-paper: You are a scientist or scientist-in-training. Briefly analyze the technical merit of the arguments in these articles (group the articles if you wish).

In class, we will also examine the communication style and techniques used by these authors, and speculate about motives.

For Tues 23 Feb: Access the 4th IPCC (WG I) Technical Summary (either read online or download the PDF). Read (or skim, if your head hurts) these sections: TS.2 (hereafter I skip the TS.), 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.1.3, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 4.1, and 4.2. No need to follow all the links. Mini-paper: This Technical Summary is one of the most widely cited and consulted parts of the IPCC’s work. As a non-specialist scientist, do you find it understandable? clear? well-supported? convincing? How would a non-scientist respond to those questions?

For Tues 16 Feb: (1) Detective work: Write a half-page paragraph linking the following ideas or terms: ice core, isotopes, dating, Vostok, EPICA Dome 3, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. (2) Read sections 2.1 and 2.2 (incl. FAQ 2.1) of Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing of the 4th IPCC report. Mini-paper: (1) Write a half-page paragraph linking the ideas or terms listed in (1) above. (2) In terms a sophomore GE student can should understand, describe what is meant by radiative forcing and why (or whether!) it is an important, useful idea.

For Tues 9 Feb: (1) Read Chapters 1 and 2 of Michael Williams' 2002 book Deforesting the Earth (handout). (2) Read Dickinson 1994, GSA Bulletin, v. 107, p. 1-7 (handout). Mini-paper: Is Crutzen & Stoermer’s “late 1700s” date for the onset of the Anthropocene appropriate? Why might some people think it isn’t? What do you think?

For Tues 2 Feb: (1) Read Crutzen & Stoermer's original 2000 letter to Global Change Newsletter; (2) Watch Will Steffen's 2009 Surviving the Anthropocene; (3) Read Beillo's 2009 Scientific American article Grappling with the Anthropocene (class handout). Mini-paper: What effect do these three sources have on your thinking? Are they convincing? neutral? too heavy-handed or partisan? Sufficiently or insufficiently documented or supported?

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Course overview

The modern era could be designated the Anthropocene to denote humans' numerous, profound impacts on the Earth system—particularly, but not exclusively, in the past 200 years. An incomplete list of impacts, roughly arranged by "sphere" (but with lots of overlap):

Biosphere
Rise of humans; human population and resource footprint; appropriation of 25-40% of total net primary productivity.
Domesticated animals: impacts on landscape and the chemistry of water, air, and soils.
Extinctions: human predation, loss of habitat, environmental toxins
Exotic / transported species

Atmosphere
Concentrations of CO2, CH4, NO2, other gases
Other anthropogenic additions to the atmosphere (SO2, soot, other aerosols)
Ozone: tropospheric and stratospheric; methyl bromide

Hydrosphere
Fresh water
Dams and their effects on riparian zones, methane emissions, stream processes
Pollution of surface waters
Modification of geochemical cycles in the hydrosphere
Groundwater withdrawals, subsidence, saline intrusion, pollution
Radioactive waste and tailings

Oceans
Ocean composition: acidification; let's pump CO2 into the deep ocean!
Hypoxia/dead zones
Overfishing, trawling, etc.
Plastics and other long-lived trash

Lithosphere
Changes in land use: The rise of agriculture, the ascent of agribusiness
Changes in land use: Deforestation
Changes in land use: Urbanization, roadways, recreational uses
Soil degradation: erosion, salinity, leaching
Effects of mining: subsidence pits, coal fires, toxic releases, acid mine drainage, etc.
Exploitation of one-time allotment of fossil fuels
Exploitation of one-time allotment of metals, uranium, etc.
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