Anthropocene
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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A Working Group of international scientists is deciding whether to declare a new geological epoch — the Anthropocene — a planet shaped more by mankind than nature. Its members tell the story of the Anthropocene and argue whether it's a tragedy, a comedy, or something more surreal. With archival footage, award-winning stills and interviews, ANTHROPOCENE proposes a common secular narrative for mankind but leaves viewers to decide how we should write the ending. The film has the blessing of Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, who coined the term, and is the first feature film about the Anthropocene. It is now our turn to decide — in this decade — how the Anthropocene will end.
Interviewees include Will Steffen, Erle Ellis, Jan Zalasiewicz, Andrew Revkin, John McNeil, Monica Berger Gonzalez, Eric Odada, Davor Vidas.
'This is an excellent film with beautiful pictures and authentic interviews. Thanks to the film makers for a tremendous job and compelling introduction to the Anthropocene.' Paul J. Crutzen, Atmospheric chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry
'Highly Recommended...Persuasive, interesting, and easy to watch...Anthropocene is so well made that anyone having an interest in science or in the art of making a persuasive argument will enjoy watching it.' James Gordon, Educational Media Reviews Online
'With the help of fossil fuels, we humans have changed the world as profoundly as a great force of nature--but our actions are mostly leaving a wake of destruction...This gripping film is a balanced portrayal of the issues at stake. It is entertaining, clear, and chilling.' Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute, Author, Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels
'The wisdom, wit, and charm captured from members of Anthropocene Working Group are a perfect match to the stunning photography and video clips...Students will find much useful information on how human endeavors have combined with rising population and energy consumption to see humans become one of the great geological forces in the modern era. I highly recommend this film, both to university students and professionals who are working to understand global environmental change, and to the general public who desire a scientific perspective of the human footprint on our planet.' J.P.M. Syvitski, Executive Director, Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System, Professor of Geological Science, University of Colorado
'One problem in grasping the full impact of the Anthropocene lies in understanding what has transpired before. This film is useful in helping students deal with the problem of shifting baselines and helping them to not only understand how we got here, but more importantly, where we may be headed.' Mark Farmer, Professor and Director of the Division of Biological Sciences, University of Georgia
'A well-made overview of a complex subject, this is strong material for students of many scientific disciplines, as well as classes on ethics and philosophy.' C.A. Fehmel, School Library Journal
'Is it meaningful to say that we are in Anthropocene? This film interviews members of the working group charged with answering this question, organizing their thoughts on key issues into ten short chapters, all interspersed with Anthropocene-related images and clips. Sure to generate discussion.' Hugh Gorman, Professor of Environmental History and Policy, Chair of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Author, The Story of N: A Social History of the Nitrogen Cycle and the Challenge of Sustainability
'Anthropocene does full justice to its topic, which is intensely interdisciplinary and morally complex. The experts it presents reflect a range of approaches and attitudes toward the idea that human activity has moved the Earth out of the Holocene into a new and unprecedented period in its history. The diversity of their views on the key questions the Anthropocene confronts us with, and their expression of both the thrill and the terror it inspires, allows viewers to draw their own conclusions on how to think and feel about the human-made future.' Dr. Zev Trachtenberg, Department of Philosophy, University of Oklahoma
'Anthropocene seeks to answer questions in a moving and thought provoking way through narrative of the issues and in-depth interviews with leading experts. This format provides scholars and students with an excellent platform for discussions regarding the nature of human impacts on the Earth's ecosystems.' Dr. Victor D. Thompson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Director of Center for Archaeological Sciences, University of Georgia
'In assembling many of the key perspectives on the Anthropocene in one place for the first time, this film provides a valuable opportunity to assess the term's coherence, contradictions, connections with earlier chapters in environmental activism, and ideological investments in the future. Students everywhere should watch and critically discuss the various assertions and interpretations offered by the film's eminent contributors.' Michael Ziser, Associate Professor of English, Co-Director of Environments and Societies Program, University of California-Davis
'Anthropocene does brilliantly introducing viewers to the idea in a way that retains its complexity while at the same time conveying the concept in the visceral way only a well done film can accomplish...The idea of the Anthropocene may be academic, but such ideas have consequences and conveying them to the larger public, as Bradshaw's documentary sets out to do, is extremely important.' Rick Searle, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
Citation
Main credits
Bradshaw, Steve (film director)
Richards, Jenny (film producer)
Kyriacou, Sotira (editor of moving image work)
Gabbay, Alex (cinematographer)
Ostby, Magne (cinematographer)
Cassini, Stefano (cinematographer)
Steffen, W. L (interviewee)
Ellis, Erle (interviewee)
Zalasiewicz, J. A. (interviewee)
Revkin, Andrew (interviewee)
McNeil, John (interviewee)
Gonzalez, Monica Berger (interviewee)
Odada, Eric O (interviewee)
Vidas, Davor (interviewee)
Other credits
Cinematography, Alex Gabbay, Magne Ostby, Stefano Cassini; editor, Sotira Kyriacou.
Distributor subjects
Anthropology; Earth Science; Ecology; Environment; Environmental Ethics; Geography; Geology; International Studies; Law; Life Science; Philosophy; StratigraphyKeywords
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- We had a meeting down in Mexico.
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And someone had referred to the Holocene.
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And Paul burst out, "Well, we're
not in the Holocene anymore.
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We're in the Anthropocene."
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- There's probably never been anything like
this cycle in the history of the universe.
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- A novel geological force.
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A novel planetary force.
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- The effect of mankind is as great
as some of the great forces of nature.
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- Humankind acting as the most important
geological agent, that's the Anthropocene.
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- The Anthropocene is
like a common narrative.
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You laugh at times.
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You cry at others.
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- If I came at this from afar and
regarded this moment as a fable,
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I would have a smile on my face.
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- All right.
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Let's fast forward to 2050, and let's
say we go through the Great Collapse.
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I would certainly view it as a tragedy.
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- We're intelligent.
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We're manipulative.
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So it will be hard to shake us off, like
cockroaches, and rats, and so forth,
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the urban foxes and suchlike --
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we get by very well.
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- We've woken up behind the wheel of
a car that's moving down the highway,
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and now it's our turn to drive.
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- We have to really change the way we live.
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That decision needs to happen this decade.
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- For me, the question is
what's a good engineered planet?
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What's a good Anthropocene?
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That's the big question.
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That's up to us.
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- The choices we make today
will be preserved in rock,
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in the layer of the Anthropocene.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- Oh, my god.
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Look at that picture over there.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- The Anthropocene is a new term
coined only a decade ago or so --
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probably coined by Paul Crutzen, although
there are those who dispute that.
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And what it means is a new era in
the geological history of the Earth,
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an era in which it is for the first
time humankind that is inadvertently,
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unwittingly shaping the grand
geological, geophysical processes...
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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...including climate, including
the carbon cycle, the sulfur cycle,
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the nitrogen cycle.
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- ...to bring water and food
where there is only parched earth.
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And people, where there is desolation.
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- Humankind acting as the most
important geological agent,
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moving rock and soil around on a scale
comparable to glaciation and natural soil
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erosion.
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That's the Anthropocene.
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- Reshaping the geography
of the land in dimensions
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never before possible,
to meet the needs of man.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- Here in the Rift Valley, one
would think the forces of nature
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are almost unsurpassable.
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But the human impact is even much
stronger than the force of nature.
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Humans are changing our
Earth in a way that has never
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been recorded any time in the past.
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This is what we call Anthropocene epoch, a
major geological period that is completely
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initiated and influenced by
human activities on Earth.
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- The burgeoning activities of humankind
are causing changes to the landscape,
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to the animals and plants
that live on the landscape,
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and to the chemistry of the
atmosphere and of the oceans.
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And these changes are being imprinted
upon the sediments, the sands
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and the mud that are accumulating
in the sea and in rivers and lakes.
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And these are the strata of the future.
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The big question is -- really it is a new
question, one that's not being studied --
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is whether these changes are sufficient
to make these future strata sufficiently
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distinctive to deserve their own
term of this Anthropocene epoch.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- What stratigraphers, or what
this working group is doing now,
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is something rather new for stratigraphy.
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They are not finding evidence about
past time, but about our current time.
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They are not looking for clues
or footprints from the past,
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but they are eyewitnesses
of what is going on today.
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And they can't be only stratigraphers.
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They have to be biologists.
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They have to be ethnographers.
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They have to be chemists.
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And even there is a lawyer.
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- If the concept of the
Anthropocene is true, then that does
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mean that the effect of
humankind is as great as some
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of the great forces of nature.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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(SIRENS)
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- Each tree dies with majestic grace.
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We cut the top off Wisconsin
and sent it down the river.
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(EXPLOSION)
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- Formal ratification of the Anthropocene
will mean that we have left one geological
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epoch, the Holocene, and that we have
entered another geological epoch,
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a new epoch --
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Anthropocene, which has been
caused by our own action.
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And if that is not enough to become
aware of the consequences of our actions,
00:08:01.990 --> 00:08:04.330
then I don't know what is.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- To decide on the word
Anthropocene would bring,
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I believe, a new opportunity
for our young generations.
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When I first heard the word
Anthropocene, I was really happy.
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It seemed like such a hopeful word to have.
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I look at the homework my
kids bring home in Guatemala,
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and they are still being taught
that they live in the Holocene.
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And then I wondered, wow, what would
change if they were already being
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taught that they live in the Anthropocene?
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Can you imagine their brains
making all those connections,
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thinking "Wow, I am a shaping force.
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I have a responsibility."
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That would change our behavior really fast.
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- We are not changing nature,
which is different from us.
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We are changing ourselves.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- Well the Anthropocene, as far as I
know, was first used in the year 2000.
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I was director at that time of an
international program on how the planet is
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changing, why it's changing, and so on.
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We had a meeting down in Mexico and a member
of our committee, in fact the vice-chair,
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was Paul Crutzen.
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And he's well known for
his work on the ozone hole.
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In fact, he's won a Nobel Prize on that.
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And sometime during the
meeting someone had referred
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to the Holocene, which is the
present geological epoch we're in.
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And Paul burst out, "Well, we're
not in the Holocene anymore.
00:10:01.770 --> 00:10:03.450
We're in the Anthropocene."
00:10:03.450 --> 00:10:06.940
And so the term was sort of
born, I think, at that meeting.
00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:10.657
- Ideas like Anthropocene have
been around for 100 years.
00:10:10.657 --> 00:10:12.240
But nobody really took them seriously.
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They said that "Look, the volcanoes,
the earthquakes, and so on, the mountain
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building, is much bigger
than human effects."
00:10:24.096 --> 00:10:25.970
- And then the penny
dropped for a lot of us,
00:10:25.970 --> 00:10:29.090
saying "Hey, it's not just the
Earth's orbit around the sun that
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can change a geological epoch.
00:10:30.740 --> 00:10:31.760
We're doing it.
00:10:31.760 --> 00:10:34.664
We're becoming a geological
force in our own right."
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:10:41.606 --> 00:10:46.280
- And so the term was very quickly
picked up by other geologists.
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I noticed it was being used in journals --
00:10:48.830 --> 00:10:50.826
high profile ones, Science, and so on --
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without irony, without inverted commas,
as if it was a real formal term.
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- Well, I first heard the word, or read
the word, "Anthropocene" around 2000,
00:11:08.040 --> 00:11:10.210
when there was this paper that came out.
00:11:10.210 --> 00:11:14.440
And I went back and got this book I wrote
in 1992 off the shelf, on global warming,
00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:19.085
and it had a section where I was talking in
general about this moment in human history
00:11:19.085 --> 00:11:23.130
-- and in Earth history -- as being unique.
00:11:23.130 --> 00:11:26.100
That organisms had changed the
nature of the Earth before.
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That cyanobacteria, a couple
billion years earlier,
00:11:28.680 --> 00:11:32.270
had filled the atmosphere with oxygen.
00:11:32.270 --> 00:11:33.500
But they didn't know that.
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They weren't aware of that.
00:11:34.880 --> 00:11:38.790
So I wrote at that time that here
we are at this funny juncture, where
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geologists of the future will look back at
this era and see some signal in geology.
00:11:44.330 --> 00:11:48.880
And I said maybe we'd call it
something like the Anthrocene.
00:11:48.880 --> 00:11:52.760
But if I'd written Anthropocene,
like anthropology...
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but as it is, the idea resonated.
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- For me, the Anthropocene is about
viewing ourselves as a species.
00:12:01.110 --> 00:12:09.370
Therefore, gender aspects, race aspects,
ethnic aspects, become a bit second level.
00:12:09.370 --> 00:12:14.360
We're talking about a term that unifies
us in a way that few others can.
00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:17.797
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:12:28.130 --> 00:12:32.880
- So we discussed the Anthropocene because
it was appearing as if it was formal.
00:12:32.880 --> 00:12:34.080
It wasn't formal.
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So could it be?
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Might it be formal?
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And to my surprise, the great majority
of the technically minded, serious,
00:12:41.290 --> 00:12:45.576
non-radical, non-revolutionary geologists
thought there was merit to the term.
00:12:45.576 --> 00:12:47.920
- The geological debate will play out.
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I think that's a sideshow.
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I mean really, what I think the
power of this is the metaphor.
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That's the power of this concept.
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I'm not sure how many Scrabble players
have put Anthropocene on their board yet.
00:13:00.440 --> 00:13:03.980
But there's geological evidence
of this creature, Homo sapiens,
00:13:03.980 --> 00:13:07.050
coming through this growth spurt
in the last couple hundred years
00:13:07.050 --> 00:13:10.120
and leaving a signature, for
better or worse, on the planet,
00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:11.860
on a synthetic planet.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:13:31.197 --> 00:13:32.183
- Follow the crowd.
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Watch us grow.
