The History

of Mankind’s Awareness of its

Impact Upon the Earth.

Preamble.

Like a teenager who thinks he/she ‘discovered‘ sex and is perhaps shocked to reflect that his/her parents got there before him/her (obviously!), it is a bit like that with Sustainability [= a rational response to the realisation that we are having such a demonstrable effect upon the environment that we have to moderate our actions accordingly]: we may think that this is a modern / recent realisation, but History tells a different story.

One might trace the modern term ‘sustainability’ (quite correctly) to the Brundtland Report (1987) and its recognition by the states of the world at the Rio Conference in 1991 – barely 30 years ago – but things go far further back in fact.  Just how far?

Transhumance to Settlement

For most of its history, mankind existed in a mode of transhumance: following the seasons and the animals upon which our food, nourishment clothing and shelter depended.  The amazing polymath, Jacob Bronowski (in his 1973 magnum opus ‘The Ascent of Man‘ in the chapter ‘Lower than the Angels‘), put it this way:

« Hunting cannot support a growing population in one place….

The choice for hunters was brutal: starve or move »

So over the last 100-50,000 years we ‘settled‘: domesticted animals, planted and reaped crops, built villages, towns and cities.  That said, as recently as the middle of the last century, tanshumance and pastoralism were still viable forms of life and living: witness the Lapps Reindeer herders in the North of Finland and the nomad Bakhtyar in what we used to call Persia. But as Bronowski succinctly puts it:

« … You have actually to travel with them and live with them

to understand that civilisation can never grow up on the move ».

He goes on to elucidate this comment:

« The Bakhtiari life is too narrow to have time or skill for specialisation. There is no room for innovation because there is not time, on the move, between evening and morning, coming and going all their lives, to develop a new device or a new thought – not even a new tune.  The only habits that survive are the old habits. The only ambition of the son is to be like the father ».

He adds: « The largest single step in the ascent of man is the change from nomad to village agriculture ».

It was at this point that man began to have a visible impact upon the planet: fields replacing wild pastures, plantings, land ownership, villages becoming towns, becoming cities by reason of synergy: harnessing the 2+2=5 energies and effects of working co-operatively.

Eventually, 4 or 5,000 years ago we begin to see man-made monuments one might see from space:

• The Ziggurat of Ur  Amazing state of preservation even today….
• The Pyramids of Egypt
• Stonehenge

I’m sure that you will agree that these are all very visible impacts upon the natural environment – and there are untold numbers of others!

The Question now is, at what point did mankind start making negative impacts sufficient to change the planet and life on the planet for the worse….(such that these impacts would begin to rebound on us)?

Realising our Negative Impacts and Their Consequences

Pre 1900

(Yes we DID know about C02’s impact upon global temperaturess before 1900!)

As Vaclav Smil says in his most erudite 2022 publication « How the World Really Works« , the contribution of mankind to atmospheric C02 was well understood, measured and projected into our time some 150+ years ago:

« Joseph Fourier (1786 – 1330), a French Mathematician was the first scientist to realise that the atmosphere absorbs some of the radiation emanating from the ground; and in 1856, Eunice Foote, and American scientist and inventor was the first author to link (briefly but clearly) CO2 with global warming ».

He also summarises the work of John Tyndall (1820-1893):

« Concise but clear, when rephrased in modern parlance it says: increases in CO2 concentration must produce rising atmospheric temperature ».

[TJ: Note the ‘must‘ there!]

From the same period (1854), though in a less scientific and more pragmatic, poetic and human ‘common sense‘ view, were the sentiments expressed by Chief Seattle in reply to the President’s (Franklin Pearce) ‘kind offer‘ to buy the Indian lands bordering the Pacific rather than face a war the Indians couldn’t hope to win.  In his ‘Reply’ he prefigures most of the principles of the modern sustainability movement:

On ownership:  « How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? »

[TJ: if you think that must have sounded crazy to the President, do a fast-forward to today: there are companies that exist to sell land on the Moon or Mars!!]

