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GGH2604 - People and the NaturalEnvironment Summary
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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.
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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o Found this term outdated due to the rapid change of the global environment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
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