00:13:33.062 --> 00:13:35.020
- I would think that what
we're playing out now
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would have taken a really
clever science fiction
00:13:37.249 --> 00:13:39.040
writer to come up with something like this.
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(TYPING)
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- This earth that we're sitting on,
resting on, began just over four and a half
00:13:53.890 --> 00:14:01.820
billion years ago as a cloud of gas
and dust whirling around the sun.
00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:06.480
And very quickly and very
brutally this gas and dust
00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:11.092
collided together to create planets
which crashed into each other.
00:14:11.092 --> 00:14:14.600
And the survivors were those we know now --
00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:17.710
Mars, Venus, Jupiter and the Earth.
00:14:19.670 --> 00:14:25.240
- The initial emergence of life,
that probably began somewhere
00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:28.450
on the order of three billion years ago.
00:14:28.450 --> 00:14:36.880
And from that time forward the Earth has
been in the grip of a unique history --
00:14:36.880 --> 00:14:42.460
unique in the solar system, possibly
entirely unique in the universe --
00:14:42.460 --> 00:14:52.650
in that its atmosphere, its hydrosphere,
its pedosphere, the rock and soil,
00:14:52.650 --> 00:14:55.950
have been influenced by
life, by life processes.
00:14:55.950 --> 00:14:59.450
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:15:07.772 --> 00:15:14.210
- One major event which happened just after
these rocks here particularly were formed,
00:15:14.210 --> 00:15:18.835
was the origin of multicellular life, of all
manner of creepy crawlies -- worms, snails,
00:15:18.835 --> 00:15:21.300
arthropods, crustaceans.
00:15:21.300 --> 00:15:26.210
But the first proper land fossils are really
in the late Silurian and early Devonian
00:15:26.210 --> 00:15:26.980
times.
00:15:26.980 --> 00:15:33.130
And by the late Devonian they'd really
begun to develop into tree-like things.
00:15:33.130 --> 00:15:36.290
Then in the succeeding
Carboniferous Period, let
00:15:36.290 --> 00:15:40.020
us say some 350 million years
ago, there were proper forests.
00:15:42.840 --> 00:15:46.880
The rocks around these hillsides
here belong to the Permian
00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:49.920
and this exciting Triassic Period.
00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:54.110
And those are separated by
the greatest extinction event
00:15:54.110 --> 00:15:58.980
ever, when something like
95% of species disappeared
00:15:58.980 --> 00:16:02.590
in the wake of enormous volcanic eruptions.
00:16:02.590 --> 00:16:04.803
And the beginning of
the Triassic Period also
00:16:04.803 --> 00:16:08.400
marks the beginning of the greenhouse
world, it's the time of the dinosaurs.
00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:11.690
And that lasted until 65 million years ago.
00:16:11.690 --> 00:16:15.108
We went through the Triassic, the
Jurassic, and then the Cretaceous Periods.
00:16:18.390 --> 00:16:21.220
And at the end of the Cretaceous
Period, famously, the dinosaurs
00:16:21.220 --> 00:16:22.720
died out, as did much else.
00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:26.672
Life was knocked over again.
00:16:29.528 --> 00:16:31.890
Who could have predicted that these...
00:16:31.890 --> 00:16:34.075
wee furry, squeaky things -- the mammals --
00:16:34.075 --> 00:16:36.200
in the shadow of the
dinosaurs, would have come out
00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:40.200
of their shadow to then take over the
top spot in the food chain on land
00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:42.095
and in part in the sea.
00:16:42.095 --> 00:16:45.350
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:16:54.616 --> 00:16:56.713
And then two and a half
million years ago we're
00:16:56.713 --> 00:16:58.760
into the period we're
in now, the time of ice.
00:17:03.310 --> 00:17:06.060
We have many advances and retreats of ice.
00:17:06.060 --> 00:17:11.032
And almost all of those are crammed
into what we call the Pleistocene epoch.
00:17:11.032 --> 00:17:15.387
This period of time has dominated
a lot of our landscapes,
00:17:15.387 --> 00:17:20.210
it's created the mountainscapes
we see around us.
00:17:20.210 --> 00:17:22.710
It has smoothed over these
hills we see around us here.
00:17:27.270 --> 00:17:31.590
- Now humanity appeared on the planet
during one of these cold periods,
00:17:34.020 --> 00:17:37.860
went through the previous
interglacial about 130,000 years ago,
00:17:37.860 --> 00:17:39.600
went into the next ice age.
00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:42.660
Now all that time, we were
hunter-gatherers only.
00:17:51.690 --> 00:17:56.960
- From archaeological records, the early
man actually started in East Africa --
00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:02.160
very close to where we are here in the
Rift Valley -- almost 3 million years ago.
00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:04.190
And it's what we call the cradle of mankind.
00:18:06.350 --> 00:18:10.850
It is believed that the geological
changes and climatic changes
00:18:10.850 --> 00:18:14.960
were really very abrupt and adverse.
00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:21.340
The rifting system might have caused the
early man to actually develop big brain,
00:18:21.340 --> 00:18:26.300
walk upright, and find ways to
start moving out of the Rift Valley,
00:18:26.300 --> 00:18:29.540
finally even finding their way up to
Europe and other parts of the world.
00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:40.490
- They developed out-sized brains --
00:18:40.490 --> 00:18:46.170
energy guzzling brains, far out of
proportion to their overall size.
00:18:46.170 --> 00:18:51.630
And with these big brains they
managed to develop social skills,
00:18:51.630 --> 00:18:56.470
including eventually articulate language.
00:18:56.470 --> 00:19:00.650
Once we developed language
we developed the capacity
00:19:00.650 --> 00:19:06.150
for extremely efficient
cooperation and teamwork.
00:19:06.150 --> 00:19:09.410
It made us better at
altering environments so as
00:19:09.410 --> 00:19:14.020
to direct more energy into our mouths.
00:19:14.020 --> 00:19:19.040
And that's a big part of the story of the
human impact on the rest of the Earth.
00:19:19.040 --> 00:19:22.350
- Looking at the unique
signature of human activity,
00:19:22.350 --> 00:19:25.740
I think we get the first is really
just the emergence of humans
00:19:25.740 --> 00:19:32.350
acting not individually as organisms,
but acting as part of a system.
00:19:32.350 --> 00:19:34.470
If you work together you can do two things.
00:19:34.470 --> 00:19:38.390
One is you can learn from each other,
and the other is that you can coordinate,
00:19:38.390 --> 00:19:40.760
you can "divide and conquer"
and this sort of thing.
00:19:40.760 --> 00:19:44.260
You can work together to
drive a herd off a cliff.
00:19:44.260 --> 00:19:47.030
So you can develop technology
like better spear points.
00:19:47.030 --> 00:19:50.060
You can share that with a larger group.
00:19:50.060 --> 00:19:53.100
Well, honestly it's the reason
that we are a global force.
00:19:53.100 --> 00:19:56.950
We are distinct from other organisms
in the way we are changing the planet.
00:19:56.950 --> 00:19:59.764
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:20:11.490 --> 00:20:14.180
- When human beings harnessed
fire for the first time,
00:20:14.180 --> 00:20:17.250
that in and of itself gave humans --
00:20:17.250 --> 00:20:19.790
or proto-humans, hominids --
00:20:19.790 --> 00:20:23.910
a power to change
landscapes through burning.
00:20:23.910 --> 00:20:26.516
And there's a lot of evidence
suggesting that they did so.
00:20:35.690 --> 00:20:39.950
There is pretty strong
evidence implicating humankind
00:20:39.950 --> 00:20:45.560
in some of the great extinction
events of the late Pleistocene,
00:20:45.560 --> 00:20:50.988
meaning 30,000 to 12,000 years ago or so.
00:20:54.410 --> 00:20:58.540
When human beings recently
arrive into a landscape --
00:20:58.540 --> 00:21:01.300
whether it's Australia or North America --
00:21:01.300 --> 00:21:10.190
and the existing fauna doesn't have any
experience with intelligent, fire-wielding,
00:21:10.190 --> 00:21:17.960
spear-wielding, perhaps bow and arrow
wielding, two-legged, upright, mobile,
00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:23.680
teamwork-using creatures, then
that fauna is unprepared --
00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:26.380
naive in the face of human hunting pressure.
00:21:28.830 --> 00:21:32.500
- Up in the northern high latitudes,
there's a very interesting hypothesis
00:21:32.500 --> 00:21:37.990
that when those animals went
extinct the vegetation changed.
00:21:37.990 --> 00:21:40.880
If you take away the megafauna,
that allows trees to come up.
00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:44.670
There's nothing eating them and keeping
them down, eating the seedlings,
00:21:44.670 --> 00:21:45.897
so the trees come up.
00:21:48.420 --> 00:21:54.330
When it snows, the snow sits below a dark
canopy that warms the regional climate.
00:21:54.330 --> 00:21:58.424
So yes, we affected the
environment then most likely too.
00:22:06.660 --> 00:22:10.900
- When you look back at the
extinctions of the megafauna --
00:22:10.900 --> 00:22:12.700
the large carnivores and herbivores --
00:22:12.700 --> 00:22:17.290
they resemble other periods in Earth's
history, where you have mass extinctions.
00:22:17.290 --> 00:22:21.580
There's something about them that
resembles changes without us.
00:22:21.580 --> 00:22:26.540
As a start to the Anthropocene, the
idea that the megafauna extinctions
00:22:26.540 --> 00:22:31.450
and the early burning of forest is
a unique signal of human activity --
00:22:31.450 --> 00:22:33.960
it's always going to be
controversial, because it resembles
00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:36.890
other cyclic behavior of the planet.
00:22:36.890 --> 00:22:40.390
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:22:50.950 --> 00:22:54.620
- So 11 and a half thousand
years ago, the ice retreated.
00:22:54.620 --> 00:22:57.175
The Pleistocene epoch gave way
to the latest interglacial,
00:22:57.175 --> 00:22:58.570
which we call the Holocene epoch.
00:23:06.080 --> 00:23:09.740
Since then, the climate
has been very stable.
00:23:09.740 --> 00:23:11.460
In fact, remarkably stable.
00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:14.960
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:23:34.770 --> 00:23:37.490
- Agriculture might be
the next great landmark
00:23:37.490 --> 00:23:40.800
in the history of the human
alteration of the planet
00:23:40.800 --> 00:23:45.880
because it intensified soil erosion, it
involved the creation of new species.
00:23:45.880 --> 00:23:52.270
Every domesticated plant or animal is a
new species that has its wild forebear.
00:23:52.270 --> 00:23:57.120
So that too is a big change
to the environment on Earth.
00:23:57.120 --> 00:24:03.600
The argument here is that by clearing
forests in order to plant crops,
00:24:03.600 --> 00:24:05.210
and then later --
00:24:05.210 --> 00:24:11.670
especially by planting wet rice,
which releases a lot of methane
00:24:11.670 --> 00:24:12.650
into the atmosphere --
00:24:12.650 --> 00:24:19.840
humankind entirely, unknowingly, emitted
carbon and methane into the atmosphere
00:24:19.840 --> 00:24:26.210
in quantities significant enough
to begin to change the climate
00:24:26.210 --> 00:24:33.230
and to forestall what might otherwise
have been a return to ice age conditions.
00:24:33.230 --> 00:24:39.300
That's controversial, and one can't
say it's true with any confidence --
00:24:39.300 --> 00:24:40.760
but it's an interesting idea.
00:24:40.760 --> 00:24:46.090
And if it's true, then you might want
to say that the Anthropocene began
00:24:46.090 --> 00:24:49.180
8,000 or more years ago.
00:24:55.890 --> 00:24:58.130
- When we talk about the
Anthropocene, we need
00:24:58.130 --> 00:25:02.280
to differentiate clearly between
an influence on the environment
00:25:02.280 --> 00:25:04.420
and kicking the planet out of the Holocene.
00:25:04.420 --> 00:25:06.420
So, an interesting hypothesis.
00:25:06.420 --> 00:25:09.700
But you certainly cannot
demonstrate either by observation,
00:25:09.700 --> 00:25:14.630
or by bottom-up calculation, that
there would have been enough CO2 pushed
00:25:14.630 --> 00:25:18.850
into the atmosphere fast enough to
drive the Earth out of the Holocene.
00:25:18.850 --> 00:25:23.230
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWING)
00:25:23.230 --> 00:25:28.071
We think that the threshold occurred
with the Industrial Revolution.
00:25:31.438 --> 00:25:34.890
The invention of the steam engine,
the access to fossil fuels,
00:25:34.890 --> 00:25:37.540
broke a huge constraint
on the human enterprise.
00:25:44.750 --> 00:25:49.460
Because up until then, we were constrained
as to how fast we could change the Earth
00:25:49.460 --> 00:25:52.303
and how extensive those changes could be.
00:25:52.303 --> 00:25:57.133
(TYPING)
00:25:57.133 --> 00:26:00.514
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:09.250
- James Watt was one of those
tinkerers who changed the world.
00:26:09.250 --> 00:26:11.480
Not that he intended anything of the sort.
00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:15.368
He was a curious sort who
liked to tinker just for fun,
00:26:15.368 --> 00:26:17.118
and he was also hoping to make some money.
00:26:19.750 --> 00:26:23.140
- James Watt was right there at
the beginning of the Anthropocene.
00:26:23.140 --> 00:26:25.580
He was the one who developed
the steam engine --
00:26:25.580 --> 00:26:29.380
if you like, the first really important
use for this new energy source
00:26:29.380 --> 00:26:35.120
that we found trickling out from the surface
of the Earth, these fossil fuels which
00:26:35.120 --> 00:26:37.970
had locked up a lot of very dense energy.
00:26:37.970 --> 00:26:41.470
- But here is the sign
and symbol of a new order.
