From Past to Present - Philosophy of the Anthropocene - Section 3

      As we continue reading The Great Acceleration, by McNeill and Engelke, we focus on the “Cities and the Economy” section. In this section, the authors discuss the explosive growth of cities and economies around the world after 1945. Before World War II, the majority of the world’s population inhabited rural areas and many lived agrarian lifestyles. However, today 56 percent of the world’s population lives in cities, and 7 out of 10 people are expected to live in urban areas by 2050 according to the World Bank. (worldbank.org) The authors explain how and why this changed after the war. They then explain the environmental effects of both growing cities and economies. 

     The authors begin by stating:

We live on an Urban Planet. In 2008 demographers at the United Nations announced that more than 50 percent of humans were living in cities. This symbolized a profound change in human history. Never before had a majority of the world's population lived in urban areas. The world today has five hundred cities with populations of at least a million people, seventy-four with at least five million, and twelve with at least twenty million. 

Cities concentrate people to levels far higher than the immediate environment can support. As they cannot exist in isolation from their surroundings, cities require access to natural resources and to waste sinks beyond their borders. Natural resource inputs consist of materials and energy. Materials range from food, clean water, ores, and basic construction materials (stone, wood) to an enormous range of manufactured goods. Energy resources are contained in some of the raw materials shipped into the city, in water that may flow through a city and that is captured by a mill or turbine [or a dam], or electricity that is transmitted by wire from outside the city's borders…Fossil fuels have provided the bulk of this energy [since the Industrial Revolution]. (p.103-104)

     The authors also discuss the waste that cities produce and how it rarely stays within the cities alone. They explain how much of the solid waste produced in cities ends up in waterways that travel through other areas and, eventually, into our oceans. Additionally, the burning of fossil fuels releases various chemicals and gases into the air, which will eventually circulate around the globe as well. This is the primary factor in the climate crisis - the burning of fossil fuels releases high amounts of carbon dioxide that then accumulate in our atmosphere and act as a blanket that keeps the Earth’s radiant energy trapped and unable to escape our atmosphere thereby heating the planet. 

     Additionally, cities greatly affect the natural water cycle and land. The authors explain: 

Pavements keep water from percolating into the Earth, resulting in more water running off into rivers and sewers. Drawing water from wells depletes aquifers. Canalization of rivers changes stream flows…[Due to pollution] streams, rivers, and coastal waters close to cities suffer from many types of degradation, such as decreased biological diversity and eutrophication…Cities alter land use and soil characteristics, too. Farmland required to feed growing cities replaces forests and grasslands with simplified, managed, and less diverse ecosystems. Mines dug to satisfy urban demand for metals and fossil fuels often damage surrounding landscapes with pollution and tailings. Urban growth also creates “edges” that have dramatic effects on wildlife habitat and numbers. (p.105)

     Though cities often have negative environmental effects, the authors do state that the relationship between cities and the environment is more nuanced than this. Cities can also be sites for positive change. Cities are centers for “ingenuity, creativity, and wealth.” (p.106) Additionally, the authors explain:

If well designed, they can require fewer resources per capita than rural areas. Higher population densities in cities can translate into the more efficient production and distribution of goods and delivery of social services…Moreover, cities help lower fertility rates…Urban couples have better access to birth control, and urban women have greater economic, educational, and social opportunities compared with women in rural areas. (p.106)

     

     So, how did the rise of cities come about? In short, the Industrial Revolution, burgeoning economies, and cheap fossil fuel energy provided the means for large cities to develop and prosper. 

     The authors state that before the Industrial Revolution, cities were unusual. They explain: 

There were some basic reasons why there were few large cities, and few cities at all, for that matter, before the modern period…Cities require the agricultural surplus of areas far greater than their own to survive and they needed the fuel, typically in the form of wood and charcoal, of an even larger space. They were like big carnivores in an ecosystem: they drew their sustenance from over a large space and therefore could only be few in number.

