Adventures in the Anthroprocene – meet the author talk (2016)
Gaia Vince, Imperial College London
Gaia Vince, a journalist and broadcaster specializing in science and the environment, introduced her book: Adventures in the Anthroprocene – a journey to the heart of the planet we made, at the Imperial College. She shared her experience of traveling the world for over a year to investigate the environmental effects we are having on our planet.
Over the following centuries after the Stone Age around 10,000 years ago, farming was invented, and our impacts grew. Regional landscapes were transformed. Cities and civilizations emerged. A measurable global impact started about 150 years ago in the time of the Industrial Evolution, the atmosphere were interfered by large volumes of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels were released. Since World War Two the scale and acceleration of planetary impact has been increasing. The rapid transformation, for instance, population expansion, mass production, and globalization have stimulus social and economic development. We are now in the epoch called the Anthropocene, that human activities have a significant global impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems. The enormous impacts that we are living on our planet in the Anthropocene are direct consequence of the immense social change of how we live.
Gaia was intrigued to travel to explore the world at a crucial moment in its history to see life of people who are already experiencing this changed planet. During the talk, she shared remarkable stories of how frontline people learn to undertake nature’s task with their ingenious inventions. It’s the reality behind scientific statistics, computer models and campaigns.
Painted mountain in Peru
Photo: www.colorsmagazine.com
One of the stories, I’ve found it is extraordinary, that show how people try every conceivable way to be survived from global warming they are encountering is painted mountains in Peru. People put a great afford in, even, buying time. In the Peruvian Andes, Parco and Geronimo are attempting to literally paint a mountain back to whiteness. More than 1,000 people have left the village because the glacier at Chalon Sombrero, 5,000 meters above sea level, disappeared completely, and with it the absence of water. It leaves a black rocky summit where a river once ran. When Gaia arrived there, the mountain was turned three hectares of black rock white. The hope is that the white surface will increase the reflectivity for the mountain to be cold enough to retain the ice that forms on it. A small reservoir would, then, be built above the painted area to keep water pumped up using a wind turbine. During the night, in low temperature, the water would be released in a slow trickle over the paint. They hope for water to freeze, ice would build up to bring in a self- sustaining glacial condition. Nevertheless, there are many skeptics to the project whether it could be only a short-term success and the money could be better spent on other scientifically qualified projects.