00:26:41.470 --> 00:26:42.333
Steam and smoke.
00:26:42.333 --> 00:26:47.110
There is power behind me,
and behind the power is coal.
00:26:47.110 --> 00:26:52.290
- And the significance of that is
that it made it a practical device
00:26:52.290 --> 00:26:56.742
for pumping water out of coal mines,
00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:03.500
so that miners could get
deeper and deeper coal.
00:27:03.500 --> 00:27:07.380
And of course, there was a very convenient
fact associated with the steam engine
00:27:07.380 --> 00:27:09.130
of Watt -- it burned coal.
00:27:09.130 --> 00:27:16.040
It was a positive feedback loop that opened
the door to the massive use of coal that
00:27:16.040 --> 00:27:18.834
characterized the Industrial Revolution...
00:27:18.834 --> 00:27:22.316
- And this is the world
that coal has created.
00:27:22.316 --> 00:27:26.690
Black countries of belching
furnaces and humming machinery,
00:27:26.690 --> 00:27:29.120
industrial towns with grimy surroundings...
00:27:29.120 --> 00:27:32.920
- ...and eventually spread to every part
of the world where there is abundant coal.
00:27:36.856 --> 00:27:39.808
- Discovering that heat
could drive a machine,
00:27:39.808 --> 00:27:44.740
they opened up a great new
reservoir of reliable power.
00:27:44.740 --> 00:27:47.850
- So the steam engine that he
developed was an energy source
00:27:47.850 --> 00:27:51.980
that could power a lot of tools much
faster and more efficiently than humans
00:27:51.980 --> 00:27:54.100
could, but also transport.
00:27:54.100 --> 00:27:57.310
With the steam engine, we could
start moving people and materials
00:27:57.310 --> 00:28:01.430
across the landscape at higher
speeds, farther distances, and so on.
00:28:03.230 --> 00:28:09.400
- In 1889, the steam tractor ran clear
across South Dakota and changed my world.
00:28:09.400 --> 00:28:15.100
- Watt and the turn to fossil
fuels, and coal in particular,
00:28:15.100 --> 00:28:18.660
deserves to be understood as
a turning point in the history
00:28:18.660 --> 00:28:22.061
of the onset of the Anthropocene.
00:28:22.061 --> 00:28:22.560
- Steam.
00:28:22.560 --> 00:28:23.059
Inventions.
00:28:23.059 --> 00:28:23.590
Power.
00:28:23.590 --> 00:28:24.870
Black out the past.
00:28:24.870 --> 00:28:25.930
Forget the quiet cities.
00:28:25.930 --> 00:28:28.930
Bring in the steam and steel,
the iron men, the giants.
00:28:31.160 --> 00:28:36.620
- The warming that has been demonstrated
for the 20th century, and even
00:28:36.620 --> 00:28:43.458
the late 19th century, in a sense you can
trace that back to the tinkerer James Watt.
00:28:47.750 --> 00:28:53.074
- As farms became more mechanised, more
and more farm products flowed to market.
00:28:53.074 --> 00:28:58.882
Farmers cultivated many times more land,
raised many times more crops per man acre
00:28:58.882 --> 00:28:59.870
than ever before.
00:28:59.870 --> 00:29:06.460
- In so far as one can trace the onset
of the Anthropocene to individuals,
00:29:06.460 --> 00:29:15.070
one of those you quickly come to is the
German physical chemist Fritz Haber,
00:29:15.070 --> 00:29:18.880
who did a lot of things -- some of
which are not remembered very fondly,
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:24.500
such as advanced the German chemical
weapons program in World War I.
00:29:24.500 --> 00:29:31.305
But he also was the key scientist
behind the process of ammonia synthesis.
00:29:37.070 --> 00:29:40.110
- The process that could take
nitrogen from the atmosphere --
00:29:40.110 --> 00:29:43.420
a very unreactive compound --
00:29:43.420 --> 00:29:47.178
and react it to form ammonia, which
then could be used as fertilizer.
00:29:47.178 --> 00:29:51.440
- The wide awake farmer keeps
improving his crops and stock.
00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:56.550
- The reason this is so revolutionary
is that nitrogen shortage in the soil
00:29:56.550 --> 00:30:02.603
has always been one of the key
limits to what farmers can do.
00:30:02.603 --> 00:30:05.561
- High winds and sun.
00:30:05.561 --> 00:30:09.380
A country without rivers,
and with little rain.
00:30:09.380 --> 00:30:14.320
Settler, plow at your peril.
00:30:14.320 --> 00:30:17.540
- This process that Haber
developed broke a big bottleneck
00:30:17.540 --> 00:30:19.810
on the numbers of humans we
could have on the planet.
00:30:24.420 --> 00:30:31.110
- And according to some calculations,
something like 40% of the human population
00:30:31.110 --> 00:30:36.722
could not exist without the food
produced by nitrogenous fertilizers.
00:30:36.722 --> 00:30:39.982
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:30:45.670 --> 00:30:48.470
We wouldn't have 7 billion
people on the face of this Earth
00:30:48.470 --> 00:30:50.234
without Fritz Haber's invention.
00:30:53.240 --> 00:30:55.980
- So Haber's process
played a very large role
00:30:55.980 --> 00:30:58.058
in the development of the Anthropocene.
00:30:58.058 --> 00:31:01.218
(TYPING)
00:31:04.460 --> 00:31:08.080
- From the furrow of the rails
sprouted our modern industrial world.
00:31:10.830 --> 00:31:15.540
The idea of masses of goods for
masses of people took shape.
00:31:15.540 --> 00:31:18.740
- For people like me, who believe
that the Anthropocene is real
00:31:18.740 --> 00:31:23.470
and that it has already begun
and we're already in it,
00:31:23.470 --> 00:31:28.540
one of the organizing
concepts of it is this notion
00:31:28.540 --> 00:31:32.247
of a great acceleration in the
middle of the 20th century.
00:31:37.710 --> 00:31:39.500
- Science and research --
00:31:39.500 --> 00:31:42.350
key words in industrial progress.
00:31:42.350 --> 00:31:44.520
- You might date it to 1945.
00:31:44.520 --> 00:31:48.010
You might prefer rounder
numbers and date it to 1950.
00:31:48.010 --> 00:31:51.010
- No need for the bride to feel tragic.
00:31:51.010 --> 00:31:53.180
The rest is push button magic.
00:31:53.180 --> 00:31:57.660
- But what it comes down to
is a tremendous expansion
00:31:57.660 --> 00:32:06.358
in the scale, scope, and pace of human
intervention in the ecology of the planet.
00:32:06.358 --> 00:32:09.774
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:32:25.400 --> 00:32:29.785
- We're the equivalent of a teenage spree.
00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:35.411
And fossil fuels have again, largely --
00:32:35.411 --> 00:32:37.910
and technology and the things
that have come through that --
00:32:37.910 --> 00:32:41.780
have enabled us to just be in this amazing
muscle-flexing moment in our history
00:32:41.780 --> 00:32:43.920
as a species.
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:48.730
- Then in 1954 a vaccine to
prevent paralytic polio...
00:32:48.730 --> 00:32:51.780
- The Great Acceleration
in the Anthropocene --
00:32:51.780 --> 00:32:53.660
what happens in the '50s?
00:32:53.660 --> 00:32:57.430
We have an amazing shift in medicine.
00:32:57.430 --> 00:32:58.750
We have more antibiotics.
00:32:58.750 --> 00:33:00.000
We have vaccines.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.230
We have the potential to
live longer life spans.
00:33:04.230 --> 00:33:08.480
- Vaccination now will save lives
from death or paralysis this year.
00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:14.250
- So it means that we have more time
to create, to think, and to want.
00:33:14.250 --> 00:33:16.290
And then you have also technology.
00:33:16.290 --> 00:33:17.980
You have TV, you have radio.
00:33:17.980 --> 00:33:21.172
It begins to spread out, like a virus.
00:33:21.172 --> 00:33:22.926
- Am I talking to myself or what?
00:33:22.926 --> 00:33:23.425
- Rocky!
00:33:23.425 --> 00:33:25.650
Rocky, it works!
00:33:25.650 --> 00:33:26.941
It works, Rocky!
00:33:26.941 --> 00:33:27.940
- We desire what we see.
00:33:27.940 --> 00:33:28.860
- It works!
00:33:28.860 --> 00:33:34.280
- So we began an intensive consumption
pattern that started in the '50s.
00:33:34.280 --> 00:33:38.676
The level of consumption of humanity
grew exponentially since then.
00:33:38.676 --> 00:33:42.078
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:33:46.938 --> 00:33:52.105
In a nutshell, for me, the Anthropocene
is linked to a huge behavioral change
00:33:52.105 --> 00:33:55.610
in our perception of need and want.
00:33:55.610 --> 00:33:58.610
- With new uses there arise new wants.
00:33:58.610 --> 00:34:02.732
New wants mean new markets,
and new prosperity.
00:34:02.732 --> 00:34:04.690
- The Great Acceleration
for me is always going
00:34:04.690 --> 00:34:09.610
to be associated with Will Steffen's classic
paper that really introduced the term.
00:34:09.610 --> 00:34:13.900
And he's got a panel of
many different variables
00:34:13.900 --> 00:34:16.739
that are increasing
exponentially in recent times.
00:34:16.739 --> 00:34:17.883
Population density.
00:34:20.706 --> 00:34:24.460
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
00:34:24.460 --> 00:34:26.480
Fossil fuel combustion.
00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:27.501
McDonald's restaurants.
00:34:31.929 --> 00:34:33.230
Land clearing.
00:34:33.230 --> 00:34:35.060
Use of fertilizer for nitrogen.
00:34:35.060 --> 00:34:40.010
- The savings can be as much as a
dollar an acre for each acre fertilized.
00:34:40.010 --> 00:34:40.887
- Soil erosion.
00:34:45.270 --> 00:34:46.050
The list goes on.
00:34:46.050 --> 00:34:49.340
- Masses of things for masses of people.
00:34:49.340 --> 00:34:55.080
Plywood, canned goods, drugs, paint,
newsprint, auto parts, neat copper wire.
00:34:55.080 --> 00:34:58.370
- What struck us was an
amazing discontinuity
00:34:58.370 --> 00:35:00.190
in the middle of the 20th century.
00:35:00.190 --> 00:35:07.550
Right around 1950, if a parameter existed at
that time like population, it just shifted.
00:35:07.550 --> 00:35:09.760
It started going up quite dramatically.
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:13.320
And if you look at all the
indicators of the human enterprise --
00:35:13.320 --> 00:35:16.300
be it population, be it
gross domestic product,
00:35:16.300 --> 00:35:21.310
be it resource use like
fertilizer use, damming of rivers,
00:35:21.310 --> 00:35:26.600
be it conversion of forest to crop
land, be it fisheries, or whatever --
00:35:26.600 --> 00:35:31.510
things took off around 1950, at
the end of the Second World War.
00:35:31.510 --> 00:35:34.850
We said that really is stage
two of the Anthropocene.
00:35:34.850 --> 00:35:40.180
- Well the Great Acceleration is, in
terms of Earth history, it's very neat --
00:35:40.180 --> 00:35:44.960
because it's the beginning of the nuclear
era, of all of these things of extinctions,
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:47.910
of biodiversity loss.
00:35:47.910 --> 00:35:52.840
So it's another ratcheting
up of the human pertubation,
00:35:52.840 --> 00:35:54.355
the human disturbance of the Earth.
00:35:54.355 --> 00:36:00.840
- Communication has made equal strides,
with callers able to see as well as hear.
00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:03.880
- Some of the parameters we use,
like communication, like telephones,
00:36:03.880 --> 00:36:06.380
there were virtually none before 1950.
00:36:06.380 --> 00:36:09.020
Motor cars -- there were
a few, but not many.
00:36:09.020 --> 00:36:10.440
They absolutely took off.
00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:13.602
- (SINGING) How do you feel
about this fine automobile?
00:36:13.602 --> 00:36:17.350
- (SINGING) It's easy to
see myself taking the wheel.
00:36:17.350 --> 00:36:19.460
- And it changes the way we live.
00:36:19.460 --> 00:36:21.130
Suburbs start appearing.
00:36:21.130 --> 00:36:25.290
Long distance travel by ordinary
people becomes possible.
00:36:25.290 --> 00:36:28.010
- The automobile and the
power behind it have been
00:36:28.010 --> 00:36:30.970
major factors in the growth of our country.
00:36:30.970 --> 00:36:34.600
We can drive anywhere we want,
at any time, for any reason --
00:36:34.600 --> 00:36:36.300
including fun.
00:36:36.300 --> 00:36:43.373
- The Great Acceleration also consists of
an enormous expansion in the use of energy.
00:36:46.920 --> 00:36:51.950
From the 1940s onward, oil became
increasingly the most important fuel
00:36:51.950 --> 00:36:53.241
on the face of the Earth.
00:36:53.241 --> 00:36:57.300
- The whole idea will blow up sky high.
00:36:57.300 --> 00:37:02.712
Around here, blowing sky high was power
to revolutionize man's way of life.
00:37:02.712 --> 00:37:06.650
For the farmer, power to run the tractor...
00:37:06.650 --> 00:37:14.630
- About 1960, it eclipsed coal as the most
important energy source for humankind.
00:37:14.630 --> 00:37:23.730
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:37:23.730 --> 00:37:29.150
- Now CO2 had crept up, and by 1950 it was
somewhere around 310 parts per million.
00:37:29.150 --> 00:37:32.900
Now this is above the 285
upper limit of the Holocene.
00:37:32.900 --> 00:37:35.600
Since then, in the
intervening 50 or 60 years,
00:37:35.600 --> 00:37:39.040
CO2 has gone from 310 to
nearly 390 parts per million.