On relationship – mankind to Earth:

• « We are part of the earth and it is part of us »  [TJ cue: Lovelock]
  
• « One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on » …. [TJ cue: the Tourism industry MO]
• « His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert. »  [TJ cue: WCE&D rationale]
  
• « He kidnaps the earth from his children and he does not care » [TJ cue: Mrs. T]
  
• « The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench » [TJ cue: PPP]
  
• « I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive »
• « Whatever happens to beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected » [TJ cue: Fast forward to James Lovelock’s ‘Gaia Theory’ from the early 1960s … sound familiar?  ]
• « Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.  This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know »  [TJ cue: PPP the Polluter Pays Principle – again – in poetic form].
  
• « Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself » [TJ cue: Lovelock & PPP again!]
• « Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste » [TJ cue: the ultimate PPP]
• « That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. » [TJ cue: Lynas: ‘Our Final Warning’  and Kolbert: ‘The Sixth Extinction’]
  

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« The end of living and the beginning of survival. » 

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So, clearly mankind has been aware of his impact upon the Earth and of the consequences thereof for quite some time, though we seem to have conveniently ignored it for a good long while.

The question now is, when and why did we begin to ‘wake up‘ to the issue and determine that ‘something had to be done’ about it….?  Let’s take this modern realisation as being since 1900….

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Modern Realisations: Events & Responses

1900 to 1987

In 1908 Arrhenius suggested an estimate for the amount of global warming which might arise from doubling atmospheric CO2: « Any doubling of the % of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere would raise the temperature of the Earth’s surface by 4°C ».   We were warned – with figures – more than 100 years ago! But with the feedback / magnification issues science has recently been discovering (that Arrhenius would not have known about) it could be rather more perhaps….

In the year that I was a foetus inside my Mum (1957), according to Smil (again, because he is so good!) Revelle and Suess brought this shockingly up to date:

« Thus human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future.  Within a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years ».

A sobering thought, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Other things were happening too, which brought the issue to the fore worldwide….. I’ll try to cover these broadly chronologically…

• WW2 produced a massive and rapid leap forward in technologies
  • the worldwide appreciation of the acute risk of nuclear war and radiation etc. [Read Bobby Kennedy’s book ‘Thirteen Days‘ and watch the Roger Donaldson film of the same name to see how close we came to a nuclear wasteland post 1962 Cuban missile crisis]
  • rockets in space that could take ever more precise measurements of the atmosphere and the Earth
  • the development of technologies that enabled humanity to measure change to ever finer degrees which would then connect impact to cause (Us!).
• Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ was also published in 1962 looking at species extinction signs and was a forerunner to Elizabeth Kolbert’s 2014 book ‘The Sixth Extinction’ … that being US unless we are very careful and very quick in our response. Presently we are neither, frankly [TJ Poem: ‘Mostly Harmful’].  Carson was the spark that set the environmental movement aflame.
• James Lovelock’s ‘Gaia Hypothesis‘ (1960s / 70s) “The Gaia Paradigm, also known as the Gaia theory or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet” Wikipedia.  Here is Lovelock at 100 talking about how his hypothesis seems to have been generally accepted.  In homage to the great man himself I wrote something poetic upon news of his death at 103 in the summer of ’22
• Personal impacts becoming evident. In the 60s and 70s things began to hit home at the level of the individual.  Doctors, for instance, were recording massive upswings in Asthma and breathing difficulties because of atmospheric pollution and in increases in Hepatitis in swimmers and surfers.  The environment bites back…if you like.  The latter resulted in the 1986 revised European Bathing Waters Directive and the Blue Flag system [But as I understand it, this tested at that time for bacteriological and NOT viral elements … because if one tested for the latter, most beaches would fail.  The legislation left it up to the nation state to decide what constituted a ‘Bathing Beach’ however… and in the first designations Britain offered 30 such beaches to be tested – fewer than some landlocked countries which had only lakes! Why? Because the state was selling off the Water Boards into private ownership and they would get a better price if there were few water test failures on beaches that had to be put ‘right’ at the new owners’ cost!  I was working for the Tourist Board at that time and this was a very big issue: no Blue Flag = no visitors and unemployment.]
• OPEC oil price quadrupling ‘overnight’ 1973 brought it home to the industrialised world that vital resources were limited/finite and that those controlling them could hold the world effectively ‘hostage’…
• News of a global impact: the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior (July 1985).  After this, environmental groups were no longer seen as extremists but as ‘The Brave & Fearless Little Guys‘ representing us and defending us from Big Brother states.  Straight after this event, even Mrs Thatcher saw the light and put far more political capital into Environment as she realised it could now be a vote-winner or vote-loser depending upon how it was handled [prior to this, the Environmental portfolio had been largely a non-event].  Sadly, this was not, in all honesty, France’s finest hour…. but it did have an unexpected positive impact…. but not for the young South American photographer who lost his life as a result…..