Cities were also unhealthy places. Generally cities suffered from unsanitary conditions and crowding. The result typically was higher mortality in cities than in rural areas. Early death was routine, in particular for infants and toddlers from childhood diseases and, for the general population, from epidemics that ravaged cities with frightening frequency…Owing to their connections with the outside world, trading cities were often struck first and hardest by epidemics. (p.107)

     However, the Industrial Revolution changed many of these factors. Innovation and technologies from this period helped reroute the waste within cities outside of their confines and therefore made them more sanitary. Scientific advancements during this period also led to a better understanding of germs and the importance of sanitation as well as the development of vaccinations and medications for many common illnesses and diseases. All of this led to cities being more “healthy” places to live. Agricultural modernization also increased food surpluses and more modern means of transportation, such as steam engines on trains and ships, allowed for food and goods to be transported from farther afield. However, industrial farming also put many rural farmers out of business and they often moved to the newly developing cities for work, which, in turn, further grew the cities. These advancements in agriculture and transport also enabled the development of cities along transport routes and in locations once not thought possible, such as deserts. The development of the automobile in the early twentieth century also contributed to urban sprawl as the suburbs around large cities began to grow. 

     However, the advancements of the Industrial Revolution, and the development of large cities and bustling economies that accompanied it, were mostly reserved for the imperialistic and wealthy nations of Europe and the United States. It was not until after World War II that the rest of the developing world slowly gained the means to create their own mega-cities. The authors write:

The period after World War II witnessed a crescendo of urbanization. The share of the world's population living in cities jumped dramatically, from 29 percent in 1950 (730 million people) to slightly more than half in 2015 (roughly 3.7 billion people). This was one of the signal characteristics of the Anthropocene: the majority of humankind now lived within environments of its own creation. Our species had become, in effect, an urban animal. Cities grew faster than rural areas in every part of the world. In 1950 there had been only two cities with populations greater than ten million; by the end of the century there were twenty such megacities. Urbanization thus occurred everywhere, but the pace, nature, and consequences were different depending on location. 

The most spectacular theater of urbanization in the postwar era was in the developing world. The share of people living in cities in the developing world more than doubled between 1950 and 2003, from 18 percent to 42 percent of the population. (p.112)

The growth of cities in the developing world happened for similar reasons as those of the developed world: as industrialization and growing economies emerged, so did the cities. Often, as in the imperialist world, the promise of potential work in the cities led farmers, who had been pushed out of farming by industrial agriculture, to flock to the new cities. And, the developing world also went through a period where the large populations flocking to the cities overwhelmed infrastructure, until infrastructure could catch up. This again led to health concerns in these new cities.
    The result of the development of these megacities around the world was massive pollution and many new environmental issues. However, pollution issues varied depending on how energy was derived and what types of industries were performed within the city. In the developing world, due to their reliance on cheaper fossil fuels, air pollution was a severe issue. However:

In the rich cities, fuel switching from coal to oil changed the nature of air pollution. Over the postwar era, air pollution in rich-world cities shifted from sulfur dioxide and suspended particulate matter (smoke and soot) to nitrogen oxide, ground-level ozone, and carbon monoxide. These shifts occurred mostly during and after the 1960s and 1970s. Deindustrialization and the movement of industry from city centers to peripheries combined with fuel switching to propel these air pollution changes. By the 1970s as well, national air pollution legislation had become the norm in the world's wealthiest countries, adding to the local-scale regulatory reforms begun a few decades before. (p.118)

Though, as we will see later, a large part of the rich world’s ability to deindustrialize and lessen their pollution was accomplished by offloading the burden onto the developing world. 

     The widespread use of automobiles around the world, but especially in North America, caused other important environmental issues. The authors explain:

Together, suburbanization and auto ownership had important consequences. Increased driving was the first and most predictable. Driving was most common in North America, owing to the extent of suburbanization, low average suburban densities, plus other factors such as the low price of gasoline relative to other industrialized countries. In 1990, on average, Americans traveled more than twice as far per year in private cars as Europeans, and significantly farther than Australians…[Also], American (and Canadian) cars were also consistently larger than those elsewhere throughout the twentieth century. Their larger size and weight made them less fuel-efficient. American motorist thus consumed more fuel and produced far more carbon dioxide than their counterparts anywhere else. (p.121-122)