00:37:39.040 --> 00:37:40.180
It's just rocketed up.
00:37:40.180 --> 00:37:46.340
Temperature now is clearly above
the first half of the 20th century.
00:37:46.340 --> 00:37:49.240
We see other gases, nitrous
oxide and methane, go up.
00:37:49.240 --> 00:37:53.270
We see the ozone hole appear for the first
time, because we were able to invent --
00:37:53.270 --> 00:37:55.580
synthesize -- CFCs,
chlorofluorohydrocarbons.
00:38:02.220 --> 00:38:04.730
- This hairspray leaves
hair feeling like hair.
00:38:08.160 --> 00:38:12.304
Ozon Fluid Net, the hairdresser's
hairspray in the pink and gray can.
00:38:17.200 --> 00:38:21.569
- So we see all sorts of markers that are
telling us that the planet has shifted.
00:38:21.569 --> 00:38:24.992
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:38:30.860 --> 00:38:34.240
And so I think it's absolutely
clear, indisputable,
00:38:34.240 --> 00:38:37.080
we're moving out of the
Holocene at a fast rate.
00:38:37.080 --> 00:38:39.110
And you say "Well, why did that occur?"
00:38:39.110 --> 00:38:44.980
Well, the interesting reason
there is not technological.
00:38:44.980 --> 00:38:47.700
We had all the technologies already there.
00:38:47.700 --> 00:38:50.210
It was probably
institutional, that it finally
00:38:50.210 --> 00:38:54.536
took the Second World War to break down
the old feudal European institutions
00:38:54.536 --> 00:38:57.660
and bring in the new Bretton Woods
institutions, the International Monetary
00:38:57.660 --> 00:38:59.670
Fund, the World Bank, and so on.
00:39:01.200 --> 00:39:04.930
- Summing up the importance of
Bretton Woods, Mr. Vincent says...
00:39:04.930 --> 00:39:09.533
- We can be thankful that
the history we are now making
00:39:09.533 --> 00:39:16.010
is not another chapter in the almost
endless chronicle of war and strife.
00:39:16.010 --> 00:39:19.680
- And this just completely transformed
how we transmitted knowledge,
00:39:19.680 --> 00:39:23.260
how we moved money and capital and so on.
00:39:23.260 --> 00:39:25.660
- Since World War II, communism --
00:39:25.660 --> 00:39:27.970
by force and by propaganda --
00:39:27.970 --> 00:39:30.580
has extended its frontiers
into the heart of Europe.
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:39.010
- Behind the Great Acceleration
in the Anthropocene after 1945,
00:39:39.010 --> 00:39:45.490
is the extraordinary geopolitical
pressures that came with the Cold War.
00:39:45.490 --> 00:39:49.030
So that big countries, big economies --
00:39:49.030 --> 00:39:55.450
by which I mean the US, the Soviet Union,
China, and to a lesser extent Britain,
00:39:55.450 --> 00:39:58.370
France, India --
00:39:58.370 --> 00:40:00.990
the leaders in these
countries felt themselves
00:40:00.990 --> 00:40:10.710
to be locked into an eternal
competition for a limited good, which
00:40:10.710 --> 00:40:13.020
is power in the international system.
00:40:13.020 --> 00:40:20.840
And they were often prepared
to take risks that otherwise I
00:40:20.840 --> 00:40:25.160
think they would have been
very unlikely to have taken.
00:40:25.160 --> 00:40:31.290
Risks that made sense only if one thought
one was locked in a life and death struggle
00:40:31.290 --> 00:40:33.052
that one had to win.
00:40:33.052 --> 00:40:39.294
- I woke at midnight and saw
my little brother smiling.
00:40:39.294 --> 00:40:46.000
I asked him why he smiled, and he
said "I dreamed of Chairman Mao."
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:51.740
- Chairman Mao is certainly a person who you
could point to as an individual player that
00:40:51.740 --> 00:40:53.740
has a role in the Anthropocene.
00:40:56.240 --> 00:41:02.210
- He was the main moving force behind a new
military-industrial complex where none had
00:41:02.210 --> 00:41:08.750
existed before, ratcheting up levels of
pollution and resource use and extraction
00:41:08.750 --> 00:41:10.832
in China.
00:41:10.832 --> 00:41:16.050
- Workers at this plant designed and
built the paper-making machinery.
00:41:16.050 --> 00:41:20.280
They were also building a little
furnace for the Leap Forward.
00:41:20.280 --> 00:41:25.490
- Every large tree was cut down at
that time in the Great Leap Forward
00:41:25.490 --> 00:41:28.351
as part of this plan to make
steel in the countryside.
00:41:28.351 --> 00:41:32.530
- One third of Communist China's steel
production comes from these mills --
00:41:32.530 --> 00:41:35.350
about three million tons a year.
00:41:35.350 --> 00:41:37.910
- They cut down all the trees to fuel this.
00:41:37.910 --> 00:41:42.370
From an ecological point of view, kind
of unprecedented ecological change,
00:41:42.370 --> 00:41:45.680
initiated by really a stroke of a pen.
00:41:45.680 --> 00:41:49.810
- And everywhere in China, near
industrial plants and on communes,
00:41:49.810 --> 00:41:54.058
small furnaces have added
their output to the big mills.
00:41:54.058 --> 00:41:58.150
- A single, kind of misguided policy:
cut down all the big trees in China.
00:41:58.150 --> 00:42:02.110
Now, strangely enough, there's more tree
cover in China than there was before --
00:42:02.110 --> 00:42:04.870
but there's no big old trees,
at least in the villages.
00:42:04.870 --> 00:42:08.050
They were all cut down then.
00:42:08.050 --> 00:42:13.790
- So he didn't revolutionize the
Anthropocene the way he tried
00:42:13.790 --> 00:42:17.648
to revolutionize politics
in the world and in China...
00:42:17.648 --> 00:42:24.460
(SINGING IN CHINESE)
00:42:24.460 --> 00:42:32.468
...but he did have an outsized impact, more
so than 99.999% of his fellow human beings.
00:42:32.468 --> 00:42:35.744
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:43:00.140 --> 00:43:05.460
- We now understand, in the last
decade, more and more the impact
00:43:05.460 --> 00:43:07.347
of human activities on the environment.
00:43:13.810 --> 00:43:16.990
We were pretty much in a state of...
00:43:16.990 --> 00:43:22.170
blissful ignorance, shall I say, during
the second half of the 20th century.
00:43:22.170 --> 00:43:25.670
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:43:31.423 --> 00:43:35.564
- I wonder if the years ahead
will be as bright as this.
00:43:35.564 --> 00:43:37.230
- We haven't seen anything yet, darling.
00:43:37.230 --> 00:43:47.080
- We had an unconscious,
celebratory approach to resources.
00:43:49.430 --> 00:43:56.770
- Somewhere, someone sets a blast to erupt
rich ores of metal from stubborn rock.
00:43:56.770 --> 00:43:58.520
- Just kind of, "Wow, look what I can do!"
00:43:58.520 --> 00:44:02.020
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:44:14.610 --> 00:44:21.230
- Only those clays containing 50% or
60% aluminum ore and known as bauxite
00:44:21.230 --> 00:44:23.410
are mined for commercial production.
00:44:23.410 --> 00:44:26.607
- Building a smelter in the
wilderness and harnessing the river,
00:44:26.607 --> 00:44:28.940
and taking the bauxite from
the other side of the world,
00:44:28.940 --> 00:44:31.900
because that's where the energy
was, embedded in the river.
00:44:31.900 --> 00:44:37.010
And look what we can do, that sense
of this human domination of wilderness
00:44:37.010 --> 00:44:40.000
and this Earth system
was purely celebratory.
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:42.160
And now it's like, "Oh!"
00:44:42.160 --> 00:44:45.740
- As we consume nature's
resources to feed our industry,
00:44:45.740 --> 00:44:50.720
these processes are in turn
destroying our environment.
00:44:50.720 --> 00:44:54.830
Conservationists have warned that
unless immediate measures are taken,
00:44:54.830 --> 00:44:58.890
this generation of humans may go
down in history as the greatest
00:44:58.890 --> 00:45:00.330
destructive vandals of all time.
00:45:21.770 --> 00:45:24.230
- Unless we do bring these
chemicals under better control,
00:45:24.230 --> 00:45:28.810
we are certainly headed for disaster.
00:45:28.810 --> 00:45:31.970
- Rachel Carson was often
considered as the first person
00:45:31.970 --> 00:45:33.980
who started the environmental movement.
00:45:33.980 --> 00:45:39.190
And she was very important to challenge
this post-World War II idea --
00:45:39.190 --> 00:45:41.610
if you like, the Great Acceleration idea --
00:45:41.610 --> 00:45:48.760
that progress was a neoclassically,
economically driven increase in wealth.
00:45:48.760 --> 00:45:53.610
- Each enterprising achievement
brings wonderfully new ways of life
00:45:53.610 --> 00:45:55.490
at our fingertips.
00:45:55.490 --> 00:46:00.730
- Increase in stuff that we could
consume, and certainly lifestyles
00:46:00.730 --> 00:46:02.910
improved in many different ways.
00:46:02.910 --> 00:46:09.644
- The outlook for the future is as big
as the cities, as warm as the towns,
00:46:09.644 --> 00:46:13.600
and as bright as the people.
00:46:13.600 --> 00:46:16.310
It's a great life, hey Bob?
00:46:16.310 --> 00:46:18.030
And you too, Judy.
00:46:18.030 --> 00:46:19.800
- Many people were brought out of poverty.
00:46:19.800 --> 00:46:24.515
But Rachel Carson, she showed us this
type of progress has its downsides.
00:46:24.515 --> 00:46:30.280
- A conflagration touched off by a chemical
explosion, kept going like a chain reaction
00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:32.270
by a continuing series of minor blasts.
00:46:32.270 --> 00:46:37.050
- The work that made her famous,
and helped to mobilize concern
00:46:37.050 --> 00:46:42.150
about the human impact on the
environment, came in 1962.
00:46:42.150 --> 00:46:49.720
That work was called Silent Spring, and it
drew attention to the impact of pesticides
00:46:49.720 --> 00:46:51.712
and insecticides...
00:46:51.712 --> 00:46:56.320
- Advanced farming technology is taking
a terrible toll on the environment.
00:46:56.320 --> 00:46:59.560
Chemicals such as DDT run
off into streams which
00:46:59.560 --> 00:47:06.990
carry them into the marshlands and lakes,
home to much of the world's wildlife.
00:47:06.990 --> 00:47:10.693
- ...upon living things,
especially upon birds.
00:47:10.693 --> 00:47:14.640
- These birds are the victims
of man's carelessness.
00:47:14.640 --> 00:47:17.888
We may never know just how many
birds, small mammals, and fish
00:47:17.888 --> 00:47:21.919
have been poisoned by weed killers
and insecticides used by men
00:47:21.919 --> 00:47:23.460
without sufficient care or knowledge.
00:47:23.460 --> 00:47:26.953
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:47:38.440 --> 00:47:43.790
- You might say that Rachel Carson
used the birds almost as a metaphor.
00:47:48.970 --> 00:47:52.300
The larger issue that she
was drawing attention to
00:47:52.300 --> 00:48:00.880
was the new production of new kinds of
chemicals that did not exist in nature.
00:48:00.880 --> 00:48:05.900
There are hundreds of thousands of these
that the ingenuity of chemical engineers
00:48:05.900 --> 00:48:07.200
had created.
00:48:07.200 --> 00:48:12.018
(TYPING)
00:48:12.018 --> 00:48:17.020
- A kingdom of scientific research,
a new domain of man's own creation.
00:48:17.020 --> 00:48:21.090
A world of primary substances
which never existed before.
00:48:21.090 --> 00:48:24.910
The aristocrats of this new
realm are the phenolic plastics.
00:48:24.910 --> 00:48:30.740
- So that these inevitably
were being released --
00:48:30.740 --> 00:48:33.750
sometimes intentionally,
sometimes accidentally --
00:48:33.750 --> 00:48:35.220
into the environment.
00:48:35.220 --> 00:48:39.370
And therefore the ecosystems --
00:48:39.370 --> 00:48:44.870
of the United States in particular, but
to some extent the world in general --
00:48:44.870 --> 00:48:54.320
were acquiring new, entirely artificial,
entirely man-made veneer to them...
00:48:54.320 --> 00:48:57.540
- The science that has carried
us beyond the machine age,
00:48:57.540 --> 00:49:01.590
on into a world of new materials
that are not found in nature:
00:49:01.590 --> 00:49:05.810
Cellulose film, dyes,
plastics, neoprene, and rayon,
00:49:05.810 --> 00:49:10.600
that makes life more luxurious, more
beautiful for everybody everywhere.
00:49:10.600 --> 00:49:14.140
- ...which perhaps was more than
just a veneer and a coating,
00:49:14.140 --> 00:49:20.040
because eventually the
persistent new chemicals --
00:49:20.040 --> 00:49:24.560
ones that do not break
down quickly by nature --
00:49:24.560 --> 00:49:30.440
work their way into all the nooks and
crannies of the Earth's ecosystem.
00:49:30.440 --> 00:49:39.470
So this was a beginning, as she saw it, of
a sort of new artificialization of nature --
00:49:39.470 --> 00:49:42.482
which she regarded with some trepidation.
00:49:46.810 --> 00:49:48.794
- What's it to you?
00:49:51.770 --> 00:49:56.230
It's a remarkable new
polyester film called mylar.
00:49:56.230 --> 00:50:01.634
- Plastic, plastic, plastic,
plastic, plastic, plastic.
00:50:01.634 --> 00:50:06.640
- For me, plastic represents a lot
of what the Anthropocene is about.
00:50:06.640 --> 00:50:11.140
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:50:11.140 --> 00:50:17.710
You find it in components of the most
impressive technology for outer space.