• Nuclear incidents and accidents: The Chernobyl disaster (April 26th 1986) that irradiated most of eastern and northrn Europe and could have been far worse…

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Now we get to THE key moment in all of this: the constitution of the:

World Commission on Environment and Development

The above link is to a separate file on the subject – it merits it! 

Do TAKE THE LINK!

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Post Brundtland Realisations

1987-2022

So what has happened post-Brundtland….in the intervening 35 years or more?

I suppose, if were one a little jaundiced, one might be tempted to say:

• not enough!
• too much talk and not enough action (84% of our energy needs are still met by fossil fuels in 2022). We are not even close to meeting the limited emissions promises made at the COP Paris in 2015.
• evidence shows we underestimated the threat to the environment (including us, by the way: we are part of it, let’s not forget!) AND the speed and power with which Nature’s response has been making itself plain in:
  • the increased frequency, power and loss of life and damage caused by storms
  • massive inundations in some places (as I write in late summer 2022, 1/3 of Pakistan is currently under water – Sydney has been swimming most of its winter when it hasn’t been CoVid confined) and incredible drought and dryness in others (in 68 French Départements we won’t be able to clean our cars or use a hosepipe on our vegetables until at least November!), not to mention the almost uncontrollable forest fires (which, according to the news I have watched,  some firemen say 80% is down to human error: throwing a ‘dog-end’ [mégot] or having a BBQ get out of control…)
  • Heatwaves adverseley affecting the growth of vegetables and fruit … at least we see this and can’t ignore it as it is reflected in the prices we pay.
  • More and more refugees fleeing heat and political conflict (often because of the effect of lack of food supply as the Earth is finding it more difficult to support food production in certain places).
  • Icecap melt acceleration leading to sea level rising far faster than predicted as little as a decade ago.
  • French Nuclear Power Stations are facing a problem (just when we need them most in the face of massive energy cost hikes) … with the lack of (gentle, regular) rain everywhere in 2022, river levels and flow are low and with the intense heat the reduced levels….which means that the water is that much hotter on entering the stations … doesn’t have the same cooling effect … and could well go back into rivers that much hotter, with the attendant consequnces for water quality and the life the rivers sustain…
  • Finistere found itself hotter than Montpelier for a few days!

I could go on.  Indeed, you only have to ready any day’s newspaper

to pick up the thread yourself.

Some Global Landmarks Post Brundtland.

• RIO 1992.  The World Signs Up. Launches Agenda 21 – a sustainability programme looking 20 years into the future … now a year into our past!!  UN Sustainable Development site and updated goals.  10-Pg Review of Agenda 21 .
• Annual COPs (Conference of the Parties: if you like an annual Rio follow-on programme) ….  Kyoto – Paris –  Glasgow (latest) and Sharl El Sheik to come later this year. They are all there, with associated documents.  My ‘weather eye’ on the Glasgow COP.
• A forecast of what 1,2,3,4,5 and 6°C of temperature increase can do to the Earth and our way of life: Mark Lynas ‘6 Degrees’ (6 degrees Video) and his recent update Last Warning (reviewed here) and CAT report (Climate Action Tracker … which doesn’t think much of the Glasgow COP outcomes (even if they are all put into action as promised and programmed!).
• IPCC ( the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change … if the COPs are laregely political events, then the IPCC is getting the scientific evidence together so that politicians can calibrate and direct their responses at the COPs with the latest scientific information.)  Here is their 2022 6th Report Summary for Policymakers – it isn’t long – READ IT: it is the best and most up to date we have.  There is a full report … but it is NOT for the faint-hearted: 3068 highly technical pages!!!