     The rich world was also responsible for several other environmental impacts during the postwar era. Along with the land use issues and urban sprawl, the wealthy cities of the rich world also became consumeristic societies. The authors write:

Urban wealth also increased the demand for energy and water, as people acquired the creature comforts that were developed during the postwar era. Only a very small part of the huge American appetite for residential water was for drinking and cooking. Water for lawns, cars, household appliances, showers, and flush toilets accounted for almost all of the rest in cities. The automatic dishwasher alone could increase household water use by up to 38 gallons (144 liters) a day. Finally, the consumer economies of the postwar world also generated tremendous amounts of garbage. Again the United States generated the most in per capita and absolute terms. Wealth was a major factor in increasing the amount of garbage, as were new materials (especially plastics) that became more important in the consumer economy. Cities therefore produced rising tides of garbage, forcing local governments to search endlessly for disposal solutions. (p.122)

     In the 1970s, after the rise in globalization and environmental movements, more and more people began to try to reimagine global cities and consumer societies in a ‘greener’ way. Many European cities began implementing green policies. “They built efficient cogeneration plants (these recycled waste heat from electrical generation) and encouraged alternative energy. They funneled new urban growth to designated areas adjacent to existing cities…They [also] created programs for recycling, community gardening, green roofs, and ecosystem restoration.” (p.124) Additionally, they opted out of auto-centric planning and made efforts to preserve their historic city centers by making them car-free. But, they were not alone. The South American city of Curitiba is just one example of several, less-wealthy, cities that implemented greener practices. 

     However, another development that came about in the 1990s, questioned even the sustainability of these ‘greener’ cities. The formation of “...the ‘ecological footprint’ idea…,” by William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel, gave “...conceptual and quantitative expression to the global reach of cities.” (p.123) The authors explain:

Every city, Rees argued in an early (1992) groundbreaking paper on the concept, “coopts on a continuous basis several hectares of productive ecosystem for each inhabitant. Rees estimated that every resident of his own city, Vancouver, required 1.9 hectares of productive agricultural land for food. Rees calculated that the city consumed enough resources (including food, fuel, and forest products) and emitted enough waste to “occupy” a land area about the size of South Carolina or Scotland. He thus demonstrated that Vancouver, by most standards one of the greenest cities on Earth had an enormous ecological footprint…

[Therefore, e]cologists and planners such as Rees and Wackernagle had begun to ask whether there was enough nature to go around in a world increasingly dominated by cities. (p.123)

     After discussing the rise of global megacities, the authors next turn to the discussion of the links between “ecology and the global economy.” (p.128) They write:

In terms of ecological consequences, the most important feature of the second half of the twentieth century was the performance of the global economy…In the half century after 1950, the global economy grew sixfold…Growth peaked between 1950 and 1973, a period that has been labeled the “golden age,” a “Wirtschaftswunder” (economic miracle), “les trentes glorieuses” (the thirty glorious years), or “the long boom,” depending on the nationality of the observer…The era was marked, at different points in time, by the integration or reintegration of large parts of the formerly colonized and socialist worlds into the advanced capitalist economy. (p.129)

     Three main factors coalesced to drive this massive uptick in the global economy. The first factor was political. 

…[T]he onset of the Cold War quickly reorganized much of the world into two major blocs. Each of these was ruled by a superpower that had an enormous incentive to stimulate economic recovery and growth, albeit using very different methods…American leadership provided the basis for the larger and what would prove to be more dynamic of the two systems, the capitalist order. (p.129)

The United States was able to come out on top primarily because of its standing after the Second World War. Since America sustained the least losses of both human lives and property, “it had emerged…as a creditor rather than a debtor nation.” (p.130) Additionally, “American industrial power was unmatched.” (p.130)

     The second contributing factor to the global economic boom of the 1950s was physical – energy. “Over the twentieth century, energy use and economic expansion proceeded in lockstep, meaning that economic growth required expanding energy inputs…The leading producers benefited most of all from good geological fortune.” (p.132) Before the 1890s, Great Britain was the largest producer of fossil fuels, primarily coal. However, in the early 1900s, “...the vast coal, oil, and natural gas reserves of the United States enabled it to surpass Great Britain, a position that has never relinquished.” (p.132-133) By the century’s end, “...China, Canada, and Saudi Arabia joined the United States and post-soviet Russia as the largest energy producers.” (p.133) 

