This summary will assist students in understanding the key concepts taught in the GGH2604: People and the Natural Environment, as well as provide a further understanding of the topics for the assignments and exams. This is a summary on the new syllabus which debuted in S1-2018.
(To be used in co...
UNISA – GGH2604
PEOPLE AND THE NATURAL
ENVIRONMENT
SUMMARY
IMPORTANT
- This is a summary of UNISA’s semester 1 &2 RSC2601 syllabus 2018
- READ THROUGH YOUR UNISA STUDY GUIDE FIRST!
- While the UNISA Study Guide and the relevant text book have been used to create this
summary, this summary is a broad outline of the syllabus.
- Get an overview of the module and then study each topic individually
- Use this guide in conjunction with the UNISA study guide – it is not a substitute
- Ensure you understand the content of this module in order to pass.
,Learning Theme 1 – Geography in the Anthropocene
1.1 Introduction
- Geography offers a unique perspective on how human activities affect and influence ecological processes at
different scales
- The ANTHROPOCENE – the age of man
- Evidenced by the widespread pollution & presence of artificial radioactive particles
- Zalasiewicz (2016) -: sufficient evidence exists to suggest that the Anthropocene is a real ecological phenomenon
with potential to be formalized within the Geological Time Scale”
1.3 Meme or Geological Epoch: Introducing the Anthropocene
- Holocene -:
o Geological term used by environmental scientists to denote the warmer, inter-glacial period in which
we now live.
o Began approx. 12 000 years ago around 10 000 BCE
- Paul Crutzen
o Found this term outdated due to the rapid change of the global environment
o At the base of the argument was that humans had become a force of nature;
By the ways that humans had transformed the environment
The ways that these transformations were increasingly expressed at a planetary level
- The term “Anthropocene” is made-up from the prefix “anthropo” (humankind) and the suffix “cene”
(a geological epoch) and can also be referred to as “ the age of humans”.
- The Anthropocene is marked by:
o Greenhouse gases reaching their highest levels for 400,000 years
o The ability of humans to regulate and control the flow of water through dam-building and sluice
constructions
o Industrial emissions of sulphur dioxide reaching 160 million tons per year
o Increased exploitation of fisheries in the ocean
o Increased levels of fertilizers in soils; and
o High extraction rates of minerals through mining.
- Studying the Anthropocene requires a horizontal record of human-environmental relations across (and above)
the surface of the planet as at the vertical record of the geological past.
- Scientists remain uncertain as to whether the human impact on the global environment constitutes a geological
level shift in planetary history.
- Key issue: for the ‘age of humans’ to exist geologically, it is necessary to show that humans have changed the
environment and illustrates that humans actually changed the ways in which the global environment operated.
- International commission on Stratigraphy has established a working group to explore this idea.
- Ecocentrists see the Anthropocene as basis for reducing the demands we place on the planet, to challenge the
value of economic growth and to re-localize our economies. Techno centrists feel that the idea of humans as
intelligent agents of geological power should be an incentive to deeper interventions on the planet.
- Two large trash vortexes were formed by ocean currents in the North Pacific Ocean. The floating mass of micro-
plastics, cigarette lighters and syringes causes the death of approximately 1 million seabirds every year and
100,000 marine mammals.
CASE STUDY 1.1.
- A recent study on bioaccumulation found high levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in amphipods
(crustaceans such as sand fleas) in two of the deepest parts of the oceans. Both of these trenches are more than
10,000 meters deep and are considered as some of the most inaccessible and remote parts of the Earth.
- Plastics are already present in sufficient numbers to be considered as one of the most important types of
‘technofossil’ that will form a permanent record of human presence on Earth.
1.4 The Rough Geographies of the Anthropocene
- Debate as to when the Anthropocene began, some believe it is at the human domestication of animals and the
birth of modern agricultures.
- Paul Crutzen – began in 1784 when the first stem engine & the kick-start of the industrial revolution
- Some believe it is linked to rise of nuclear technology & radioactive traces it has left
- Where is the Anthropocene?
o Spatial question – historic & contemporary implications
o Key questions:
In what particular places have the changes that humans have caused been felt most?
GGH2604 1
, Where have the different processes been orchestrated from?
How and what is being done to address these impacts?
- Geographical perspectives have the potential to transform our understanding of the consequence of env. Change
- Spaceship Earth-: R. Buckmiester Fuller – we are all already astronauts
o A metaphor used to convey both the finite resources that humanity has at its disposal and the crucial
role of env. Maintenance in ensuring the ongoing wellbeing of our shared home.
o We need to carefully monitor and utilise the resources at our disposal in order to ensure human survival
- Spaceship Earth theory unites us under a common ecological fate
- However, we cannot look at all env. Problems with a global perspective
- The unevenness of our env. Fates is expressed clearly in the case of climate change
- Studies indicate that South Asia and Africa are the inhabited areas that will be hit the most by impacts of Climate
Change.
o Will bear the brunt of flooding, loss of agricultural productivity, spread of climate-related diseases
o Also some of the least responsible for the damage
o Least able to protect themselves from the dangers/ impacts
o “involuntary exposures” to climate change
- Env. Geography involves the study of spatial relations, locations and systems.
Spatial relations 2 interconnected & distinct forms;
1. Routes taken by trade/ transport/ communication/ pollution which form the
geographical means in and through which the world is joined together – e.g. lines on
a map \
2. The myriad of political, economic, social, cultural & env. Processes which constitute
the collection of relations in and through which specific spaces (e.g. cities/ regions/
neighbourhoods/ nations) relate to other places – e.g. bank transfers/ cultural
exchange etc.
- Lines of engagement are both part of what it is, and part of its effects
- Env terms: the relations that connect one place with another’s env. Are not only trans-
boundary pollution (e.g. acid rain/ toxic waste disposal/ air pollution). Env. Relations
are also hidden in everyday products that we buy and consume. E.g. palm oil & the
clearing of the rainforests in Indonesia.
Spatial Locations - Studying locations is about more than simply tracing our current environmental
problems back to their roots,
- Key: understanding the role of particular sites in the Anthropocene.
- About understanding how certain places are both environmental relations and at the
same time express the effects of those same relations.
- Locating the Anthropocene provides us with an opportunity to see if our theories
about nature and form are accurate, and the ways in which such general theories may
apply differently in different places.
Spatial Systems - Final key: the particular concern with the formation and operation of spatial systems
- The spatial system exists when geographical spaces of various sizes come together to
form interconnected arrangements of coordination and support.
- Spatial systems: can include cities/ regional economies/ nation states/ transnational
economic and political blocs.
- Harvey – urbanization; combination of housing, transport, infrastructure, factories,
and offices mean that cities reflect a kind of spatial logic for capitalist society
- Can be seen on a neighbourhood level – home life/ schools/ working/ recreation and
shopping have to be organized and negotiated on a day-to-day basis
- Dominant spatial system: global market place
CASE STUDY 1.2
- Pripyat, Ukraine
- The use of nuclear power is often propagated as “safe” or “emitting less pollution”
- At 1:23am on 26/04/1986, reactor number 4 of the Chernobyl Power Plant (NPP) in northern Ukraine -
experiment started
- Purpose: to investigate reactor safety in the event of failure of the main elec. Supply to the plant
- One minute later, a steam explosion blew the life of the reactor and resulted in the largest accidental release of
radioactivity into the env. (historic)
- Core continued to burn for 10 days, releasing radiation continuously – radioactive plume was transported over
large areas for Europe.
- Immediate result: significant ecological harm due to the spread of the radioactive ions in the env.
GGH2604 2
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