00:50:17.710 --> 00:50:22.875
And you find it in the shoes of
Maya girls in the town where I live.
00:50:22.875 --> 00:50:26.037
It covers so many of
our needs that it really
00:50:26.037 --> 00:50:28.702
represents a huge shift in our behavior.
00:50:31.594 --> 00:50:34.740
Now everything is wrapped in
plastic, or has some component.
00:50:34.740 --> 00:50:42.903
And so plastic really represents to
me a major symbol of the Anthropocene.
00:50:42.903 --> 00:50:44.256
- Can you tear it?
00:50:49.790 --> 00:50:52.350
It's almost impossible.
00:50:52.350 --> 00:50:55.430
- Man, the innovator, is
the only living organism
00:50:55.430 --> 00:50:59.937
to create his own unnatural
habitat: the city.
00:50:59.937 --> 00:51:04.796
In his drive for independence man
has moved from the shelter of nature
00:51:04.796 --> 00:51:07.440
into the artificial life of
a manufactured community --
00:51:07.440 --> 00:51:13.320
a monument to superiority
over nature and his vanity.
00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:15.980
- Well we live in a time
when everything we look at
00:51:15.980 --> 00:51:18.520
is an artifact, already, of our existence.
00:51:18.520 --> 00:51:20.830
And there isn't a place on
this planet just about you
00:51:20.830 --> 00:51:22.980
can go where there isn't that reality.
00:51:22.980 --> 00:51:26.466
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:51:37.930 --> 00:51:41.620
In fact, a synthetic gas, like it
has one of those hexafluorofluro --
00:51:41.620 --> 00:51:42.779
it's not a CFC --
00:51:42.779 --> 00:51:46.070
but one like that, that showed up in
atmosphere samples up in the stratosphere,
00:51:46.070 --> 00:51:48.220
and bubbles in Antarctic ice.
00:51:48.220 --> 00:51:49.960
And no one knows where it came from.
00:51:49.960 --> 00:51:55.239
It's this weird chemical that was definitely
synthesized, but not intentionally.
00:52:00.330 --> 00:52:02.176
It was like some byproduct of something.
00:52:02.176 --> 00:52:04.550
And that said to me something
very powerful at that time.
00:52:04.550 --> 00:52:05.550
We're just there.
00:52:05.550 --> 00:52:09.320
This is us, this planet,
for better and worse.
00:52:18.890 --> 00:52:22.060
- The Anthropocene has
seen new types of rock.
00:52:22.060 --> 00:52:24.890
So concrete is a new type of rock...
00:52:24.890 --> 00:52:30.930
- The look of America expressed
in materials old and new.
00:52:38.780 --> 00:52:40.760
- ...made in large amounts.
00:52:40.760 --> 00:52:44.260
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:53:05.340 --> 00:53:08.740
Brick is a type of mud rock
which has been, if you like,
00:53:08.740 --> 00:53:10.998
flash metamorphosed in a furnace.
00:53:18.560 --> 00:53:22.320
And again that has been shaped
into peculiar shapes which
00:53:22.320 --> 00:53:26.010
will be seen in the future as something
again quite different from anything
00:53:26.010 --> 00:53:28.258
in the previous fossil record.
00:53:28.258 --> 00:53:31.174
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:53:38.160 --> 00:53:44.325
- Man is exploring a source of
enormous, potentially useful energy:
00:53:44.325 --> 00:53:46.292
the nuclear explosion.
00:53:46.292 --> 00:53:49.770
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:53:55.602 --> 00:53:59.980
(TYPING)
00:53:59.980 --> 00:54:06.070
- One of the characteristics of the
Anthropocene is places that you might call
00:54:06.070 --> 00:54:08.060
sacrifice zones...
00:54:08.060 --> 00:54:12.560
- A brilliance of 500 suns lights
hundreds of miles of the Pacific,
00:54:12.560 --> 00:54:15.451
and the force of a million
tons of TNT is released.
00:54:17.656 --> 00:54:22.870
- ...where for the alleged
betterment of humankind,
00:54:22.870 --> 00:54:28.130
some very nasty things were
done with mainly local impacts.
00:54:28.130 --> 00:54:32.800
And a great example of this
would be the nuclear archipelagos
00:54:32.800 --> 00:54:37.237
built for atomic weapons
production during the Cold War.
00:54:37.237 --> 00:54:41.170
- Even with these googles they saw a
stab of light as brilliant as lightening.
00:54:41.170 --> 00:54:44.670
The bomb is away!
00:54:44.670 --> 00:54:47.170
It's falling.
00:54:47.170 --> 00:54:50.616
(EXPLOSION)
00:54:52.580 --> 00:54:58.665
One world at the crossroads watches
and ponders the lessons and the future.
00:54:58.665 --> 00:55:02.712
- The sacrifice zones of
the nuclear archipelagos
00:55:02.712 --> 00:55:09.630
have now an artificial character to them,
because they include nuclear radiation
00:55:09.630 --> 00:55:14.510
in the form of waste dumped
into the local environment.
00:55:14.510 --> 00:55:15.760
These are now --
00:55:15.760 --> 00:55:21.320
in a chemical sense, in a biological
sense, in a radiological sense --
00:55:21.320 --> 00:55:24.030
environments that are entirely novel.
00:55:24.030 --> 00:55:26.260
There's nothing like this
on the face of the Earth.
00:55:33.610 --> 00:55:37.560
- And there's probably never been
anything like this, quite like this,
00:55:37.560 --> 00:55:40.410
in the history of the universe
-- on this or any other planet.
00:55:40.410 --> 00:55:47.970
So this is a signature of human
action, these sacrifice zones,
00:55:47.970 --> 00:55:51.680
and a signature of the Anthropocene.
00:55:54.180 --> 00:55:57.640
(EXPLOSION)
00:56:08.930 --> 00:56:13.304
- The kind of strata we're producing --
what one would call the urban stratum,
00:56:13.304 --> 00:56:16.740
of cities, and roads, and
landscapes, and railways and such --
00:56:16.740 --> 00:56:20.240
there's been nothing like them
for four and a half billion years.
00:56:26.207 --> 00:56:31.030
Some of the minerals we're creating --
things like pure aluminium, pure titanium,
00:56:31.030 --> 00:56:33.360
pure molybdenum, such like that --
00:56:33.360 --> 00:56:36.940
nothing like that has existed on Earth
for four and a half billion years.
00:56:36.940 --> 00:56:40.976
So these are entire novelties, and there's
quite a lot of this material around.
00:56:40.976 --> 00:56:45.836
- Aluminum flows in an uninterrupted stream.
00:56:45.836 --> 00:56:50.587
Aluminum is transformed into a
hundred thousand useful things.
00:56:50.587 --> 00:56:53.170
- What we're talking about in
terms of the effect of the Great
00:56:53.170 --> 00:56:56.690
Acceleration on the planet are
the things that are well known.
00:56:56.690 --> 00:56:59.030
It's the greenhouse gases,
and it's the climate.
00:56:59.030 --> 00:56:59.973
But it's much more.
00:56:59.973 --> 00:57:03.994
(GUN SHOTS)
00:57:03.994 --> 00:57:07.334
- In just ten months,
fashionable women have caused
00:57:07.334 --> 00:57:13.097
the deaths of 500 leopards, 100,000 blue
foxes, three quarters of a million beavers,
00:57:13.097 --> 00:57:15.192
and half a million seals.
00:57:20.964 --> 00:57:24.166
(MOTORBIKE ENGINE)
00:57:24.166 --> 00:57:30.110
- The Anthropocene had a major impact on
the biodiversity here in the Rift Valley,
00:57:30.110 --> 00:57:33.310
where there were almost 400
different species of birds --
00:57:33.310 --> 00:57:35.790
including the famous flamingos.
00:57:35.790 --> 00:57:39.460
There were microorganisms that
fitted within their food chain.
00:57:39.460 --> 00:57:42.890
But as a result of
Anthropocene, many fish species
00:57:42.890 --> 00:57:47.100
in some of the lakes like Lake
Naivasha were completely wiped out.
00:57:47.100 --> 00:57:50.840
In fact, right now when we talk of Lake
Naivasha, it's almost an ecological desert.
00:57:55.880 --> 00:57:59.220
These birds have now completely
migrated to other areas.
00:57:59.220 --> 00:58:03.980
For example, in the Rift Valley they
moved to Lake Bogoria, towards the north.
00:58:10.260 --> 00:58:13.867
- The Anthropocene is much
more than only climate change.
00:58:13.867 --> 00:58:19.563
A ship, when it's sailing without cargo,
it has to be filled in its ballast tank
00:58:19.563 --> 00:58:20.354
with ballast water.
00:58:20.354 --> 00:58:26.360
In that water which you take, you also take
approximately 7,000 to 10,000 organisms.
00:58:26.360 --> 00:58:28.870
Most of them of course, are alien species.
00:58:33.271 --> 00:58:38.020
Transport them world round,
release them somewhere --
00:58:38.020 --> 00:58:44.490
this is the biggest ever migration
we have witnessed on the Earth.
00:58:44.490 --> 00:58:47.990
And if this is not the Anthropocene,
then what the Anthropocene is?
00:58:52.730 --> 00:58:56.190
- The impact of the harbor
process on the Earth is enormous,
00:58:56.190 --> 00:59:02.700
because of the creation of dead zones by
the over-fertilization of coastal zones.
00:59:02.700 --> 00:59:05.100
- There were live corals
up until very recently.
00:59:05.100 --> 00:59:07.980
And these corals have all
been killed by the runoff.
00:59:07.980 --> 00:59:11.941
- Over thousands of square kilometers every
summer, everything bigger than bacteria
00:59:11.941 --> 00:59:13.234
is being killed off.
00:59:18.890 --> 00:59:22.990
The Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake
Bay, the Baltic, and other areas,
00:59:22.990 --> 00:59:25.265
we're having these growing dead zones.
00:59:25.265 --> 00:59:29.130
- World wide, ocean dead
zones now number about 400.
00:59:29.130 --> 00:59:36.555
(MUSIC PLAYING)
00:59:36.555 --> 00:59:39.030
- It doesn't seem to have
any central nervous system.
00:59:39.030 --> 00:59:41.010
- Then how does it move?
00:59:41.010 --> 00:59:42.990
- All plants move.
00:59:42.990 --> 00:59:46.950
But they don't usually pull themselves
out of the ground and chase you.
00:59:52.400 --> 00:59:54.410
- So if we start picking
apart what's happening
00:59:54.410 --> 00:59:57.995
to the biological fabric of the
planet, it's been made over.
00:59:57.995 --> 01:00:00.570
It's been affected by
humans for a long time.
01:00:00.570 --> 01:00:04.080
And that's not just losing
species, it's moving species around
01:00:04.080 --> 01:00:06.710
that then take off in a new environment.
01:00:06.710 --> 01:00:10.580
The biological part of this planet
has been drastically changed,
01:00:10.580 --> 01:00:13.080
particularly in the last 50 or 60 years.
01:00:13.080 --> 01:00:16.559
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:00:31.469 --> 01:00:35.980
(TYPING)
01:00:35.980 --> 01:00:41.260
(ROCKET LAUNCHING)
01:00:41.260 --> 01:00:44.260
- This is what an astronaut
in the Gemini will see.
01:00:44.260 --> 01:00:48.720
At 17,000 miles an hour, the curvature
of the Earth is plainly visible.
01:00:48.720 --> 01:00:54.870
Through the magic of the camera, Earthlings
take their first ride into space.
01:00:54.870 --> 01:00:59.730
- The build-up to this concept of the
Anthropocene I think has to also include,
01:00:59.730 --> 01:01:02.370
in the late '60s, the Apollo space program.
01:01:02.370 --> 01:01:07.650
- Two days before Christmas in 1968,
Astronauts Borman, Lovell, and Anders,
01:01:07.650 --> 01:01:11.640
became the first humans to pass out
of Earth's gravitational control
01:01:11.640 --> 01:01:15.320
and into that of another body
in the solar system: the Moon.
01:01:15.320 --> 01:01:19.810
- Everything in a NASA mission is completely
planned out, right down to where you pee
01:01:19.810 --> 01:01:20.820
and what you eat.
01:01:20.820 --> 01:01:23.300
And here is this moment
no one had anticipated --
01:01:23.300 --> 01:01:26.160
the emotional power of the Earthrise.
01:01:26.160 --> 01:01:28.660
- Oh my god, look at
that picture over there.
01:01:28.660 --> 01:01:30.660
Here's the Earth coming up.
01:01:30.660 --> 01:01:31.760
Wow, is that pretty.
01:01:33.227 --> 01:01:35.060
- Hey don't take that, that's not scheduled.
01:01:36.940 --> 01:01:40.050
- You got a color film, Jim?
01:01:40.050 --> 01:01:42.010
Hand me a roll of color, quick.
01:01:42.010 --> 01:01:42.990
- Oh, man...
01:01:42.990 --> 01:01:43.980
- Quick.
01:01:43.980 --> 01:01:46.940
- And they were scurrying for
the camera, like, "Is there film?
01:01:46.940 --> 01:01:47.500
Who got it?"
01:01:47.500 --> 01:01:51.090
And there was even a debate about who took
the picture, because it was so hurried.
01:01:51.090 --> 01:01:51.757
- It takes film.
01:01:51.757 --> 01:01:53.048
- There's several of them here.
01:01:53.048 --> 01:01:53.845
Give it to me.
01:01:53.845 --> 01:01:55.790
- Let's get the right setting here.
01:01:55.790 --> 01:01:57.441
Just calm down, Lovell.
01:01:57.441 --> 01:01:58.932
- Well, I got ...
01:01:58.932 --> 01:02:01.920
Oh, that's a beautiful shot.