    Lastly, the third factor in the rising global economy after World War II was population growth. “As we have seen, the postwar era also saw the highest rates of sustained population increase in world history. Rising populations help explain global economic growth, almost by definition: more people usually meant more economic activity.” (p.134) Additionally, the large population of the United States helped explain our unmatched industrial power; and, the nations that lost the most human lives during the war fared the worst economically afterward. 

     After explaining the driving factors behind the postwar economic boom, the authors next discuss the effects of the technologies on the environment in the modern era. The authors explain:

Postwar technological innovation also created new types of environmental difficulties. Scientific and technological advances during the nineteenth century had produced a range of synthetic chemicals, compounds, and substances. But during the twentieth century in general, and the postwar period in particular, the use of artificial substances greatly proliferated. Laboratories turned out countless new chemicals, ranging from household cleaners to industrial lubricants to agricultural pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Because there was little awareness of the possible health and environmental consequences of so many new substances, a great number of these were originally used without any precautionary testing or regulation.

     One of these new substances was plastic, and the authors describe the havoc it has wreaked on the environment. 

New types of plastics flooded the marketplace. Plastic substituted for materials such as glass, wood, and paper in existing goods or became the key substance in a huge array of new consumer goods.

Production in such quantities invariably meant that plastics began to show up in the world's ecosystems…Observers started filing disconcerting reports about plastics dumping, in particular in the world's waterways and seas…

Early in the twenty-first century, scientists and sailors reported a new and frightening variant of the plastic saga, consisting of gigantic floating trash middens that plagued the world's oceans…[Additionally, a]ll recently examined seabirds of the North Sea contain plastic, as do a third of those in the Canadian Arctic. Tiny bits of plastic work their way through the food web of the oceans, collecting in the top predators such as killer whales and tuna fish. (p.137-139)

     The authors next discuss emergent economies since 1945. They explain that former communist and colonized nations began to take on the production needs of the world to try to participate in the global economy. And, as these nations moved toward more capitalist economies, they too began to produce massive amounts of pollution. As mentioned earlier, their willingness to take over many of the rich world’s industries played a major role in the developed nations’ ability to deindustrialize and limit industrial pollution. However, once these developing nations gained more wealth, they also turned toward more consumeristic lifestyles. Now new, large populations, such as those of China and India, wish to live like Americans have for the past century. And, who could blame them?

     Lastly, the authors discuss the economic dissenters of the twenty-first century.

During the postwar era, dissenters emerged who saw the ecological consequences of, and social injustices in, the global economy. Two sets of critiques among many can serve as illustration. The first set fell under the heading of ecological economics. Its central idea was, and remains, that the global economy is a subsystem within the Earth's ecosystem, which is finite and nongrowing. The laws of thermodynamics were foundational concepts in this field…[W]hile the first law means that the total amount of energy in the Universe will always be the same, the second means that energy is inevitably heading toward a less usable form. The ecological economists who applied these laws to human endeavors argued that any system that depends on infinite growth is impossible, for eventually it will exhaust the finite quantities of low-entropic matter and energy on Earth.

These included the Romanian expatriate Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The English-born Kenneth Boulding, and the American Herman Daly, all of whom worked at American universities.

A second set of criticisms fell under the heading of sustainable development. While it had important intellectual linkages to ecological economics, the concept of sustainable development evolved mainly outside of academic circles, hashed out and countless international forums by practitioners, diplomats, and social and environmental activists. It was thus a political idea that eventually found its way into mainstream thinking. Since its inception, most iterations of the sustainable development concept have combined two big ideas: first, that the global economy as it operated in the postwar era was socially unjust, in particular for the world's poor; and second, that the global economy threatened to outstrip ecological limits mainly due to the patterns of consumption in the rich world. (p.151-153)

In the next section, we will complete this book by focusing on the “Cold War and Environmental Culture” section.