01:02:01.920 --> 01:02:03.800
- It's become a transformative point.
01:02:03.800 --> 01:02:08.220
I think that was the sense of us
regarding ourselves from afar,
01:02:08.220 --> 01:02:11.789
like our mirror moment, and realizing --
01:02:11.789 --> 01:02:14.330
really integrating -- the idea
that we are on a small planet,
01:02:14.330 --> 01:02:17.250
which was always sort of a
touchy-feely abstraction.
01:02:17.250 --> 01:02:21.350
And then there it was, much
more clearly as seen from space.
01:02:24.960 --> 01:02:32.170
- That wonderful blue, green, white globe,
floating out in the blackness of space.
01:02:32.170 --> 01:02:36.060
And that actually had a
big impact on humanity,
01:02:36.060 --> 01:02:38.280
because it showed the
Earth wasn't limitless.
01:02:38.280 --> 01:02:46.490
It showed it was actually a fairly small
sphere out in a very, very big universe.
01:02:46.490 --> 01:02:50.130
So seeing our own planet from outside
our own planet, I think had a big impact.
01:02:58.180 --> 01:03:04.010
- And now scientists, like many of the
people studying this Anthropocene question,
01:03:04.010 --> 01:03:07.410
they're kind of like the adult in the
room -- going to the teenager, "Now, son,
01:03:07.410 --> 01:03:11.731
if you don't modulate your behavior
or you're going to hit the wall."
01:03:11.731 --> 01:03:12.230
- Hi, Dad.
01:03:12.230 --> 01:03:13.771
- Must you always make so much noise?
01:03:13.771 --> 01:03:14.975
This is not a parade ground.
01:03:14.975 --> 01:03:17.975
But it's still this sense of oh, you
know, this is the end of the party.
01:03:17.975 --> 01:03:30.140
- (SINGING) After the party is over and
done with, what a mess the place is in.
01:03:30.140 --> 01:03:34.360
That's when the clean up blues begin.
01:03:34.360 --> 01:03:38.700
- And that I think is a big part of what
frames this idea of the Anthropocene
01:03:38.700 --> 01:03:42.700
and this transition we're going through,
from the equivalent of our teen,
01:03:42.700 --> 01:03:47.110
celebratory "look what I can do" years to
that transition toward grown-up behavior.
01:03:47.110 --> 01:03:50.580
And I think that's what makes this
all a sort of an uncomfortable moment.
01:03:50.580 --> 01:03:57.010
- It could be, for example, that out of a
recognition of the potential dangers that
01:03:57.010 --> 01:04:03.964
the Anthropocene poses, that human beings
are going to bring the Anthropocene
01:04:03.964 --> 01:04:05.416
to a halt...
01:04:05.416 --> 01:04:11.230
(WHISTLE BLOWING)
01:04:11.230 --> 01:04:14.150
- ...and it will then be
followed by some other -cene.
01:04:14.150 --> 01:04:16.770
We'll have to invent a new term
for that when the time comes.
01:04:16.770 --> 01:04:18.430
That is a theoretical possibility.
01:04:18.430 --> 01:04:21.190
I do not expect to see that anytime soon.
01:04:21.190 --> 01:04:25.410
I think there are too many arrows
pointing in the other direction,
01:04:25.410 --> 01:04:30.370
pointing in the direction of a
continuation of the Anthropocene --
01:04:30.370 --> 01:04:39.630
perhaps with less intense resource
use, less intense pollution.
01:04:39.630 --> 01:04:43.500
- The idea is to find more
efficient, less wasteful
01:04:43.500 --> 01:04:46.750
ways to use nature to make men more free.
01:04:46.750 --> 01:04:51.867
- That's not by any means the same as
bringing the Anthropocene to a close.
01:04:51.867 --> 01:04:54.200
It would take much more than
that, because we've already
01:04:54.200 --> 01:04:58.550
bought, in effect, a considerable
amount of climate change
01:04:58.550 --> 01:05:00.690
for the rest of the 21st century.
01:05:00.690 --> 01:05:04.190
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:05:17.636 --> 01:05:22.020
- The Great Acceleration was powered
by about 20%, or slightly less,
01:05:22.020 --> 01:05:23.500
of the Earth's population.
01:05:23.500 --> 01:05:25.530
That's changing in the 21st century.
01:05:25.530 --> 01:05:28.530
China is developing, India
is developing, Brazil.
01:05:28.530 --> 01:05:30.719
Other countries are developing rapidly.
01:05:30.719 --> 01:05:32.844
And they're starting their
own Great Accelerations.
01:05:36.640 --> 01:05:40.030
What's different for them
is the resource base.
01:05:40.030 --> 01:05:41.410
We're hitting peak oil.
01:05:41.410 --> 01:05:43.240
We may be hitting peak phosphorus.
01:05:43.240 --> 01:05:45.980
So they're trying to bring
their people out of poverty
01:05:45.980 --> 01:05:49.370
in a vastly different world than
what the Western countries had
01:05:49.370 --> 01:05:51.790
in the 1950s and '60s, and so on.
01:05:58.730 --> 01:06:01.570
- There's really two human
experiences right now on the planet,
01:06:01.570 --> 01:06:03.260
approaching the Big Zoom.
01:06:03.260 --> 01:06:08.050
This pulse of us, the
industrialized us, maybe a billion
01:06:08.050 --> 01:06:10.100
are already in this mega-mode.
01:06:12.960 --> 01:06:16.810
In the meantime, in the background
you had this other burst of humanity
01:06:16.810 --> 01:06:19.380
that started out mainly
just being a lot of people,
01:06:19.380 --> 01:06:22.510
but without any real resource intensity.
01:06:22.510 --> 01:06:24.540
And that's the developing world.
01:06:24.540 --> 01:06:25.280
So they're...
01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:29.150
even as we're unzooming, in a sense
of having more efficient lives,
01:06:29.150 --> 01:06:35.211
the other big great burst of humanity
is just getting into gear to zoom.
01:06:35.211 --> 01:06:38.648
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:06:59.189 --> 01:07:02.040
- The Anthropocene is
clearly a Western term.
01:07:04.440 --> 01:07:08.840
But it correlates with what many
societies have been saying in
01:07:08.840 --> 01:07:16.260
that, from the Maya perspective, there is no
distinction between human and environment.
01:07:16.260 --> 01:07:17.590
There never has been.
01:07:17.590 --> 01:07:19.030
It's a continuum.
01:07:25.990 --> 01:07:30.440
So the Anthropocene is a new challenge,
because we are now in nature.
01:07:30.440 --> 01:07:33.284
We are not outsiders observing nature.
01:07:36.600 --> 01:07:40.530
If you look at most indigenous
societies like the Maya,
01:07:40.530 --> 01:07:46.658
you see they have always been telling us to
get a grip and realize we are a continuum,
01:07:46.658 --> 01:07:48.410
and we are all somehow interconnected.
01:07:54.380 --> 01:08:00.140
- For me, the Anthropocene also means
that instead of looking at humans as this
01:08:00.140 --> 01:08:04.180
external disturbance on ecosystems, from
my point of view it means that we can look
01:08:04.180 --> 01:08:08.120
at ecosystems as part of the human system
-- that human systems essentially form
01:08:08.120 --> 01:08:10.670
the ecosystems that we look at.
01:08:10.670 --> 01:08:14.170
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:08:24.120 --> 01:08:28.649
When I first started presenting my work
on the ecology of ecological change
01:08:28.649 --> 01:08:31.354
in rural China, the impression
I got was that nobody
01:08:31.354 --> 01:08:34.479
was really interested the second I said
there were people in the ecosystem.
01:08:34.479 --> 01:08:37.810
An ecosystem with people in
it isn't a real ecosystem.
01:08:37.810 --> 01:08:41.890
It's kind of a degraded thing
kind of on the side, that needs
01:08:41.890 --> 01:08:45.327
to be kind of ignored by real ecologists.
01:08:45.327 --> 01:08:47.910
And since that time, fortunately,
that's changed dramatically.
01:08:57.210 --> 01:09:01.649
So for me, using the term
Anthropocene in a scientific way,
01:09:01.649 --> 01:09:06.370
as a formal term in geology, has
really big implications for ecology.
01:09:06.370 --> 01:09:11.240
Especially if it becomes a formal
part of geological terminology,
01:09:11.240 --> 01:09:13.680
makes it more than just a legitimate study.
01:09:13.680 --> 01:09:16.000
It makes it really the study of our time.
01:09:16.000 --> 01:09:18.585
So we already have an artificial planet.
01:09:18.585 --> 01:09:22.050
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:09:27.495 --> 01:09:32.960
(TYPING)
01:09:32.960 --> 01:09:39.850
- Yes, there are aspects of this planet
and life on Earth that are artificial.
01:09:39.850 --> 01:09:42.460
For that matter, wheat is artificial.
01:09:42.460 --> 01:09:48.000
But if, for example, we want
to embrace geoengineering
01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:53.870
in the form of filling the
stratosphere with sulfate particles
01:09:53.870 --> 01:10:01.250
so as to deflect a bit more sunlight, this
is a much more grand-scale intervention
01:10:01.250 --> 01:10:05.630
into the ecosystems of the planet.
01:10:11.090 --> 01:10:15.670
One of the possible consequences of loading
the stratosphere with sulfate particles
01:10:15.670 --> 01:10:18.500
would be we might change
the tint of the sunset,
01:10:18.500 --> 01:10:22.360
as some volcanic eruptions
have done in the past.
01:10:28.720 --> 01:10:33.580
I would enjoy the rosy hue
of the sunset just as much
01:10:33.580 --> 01:10:38.250
if it was done by human
intervention or by Mount Pinatubo.
01:10:38.250 --> 01:10:43.700
But what worries me is that there are
other kinds of potential consequences
01:10:43.700 --> 01:10:47.550
that could come with sulfate
particle loading of the stratosphere
01:10:47.550 --> 01:10:50.790
that we don't know about,
because we haven't done it.
01:10:50.790 --> 01:10:56.860
And if we experiment with it, we might find
that some of these unintended consequences
01:10:56.860 --> 01:10:57.640
are unwelcome.
01:11:05.626 --> 01:11:09.130
- Tsiolkovsky's quote, the Russian
rocket scientist, who said,
01:11:09.130 --> 01:11:12.457
"The Earth is man's cradle, but man
cannot remain in the cradle forever."
01:11:12.457 --> 01:11:14.040
I think that's where we are right now.
01:11:14.040 --> 01:11:15.765
We're in the cradle of the Anthropocene.
01:11:15.765 --> 01:11:19.140
We've finally got to the point -- and
arguably this is the most interesting point
01:11:19.140 --> 01:11:20.056
in the Anthropocene --
01:11:20.056 --> 01:11:23.430
where we've realized that
we are actually in charge.
01:11:23.430 --> 01:11:26.870
We've woken up behind the wheel of a
car that's moving down the highway,
01:11:26.870 --> 01:11:28.460
and now it's our turn to drive.
01:11:32.220 --> 01:11:35.030
- There have been other
species that had their moments,
01:11:35.030 --> 01:11:36.770
but presumably they weren't...
01:11:36.770 --> 01:11:38.888
cyanobacteria weren't self-aware.
01:11:38.888 --> 01:11:40.846
"Oh my gosh, look what
I did to the atmosphere.
01:11:40.846 --> 01:11:42.610
There's a bunch of oxygen now.
01:11:42.610 --> 01:11:44.269
I'm going to enable this whole new...
01:11:44.269 --> 01:11:45.810
these other forms of life to evolve."
01:11:45.810 --> 01:11:47.250
That wasn't there.
01:11:47.250 --> 01:11:48.330
So that's the thing.
01:11:48.330 --> 01:11:49.579
How do we deal with ourselves?
01:11:49.579 --> 01:11:54.610
We have to get comfortable with
ourselves in this kind of magical moment.
01:11:54.610 --> 01:11:58.040
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:12:04.047 --> 01:12:05.630
- Have things gotten worse for people?
01:12:05.630 --> 01:12:06.180
I don't think so.
01:12:06.180 --> 01:12:08.180
I think things have been
getting better overall.
01:12:10.110 --> 01:12:13.380
We have a lot of potential to do things
in a way that will really be good.
01:12:13.380 --> 01:12:15.550
It will be something we
can be proud of, I think.
01:12:17.900 --> 01:12:21.600
So for me the question is,
what's a good engineered planet?
01:12:21.600 --> 01:12:23.286
What's a good Anthropocene?
01:12:23.286 --> 01:12:24.286
That's the big question.
01:12:24.286 --> 01:12:25.140
That's up to us.
01:12:31.946 --> 01:12:35.160
- In confronting this notion
of the Anthropocene --
01:12:35.160 --> 01:12:37.560
in confronting this century,
this momentous century,
01:12:37.560 --> 01:12:40.270
when we're going to go
from zoom to something new,
01:12:40.270 --> 01:12:42.359
and we don't know what that is yet --
01:12:42.359 --> 01:12:44.400
one of the things we have
to get comfortable with
01:12:44.400 --> 01:12:47.620
is the range of reactions
to that idea, that there
01:12:47.620 --> 01:12:54.170
will be people among us who are
fundamentally fearful and blameful.
01:12:54.170 --> 01:12:57.230
And there will be people among us
who will fundamentally go forth,
01:12:57.230 --> 01:13:01.270
and this is our power moment.
01:13:01.270 --> 01:13:04.770
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:13:10.110 --> 01:13:14.060
- The one who pays the
mariachis asks for the song.
01:13:14.060 --> 01:13:22.770
And the risk of the Anthropocene is
having it be a male, Western thing
01:13:22.770 --> 01:13:27.040
that the rest of the world all
of a sudden has to pick up on.
01:13:27.040 --> 01:13:31.202
And that makes me reflect
on the concept of diversity.
01:13:31.202 --> 01:13:34.590
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:13:41.870 --> 01:13:46.990
We will have different responses and
different questions about the Anthropocene
01:13:46.990 --> 01:13:49.075
and what we're going to do about it.
01:13:49.075 --> 01:13:56.408
And my point would be, if you only
produce one mainstream line of thought
01:13:56.408 --> 01:13:59.400
we reduce the possibility
for successful adaptation.
01:14:04.400 --> 01:14:08.001
If we allow each other to think
outside the box -- all of us --
01:14:10.240 --> 01:14:15.070
to bring what our own particular
understanding of the Anthropocene
01:14:15.070 --> 01:14:22.186
and how we'll adapt is, I think we'll
be more successful overall as a species.
01:14:27.997 --> 01:14:33.380
(TYPING)
01:14:33.380 --> 01:14:36.850
- We're either going to
really understand that we
01:14:36.850 --> 01:14:39.036
can't continue with business as usual.
01:14:45.000 --> 01:14:49.864
We have to really change the way
we live, the way we use energy.
01:14:49.864 --> 01:14:52.608
That decision needs to happen this decade.
01:15:01.880 --> 01:15:07.800
Or if enough people still think we
can get away with business as usual --
01:15:07.800 --> 01:15:10.900
still consuming Earth's resources,
still putting out our waste --
01:15:10.900 --> 01:15:16.810
and somehow the planet will cope, I think
we could be headed for the same fate
01:15:16.810 --> 01:15:19.044
as many past civilizations,
which is collapse.
01:15:22.059 --> 01:15:24.392
And I don't think we're going
to muddle down the middle.
01:15:24.392 --> 01:15:27.040
We're going to jump one way or the other.
01:15:32.810 --> 01:15:39.240
- If we have about one meter rise of
sea level along the east African coast,
01:15:39.240 --> 01:15:45.610
the lateral in addition will
be almost 300 kilometers --
01:15:45.610 --> 01:15:49.700
which means the whole Rift Valley
will be completely covered by water.
01:15:49.700 --> 01:15:55.650
There's a very small ridge in North Africa
which stops it from linking the Red Sea.
01:15:55.650 --> 01:16:00.010
And with a meter rise, that means the water
will flow completely into this African rift
01:16:00.010 --> 01:16:02.160
and join the Indian Ocean.
01:16:02.160 --> 01:16:06.660
This region -- particularly in
East Africa, the home of mankind --
01:16:06.660 --> 01:16:11.560
might be one of the first places to be
wiped out during the Anthropocene epoch.
01:16:18.390 --> 01:16:24.820
- If we would have a change in geography
due to sea level rise as a consequence
01:16:24.820 --> 01:16:33.680
of climate change, well then we will have
a very serious obstacle for the maintenance
01:16:33.680 --> 01:16:41.280
of current international growth, because its
basic presumption is territory, geography,
01:16:41.280 --> 01:16:43.030
is a stable element --
01:16:43.030 --> 01:16:45.053
which we have seen in the Holocene.
01:16:45.053 --> 01:16:47.270
But in the Anthropocene --
01:16:47.270 --> 01:16:51.930
which is characterized by
instability, by change --
01:16:51.930 --> 01:16:53.726
this presumption will no more be valid.
01:16:53.726 --> 01:16:57.490
We will have perhaps to
reinvent what the state is.
01:16:57.490 --> 01:17:00.984
So we will have to think of a very
new approach to international law.
01:17:07.772 --> 01:17:09.730
- There's been this kind
of "woe is me" framing
01:17:09.730 --> 01:17:11.229
around this moment in human history.
01:17:13.420 --> 01:17:17.510
The Anthropocene being, we're
exerting this huge impact
01:17:17.510 --> 01:17:21.770
on nature and on these Earth systems that
will rebound for many, many generations
01:17:21.770 --> 01:17:22.720
to come.
01:17:22.720 --> 01:17:25.280
And coral reefs are suffering and all that.
01:17:25.280 --> 01:17:26.560
I grew up with that.
01:17:26.560 --> 01:17:30.520
The 20th century environmental movement was
all mostly around "woe is me," and "shame
01:17:30.520 --> 01:17:31.440
on you."
01:17:31.440 --> 01:17:36.030
I reject the idea that this
is a "woe" kind of moment.
01:17:36.030 --> 01:17:38.610
I think it's a "get engaged" kind of moment.
01:17:38.610 --> 01:17:42.930
If we sleepwalk through this next few
decades, we're in deep trouble as a species
01:17:42.930 --> 01:17:46.410
if we just disregard the signals.
01:17:46.410 --> 01:17:51.270
If we get engaged and we maintain our
intellectual capacity as a society
01:17:51.270 --> 01:17:55.790
to innovate, and to share ideas, and
make sure the most vulnerable people
01:17:55.790 --> 01:17:57.350
on the planet...
01:17:57.350 --> 01:18:04.495
we do what we can to make their
lives less subject to hard knocks --
01:18:04.495 --> 01:18:07.120
there is a course forward there
that's really kind of exciting.
01:18:07.120 --> 01:18:10.550
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:18:18.900 --> 01:18:22.990
- There was a very sobering
moment when we were first
01:18:22.990 --> 01:18:26.990
trying to understand exactly
how the Anthropocene started
01:18:26.990 --> 01:18:28.270
and where it was going.
01:18:28.270 --> 01:18:30.630
We were sitting in a meeting in Berlin --
01:18:30.630 --> 01:18:34.320
John McNeill was there, Paul was
there, Paul Crutzen was there --
01:18:34.320 --> 01:18:37.450
and we were just doing something like this.
01:18:37.450 --> 01:18:41.480
We were saying "Year
2100, fast forward, what's
01:18:41.480 --> 01:18:43.610
the Anthropocene going to look like?"
01:18:43.610 --> 01:18:44.770
So we did a reality check.
01:18:44.770 --> 01:18:48.240
We got on to Google, and
we went back to 1900,
01:18:48.240 --> 01:18:50.236
and we looked at predictions
for the year 2000.
01:18:58.340 --> 01:19:00.600
And there were some pretty
wild and wacky predictions.
01:19:05.870 --> 01:19:08.800
But in many ways, nobody
predicted where we were.
01:19:08.800 --> 01:19:12.880
And in many ways, where we were was actually
more bizarre than what a lot of people
01:19:12.880 --> 01:19:13.620
had predicted.
01:19:13.620 --> 01:19:17.390
So it made us a little bit
humble, it's like, "Can we really
01:19:17.390 --> 01:19:19.274
predict where we're going to be in 2100?"
01:19:19.274 --> 01:19:23.180
- What you're about to see is an
imaginative glimpse into the future,
01:19:23.180 --> 01:19:26.680
a Hollywood view of the year 1960.
01:19:26.680 --> 01:19:31.635
We'll see some rather startling things,
some of which may be commonplace by then.
01:19:31.635 --> 01:19:36.090
- If you'll get me one of those new Super
P-1038 convertible rocket planes to fly
01:19:36.090 --> 01:19:38.070
to school, I'll eat anything you say.
01:19:38.070 --> 01:19:40.545
- Danny, you ought to
be ashamed of yourself.
01:19:40.545 --> 01:19:43.020
You've got a lovely plane now.
01:19:43.020 --> 01:19:46.485
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:19:54.405 --> 01:19:57.870
- For me, the story of
the Anthropocene matches
01:19:57.870 --> 01:20:02.820
a story embedded in magical realism.
01:20:02.820 --> 01:20:07.802
So you have your crazy
characters, you have your setting,
01:20:07.802 --> 01:20:10.207
and we don't know what will happen.
01:20:12.612 --> 01:20:18.390
In magical realism, you all of a
sudden get the most unprecedented event
01:20:18.390 --> 01:20:22.390
coming from outside, or from
within the main character.
01:20:22.390 --> 01:20:25.805
And it changes the whole story around.
01:20:25.805 --> 01:20:28.220
It's a bit of surreal.
01:20:30.635 --> 01:20:34.499
It's a bit of chaos.
01:20:34.499 --> 01:20:36.864
It's a bit of hopefulness.
01:20:36.864 --> 01:20:43.810
So a bit of all these together
makes it a big question mark.
01:20:43.810 --> 01:20:48.560
Magic realism gives you as the reader the
chance that if you don't like this ending,
01:20:48.560 --> 01:20:49.470
make up a new one.
01:20:55.674 --> 01:21:01.020
- If I were a sentient being from some
other part of some galaxy regarding us,
01:21:01.020 --> 01:21:05.900
I would most likely have been through
this transition myself a long time ago.
01:21:05.900 --> 01:21:09.780
And I would probably say,
"Aw, isn't this sweet.
01:21:09.780 --> 01:21:11.590
They're having their mirror moment."
01:21:11.590 --> 01:21:20.560
And my guess is any sentient life form smart
enough to have found us out, in some way
01:21:20.560 --> 01:21:22.710
or other has been through this juncture.
01:21:27.210 --> 01:21:28.638
- Report preliminary findings.
01:21:28.638 --> 01:21:31.720
- I have found evidence of
intelligent beings on this planet.
01:21:31.720 --> 01:21:39.170
- If I came at this from afar and sort
of regarded this moment as a fable,
01:21:39.170 --> 01:21:40.950
I would have a smile on my face.
01:21:44.310 --> 01:21:52.730
I would have a smile on my face because
it would inevitably bring back feelings
01:21:52.730 --> 01:21:58.437
that any organism has in making that
transition from childhood to adulthood.
01:22:05.930 --> 01:22:11.590
- If I were looking at
it from a distant galaxy,
01:22:11.590 --> 01:22:17.050
I suppose I might see
parallels in that history --
01:22:17.050 --> 01:22:20.500
the history of human
relationship with the Earth --
01:22:20.500 --> 01:22:26.230
to some sort of science
fiction of the epic sort.
01:22:26.230 --> 01:22:33.930
Whether I would regard it as
essentially tragic in nature?
01:22:33.930 --> 01:22:39.150
I doubt that, at least so far -- because
so many of the things that we have done
01:22:39.150 --> 01:22:45.850
in our interventions in the environment
have benefited human beings so much that
01:22:45.850 --> 01:22:49.920
it's hard to say that
this is a tragic story.
01:22:49.920 --> 01:22:56.850
And there's a fair amount of irony in it,
because of the unintended consequences
01:22:56.850 --> 01:22:58.174
of so many actions.
01:23:02.260 --> 01:23:08.790
That's often the perspective
that appeals to me most --
01:23:08.790 --> 01:23:16.350
to look upon our actions
with bemused attachment,
01:23:16.350 --> 01:23:21.710
recognizing how little we
understand what we're really doing
01:23:21.710 --> 01:23:25.710
and how much we're doing
without intending it.
01:23:29.895 --> 01:23:31.300
- Chaos theory.
01:23:31.300 --> 01:23:36.640
- There is so much that
we struggle to achieve,
01:23:36.640 --> 01:23:41.450
and so much that we do only by accident.
01:23:44.390 --> 01:23:50.499
If I were one of those Greek gods on
Olympus, I'm sure I would find it amusing.
01:23:50.499 --> 01:23:51.540
- (SINGING) Life's great!
01:23:55.240 --> 01:23:59.500
- I wouldn't quite use John McNeill's word,
"bemused", although that's a good one.
01:23:59.500 --> 01:24:01.600
I would use paradoxical.
01:24:01.600 --> 01:24:05.810
That's the feeling I would
have, this enormous paradox
01:24:05.810 --> 01:24:13.070
of this quite powerful, amazing creature,
but quite flawed creature at the same time.
01:24:13.070 --> 01:24:17.020
And I think that's still
a real open question --
01:24:17.020 --> 01:24:21.390
the question of our own genetic
makeup, our own background.
01:24:21.390 --> 01:24:27.790
Can we really have the wisdom to control
other aspects of our genetic makeup,
01:24:27.790 --> 01:24:31.900
that I guess drive us to want to
consume more and have more and so on.
01:24:31.900 --> 01:24:33.310
- I don't get that.
01:24:33.310 --> 01:24:36.090
What does it mean to be bemused
about a story like this?
01:24:36.090 --> 01:24:39.896
Yeah, sorry, harder for me to answer,
because I don't really understand it.
01:24:39.896 --> 01:24:41.620
- He doesn't know where we're going.
01:24:41.620 --> 01:24:44.070
- Well, we don't know where we're going.
01:24:47.525 --> 01:24:49.900
There's no question that we
don't know where we're going.
01:24:49.900 --> 01:24:52.460
And we don't know how to do
what we're going to have to do.
01:24:52.460 --> 01:24:54.340
But what's new?
01:24:54.340 --> 01:24:56.296
We've always been like this.
01:24:56.296 --> 01:24:59.516
- He doesn't know if it's good
news story or a bad news story.
01:24:59.516 --> 01:25:03.650
- Well from a scientific point of view it
is definitely not either one, in my opinion,
01:25:03.650 --> 01:25:08.360
even though there are some
trends that are very threatening.
01:25:08.360 --> 01:25:11.820
We could easily create a climate
that will make things much worse
01:25:11.820 --> 01:25:14.680
for everybody in an extreme way.
01:25:14.680 --> 01:25:17.230
That's definitely in the
cards scientifically.
01:25:17.230 --> 01:25:23.370
But from my point of view as an individual,
I don't see anything as foreordained yet.
01:25:25.870 --> 01:25:31.850
- Our species is not characterized by
having the territorial defined state
01:25:31.850 --> 01:25:34.950
in the stable conditions of the Holocene.
01:25:34.950 --> 01:25:39.800
Our species is characterized by adjustment
to climate, adjustment to nature.
01:25:39.800 --> 01:25:44.020
We have been here not for 11,700
years, how long Holocene has lasted.
01:25:44.020 --> 01:25:46.910
We've been here much longer.
01:25:46.910 --> 01:25:52.520
And every species on the Earth
lasts approximately 10 million years
01:25:52.520 --> 01:25:54.500
before being extinct.
01:25:54.500 --> 01:25:59.164
So we have just started, and
we would like to keep it going.
01:25:59.164 --> 01:26:02.410
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:26:07.888 --> 01:26:12.390
- During the Anthropocene, if you take all
the species, biological species, together,
01:26:12.390 --> 01:26:15.490
I think the humans are the most vulnerable.
01:26:15.490 --> 01:26:17.510
Reptiles can move in wet places.
01:26:17.510 --> 01:26:18.800
They live in water.
01:26:18.800 --> 01:26:20.620
They can live in arid areas.
01:26:20.620 --> 01:26:23.190
They can go for days or months without food.
01:26:23.190 --> 01:26:29.370
But humans cannot survive even for
one week without water, for example.
01:26:29.370 --> 01:26:33.850
What we're dealing with here
has no analog in the past.
01:26:33.850 --> 01:26:36.860
We might find ourselves in a
place where there's no water,
01:26:36.860 --> 01:26:43.310
there's major changes in the composition
of the vegetation, new diseases coming up,
01:26:43.310 --> 01:26:48.428
and the human food chain
completely broken down.
01:26:48.428 --> 01:26:52.170
During our Anthropocene, there
is no sufficient evidence
01:26:52.170 --> 01:26:59.775
to show that during this period of
extreme human impact on the Earth,
01:26:59.775 --> 01:27:06.670
that we can actually adapt sufficiently in
good time to be able to avoid extinction.
01:27:06.670 --> 01:27:09.278
And all this is caused by humans themselves.
01:27:15.492 --> 01:27:17.360
- We're only at the very beginning.
01:27:17.360 --> 01:27:21.248
Humans are robust, and
flexible, and adaptable.
01:27:21.248 --> 01:27:27.260
And we share that with some of the
other species that we sometimes decry,
01:27:27.260 --> 01:27:30.469
like cockroaches, and rats, and so forth.
01:27:30.469 --> 01:27:31.760
But we are, we're very similar.
01:27:31.760 --> 01:27:32.510
We're intelligent.
01:27:32.510 --> 01:27:33.370
We're manipulative.
01:27:33.370 --> 01:27:35.780
So it will be hard to shake us off.
01:27:35.780 --> 01:27:38.190
- But we're such little creatures.
01:27:38.190 --> 01:27:42.046
Poor humanity is so fragile, so weak.
01:27:42.046 --> 01:27:45.420
Little, little animals.
01:27:45.420 --> 01:27:46.880
Little animals.
01:27:46.880 --> 01:27:50.200
- The urban foxes and suchlike,
we're a bit like that.
01:27:50.200 --> 01:27:51.654
We get by very well.
01:27:55.450 --> 01:27:59.250
We may well be around for quite some time
yet, even as the Earth changes around us --
01:27:59.250 --> 01:28:02.420
even with a temperature rise of
three, five, maybe seven degrees.
01:28:02.420 --> 01:28:03.587
We'll move north.
01:28:03.587 --> 01:28:05.680
Areas of the Earth may become uninhabitable.
01:28:05.680 --> 01:28:07.990
And we'll carry on developing,
we'll carry on evolving.
01:28:07.990 --> 01:28:09.990
Our machines will carry on evolving.
01:28:09.990 --> 01:28:13.346
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:28:18.880 --> 01:28:22.000
And at the same time, there will
be knock-on effects on the Earth.
01:28:22.000 --> 01:28:25.940
So the changes are being driven by
us at the moment of the Anthropocene,
01:28:25.940 --> 01:28:29.612
despite the tragedies that
there may be in amongst that.
01:28:31.450 --> 01:28:37.140
- If I was to give a
message to the early men who
01:28:37.140 --> 01:28:41.230
lived before Anthropocene
in the Rift Valley,
01:28:41.230 --> 01:28:45.860
I would ask them: How did
you manage to adapt and even
01:28:45.860 --> 01:28:50.160
manage to find a way out of the
extreme conditions in the region
01:28:50.160 --> 01:28:53.865
and still survive, and make
sure that mankind continued?
01:28:56.840 --> 01:28:58.830
Migration is one option.
01:28:58.830 --> 01:29:00.370
But where do you migrate to?
01:29:00.370 --> 01:29:04.030
Whether it is in North America,
Africa, Asia and so forth,
01:29:04.030 --> 01:29:06.170
we see population just exploding.
01:29:06.170 --> 01:29:11.200
My question to early man, how did they cope
with some of these very extreme conditions?
01:29:11.200 --> 01:29:13.590
Is there any lesson we
can learn from it that
01:29:13.590 --> 01:29:19.475
might help us get through this terrifying
phase of the Anthropocene period?
01:29:21.650 --> 01:29:26.620
- For some, some will not be
able to survive if there is
01:29:26.620 --> 01:29:29.180
a big change in environmental conditions.
01:29:29.180 --> 01:29:30.640
Others will be able.
01:29:30.640 --> 01:29:31.820
So that is very relative.
01:29:31.820 --> 01:29:33.203
Who are we?
01:29:36.350 --> 01:29:39.888
There will be individual tragedies.
01:29:43.984 --> 01:29:45.692
Maybe there will be collective tragedies.
01:29:50.070 --> 01:29:53.000
But we as a species --
01:29:53.000 --> 01:29:56.994
perhaps in diminished numbers,
perhaps in higher numbers --
01:29:56.994 --> 01:30:01.420
I believe, yes, we will adjust.
01:30:01.420 --> 01:30:03.940
- You said perhaps in diminished numbers.
01:30:03.940 --> 01:30:05.910
- Perhaps.
01:30:05.910 --> 01:30:07.720
I don't have such answers.
01:30:07.720 --> 01:30:09.390
I am a lawyer, after all.
01:30:09.390 --> 01:30:12.680
- I would certainly view it as a tragedy.
01:30:12.680 --> 01:30:17.360
I think if there were another species coming
down from another planet they may see it
01:30:17.360 --> 01:30:21.325
as a comedy, or they may
see it as an incredible...
01:30:23.590 --> 01:30:27.090
an incredible paradox
of a species that could
01:30:27.090 --> 01:30:32.940
learn to manipulate its planet so
much, but didn't have the wisdom
01:30:32.940 --> 01:30:37.690
to understand what that manipulation was
leading to in terms of its own well-being.
01:30:37.690 --> 01:30:40.966
(TYPING)
01:30:44.250 --> 01:30:47.916
- Yes, we've been reading a
lot about the time capsule.
01:30:47.916 --> 01:30:49.040
Could we take a look at it?
01:30:49.040 --> 01:30:49.840
- Why, sure.
01:30:49.840 --> 01:30:51.330
We can get to it this way.
01:30:51.330 --> 01:30:53.350
It's the most prominent exhibit of the fair.
01:30:53.350 --> 01:30:57.034
It will still be here when the rest
of this place is nothing but dust.
01:30:57.034 --> 01:30:59.271
- That's remarkable.
01:30:59.271 --> 01:30:59.770
- All right.
01:30:59.770 --> 01:31:04.310
Let's fast forward, and let's say
we go through the Great Collapse.
01:31:04.310 --> 01:31:06.090
What will the world then...
01:31:06.090 --> 01:31:07.200
how will it proceed?
01:31:07.200 --> 01:31:09.680
What will it look like without humans?
01:31:09.680 --> 01:31:13.180
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:31:23.770 --> 01:31:29.120
- Here on this hillside, the buildings
here, the old ruins along there, that
01:31:29.120 --> 01:31:32.130
hasn't a chance of being
preserved into the record.
01:31:32.130 --> 01:31:33.370
Erosion will knock that away.
01:31:35.980 --> 01:31:39.320
- All these monuments that we've
built, all these huge cities and so on,
01:31:39.320 --> 01:31:41.060
in fact they crumble pretty quickly.
01:31:41.060 --> 01:31:44.670
- The hammer of demolition will be
sure to swing with determination.
01:31:44.670 --> 01:31:48.070
And our progress is certain
to be steady as we clear away
01:31:48.070 --> 01:31:50.510
the structures that block progress.
01:31:50.510 --> 01:31:53.510
They're going to be taken
over by the roots and vines,
01:31:53.510 --> 01:31:56.960
and plants and bricks will be
pulled apart, glass will shatter,
01:31:56.960 --> 01:31:59.410
and things will crumble, and so on.
01:31:59.410 --> 01:32:03.380
We may not even have as much left
to see as the Mayans, or the Angkor
01:32:03.380 --> 01:32:06.614
civilization in Cambodia, and so on.
01:32:06.614 --> 01:32:10.037
(MUSIC PLAYING)
01:32:24.926 --> 01:32:33.206
- But take that building and put it
onto Amsterdam, or onto New Orleans,
01:32:33.206 --> 01:32:36.560
any part of a coastal plane
or a delta that is subsiding,
01:32:36.560 --> 01:32:40.960
that is being pushed down by tectonic
forces and its very own weight --
01:32:40.960 --> 01:32:43.751
that has a very good chance of
being preserved into the far future.
01:32:47.680 --> 01:32:51.270
If we come back, or somebody comes back --
let's say 50 million years or 100 million
01:32:51.270 --> 01:32:58.190
years from now -- humans have long since
disappeared, victims of their own excesses.
01:32:58.190 --> 01:33:01.290
The bits of the cities and the
landscapes that would have been buried,
01:33:01.290 --> 01:33:06.180
those will be seen as a layer, if you
like, an event layer in the strata --
01:33:06.180 --> 01:33:08.570
much as we see in the
Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary,
01:33:08.570 --> 01:33:12.290
meteorite impact layer is an
event layer all around the Earth.
01:33:15.622 --> 01:33:21.070
And that layer will in places,
when we have a fossil delta,
01:33:21.070 --> 01:33:23.246
will have the fossilized cities.
01:33:23.246 --> 01:33:25.250
Maybe not all of it.
01:33:25.250 --> 01:33:26.446
The tops won't be there.
01:33:26.446 --> 01:33:32.056
But the ground floors, the substructures,
all of the metro systems, the sewers,
01:33:32.056 --> 01:33:35.580
that kind of thing -- that has a very good
chance of being preserved into the fossil
01:33:35.580 --> 01:33:36.080
record.
01:33:39.886 --> 01:33:45.320
And around there, of course, there will be
bones... a few of our bones here and there.
01:33:45.320 --> 01:33:47.360
Cats, dogs, pigs, rats, and suchlike.
01:33:47.360 --> 01:33:53.300
And of course, not just an
event layer, but because we've
01:33:53.300 --> 01:33:55.370
changed the course of history.
01:33:55.370 --> 01:33:57.740
That will be the key thing.
01:33:57.740 --> 01:34:04.640
If we come anywhere close to
creating a mass extinction event,
01:34:04.640 --> 01:34:07.200
then the animals and plants --
01:34:07.200 --> 01:34:10.750
that is the fossils that will follow us
-- will be quite different from those
01:34:10.750 --> 01:34:12.550
of the past.
01:34:12.550 --> 01:34:18.740
And so all of that succession will
be different from the Anthropocene
01:34:18.740 --> 01:34:20.180
and pre-Anthropocene rocks.
01:34:20.180 --> 01:34:24.690
It is this transformative character of
the Anthropocene that is likely to form,
01:34:24.690 --> 01:34:27.770
if you like, the broad scale,
the broad brush signal.
01:34:27.770 --> 01:34:32.350
And our future explorers will look on that
and wonder, "Why are they so different?
01:34:32.350 --> 01:34:33.560
What happened?"
01:34:33.560 --> 01:34:38.740
And they will home in on the
Anthropocene layer, on our current layer,
01:34:38.740 --> 01:34:42.660
because that is when the
exciting events happened.
01:34:44.990 --> 01:34:49.915
We do not know how more
remarkable it will get.
01:34:49.915 --> 01:34:57.000
But it is already creating things
I can only look at with some awe --
01:34:57.000 --> 01:34:59.000
looking geologically, of course.
01:35:03.950 --> 01:35:08.830
- If I were a different type of life
form coming from another planet,
01:35:08.830 --> 01:35:17.550
I think I would simply be scratching my head
in amazement at how this particular life
01:35:17.550 --> 01:35:24.580
form could develop, evolve, change
how this planet actually operates --
01:35:24.580 --> 01:35:27.580
move it in a different direction --
01:35:27.580 --> 01:35:30.940
and then lead to its own
extinction, which I think
01:35:30.940 --> 01:35:33.430
is a definite possibility as we go forward.
01:35:33.430 --> 01:35:38.640
I would simply scratch my head
and say, what were they thinking?
01:35:38.640 --> 01:35:41.170
It just would be really strange.
01:35:41.170 --> 01:35:45.270
And perhaps a little bit of
a smile, saying, well, that
01:35:45.270 --> 01:35:48.620
was an interesting spike
in that planet's history.
01:35:48.620 --> 01:35:53.170
Now it's going to go back and into its
nice, easy spinning through space --
01:35:53.170 --> 01:35:59.703
these wonderful types of life, this
strange characteristic that it has.
01:36:03.480 --> 01:36:07.240
But there was something really strange
that happened for a couple thousand years
01:36:07.240 --> 01:36:07.900
in there.
01:36:07.900 --> 01:36:11.775
Being a scientist, I'd be scratching
my head and saying, wow, what was that?
01:36:11.775 --> 01:36:13.719
How could that have happened?
01:36:16.134 --> 01:36:20.765
(MUSIC - NICO & THE VELVET
UNDERGROUND, "I'LL KEEP IT WITH MINE")