scholarly journals REVIEW OF "THE ANTHROPOCENE PROJECT"

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 567-584
Author(s):  
Shannon Stevens ◽  
Richard Wainwright

Here, we engage The Anthropocene Project: a 2019 art event that features photographic exhibits in art galleries and museums, both across Canada and internationally. The project also includes a feature length film, augmented reality, and a proposed curriculum. The Anthropocene Project thematically addresses one of the most pressing, yet controversial, matters of our age: the deleterious effects of human activity on the earth. As a proposed geopolitical epoch, the Anthropocene marks this specific time in history whereby human activity has more significant environmental impact than all other factors combined. The photography that depicts scenes of ecological cost and environmental devastation are deceptively, seductively appealing. We resist the lulling effect of the Anthropocene Project’s visually stunning images that engender a sense of awe at these demonstrations of human engineering achievements on such a large scale. We are left wondering at our species’ prospects of survival when we can become entranced by images portraying events so counterintuitive to our survival as omnivores, as mammals, as oxygen dependent creatures.

The Holocene ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 1491-1494 ◽  
Author(s):  
SJ Gale ◽  
PG Hoare

The term Anthropocene was coined to describe the present geological epoch, in which human activity dominates many of the processes acting on the surface of the Earth. The expression has been widely adopted, but remains informal and lacks precise definition. There have been several attempts to establish formal stratigraphic markers to define the start of the Anthropocene. Most recently, Certini and Scalenghe (Certini G and Scalenghe R (2011) Anthropogenic soils are the golden spikes for the Anthropocene. The Holocene 21: 1269–1274) have argued that the best markers are anthropogenic soils and that these may be used to identify the base of the Anthropocene in stratigraphic sequences. Unfortunately, soils fail to meet many of the criteria required for the establishment of stratigraphic ‘golden spikes’. Their preservation potential is poor, many stratigraphically important environments do not experience pedogenesis and anthrosols do not always provide the stratigraphically lowest marker of human impact. In addition, there are practical and theoretical difficulties in defining the base of anthrosols and thus in identifying the start of the Anthropocene. More generally, the worldwide diachroneity of human impact makes it impossible to establish a single chronological datum for the epoch, raising questions about the value of stratigraphic methods in defining the base of the Anthropocene. More significantly, much of the work undertaken on the Anthropocene lies beyond stratigraphy, and a stratigraphic definition of this epoch may be unnecessary, constraining and arbitrary. It is not clear for practical purposes whether there is any real need for a golden spike at the base of the Anthropocene. The global stratigraphic approach may prove of limited utility in studies of human environmental impact.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-265
Author(s):  
Dr.Navdeep Kaur

Since its evolution environment has remained both a matter of awe and concern to man. The frontier attitude of the industrialized society towards nature has not only endangered the survival of all other life forms but also threatened the very existence of human life. The realization of such potential danger has necessitated the dissemination of knowledge and skill vis-a-vis environment protection at all stages of learning. Therefore, learners of all stages of learning need to be sensitized with a missionary zeal. This may ensure transformation of students into committed citizens for averting global environment crisis. The advancement of science and technology made the life more and more relaxed and man also became more and more ambitious. With such development, human dependence on environment increased. He consumed more resources and the effect of his activities on the environment became more and more detectable. Environment covers all the things present around the living beings and above the land, on the surface of the earth and under the earth. Environment indicates, in total, all of peripheral forces, pressures and circumstances, which affect the life, nature, behaviour, growth, development and maturation of living beings. Irrational exploitation (not utilization) of natural resources for our greed (not need) has endangered our survival, and incurred incalculable harm. Environmental Education is a science, a well-thought, permanent, lasting and integrated process of equipping learning experiences for getting awareness, knowledge, understanding, skills, values, technical expertise and involvement of learners with desirable attitudinal changes about their relationship with their natural and biophysical environment. Environmental Education is an organized effort to educate the masses about environment, its functions, need, importance, and especially how human beings can manage their behaviour in order to live in a sustainable manner.  The term 'environmental awareness' refers to creating general awareness of environmental issues, their causes by bringing about changes in perception, attitude, values and necessary skills to solve environment related problems. Moreover, it is the first step leading to the formation of responsible environmental behaviour (Stern, 2000). With the ever increasing development by modern man, large scale degradation of natural resources have been occurred, the public has to be educated about the fact that if we are degrading our environment we are actually harming ourselves. To encourage meaningful public participation and environment, it is necessary to create awareness about environment pollution and related adverse effects. This is the crucial time that environmental awareness and environmental sensitivity should be cultivated among the masses particularly among youths. For the awareness of society it is essential to work at a gross root level. So the whole society can work to save the environment.


2013 ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Claire Bompaire-Evesque

This article is a inquiry about how Barrès (1862-1923) handles the religious rite of pilgrimage. Barrès stages in his writings three successive forms of pilgrimage, revealing what is sacred to him at different times. The pilgrimage to a museum or to the birthplace of an artist is typical for the egotism and the humanism of the young Barrès, expressed in the Cult of the Self (1888-1891). After his conversion to nationalism, Barrès tries to unite the sons of France and to instill in them a solemn reverence for “the earth and the dead” ; for that purpose he encourages in French Amities (1903) pilgrimages to historical places of national importance (battlefields; birthplace of Joan of Arc), building what Nora later called the Realms of Memory. The third stage of Barrès’ intellectual evolution is exemplified by The Sacred Hill (1913). In this book the writer celebrates the places where “the Spirit blows”, and proves open to a large scale of spiritual forces, reaching back to paganism and forward to integrative syncretism, which aims at unifying “the entire realm of the sacred”.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (14) ◽  
pp. 4804
Author(s):  
Marcin Piekarczyk ◽  
Olaf Bar ◽  
Łukasz Bibrzycki ◽  
Michał Niedźwiecki ◽  
Krzysztof Rzecki ◽  
...  

Gamification is known to enhance users’ participation in education and research projects that follow the citizen science paradigm. The Cosmic Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory (CREDO) experiment is designed for the large-scale study of various radiation forms that continuously reach the Earth from space, collectively known as cosmic rays. The CREDO Detector app relies on a network of involved users and is now working worldwide across phones and other CMOS sensor-equipped devices. To broaden the user base and activate current users, CREDO extensively uses the gamification solutions like the periodical Particle Hunters Competition. However, the adverse effect of gamification is that the number of artefacts, i.e., signals unrelated to cosmic ray detection or openly related to cheating, substantially increases. To tag the artefacts appearing in the CREDO database we propose the method based on machine learning. The approach involves training the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to recognise the morphological difference between signals and artefacts. As a result we obtain the CNN-based trigger which is able to mimic the signal vs. artefact assignments of human annotators as closely as possible. To enhance the method, the input image signal is adaptively thresholded and then transformed using Daubechies wavelets. In this exploratory study, we use wavelet transforms to amplify distinctive image features. As a result, we obtain a very good recognition ratio of almost 99% for both signal and artefacts. The proposed solution allows eliminating the manual supervision of the competition process.


Nanophotonics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 3003-3010
Author(s):  
Jiacheng Shi ◽  
Wen Qiao ◽  
Jianyu Hua ◽  
Ruibin Li ◽  
Linsen Chen

AbstractGlasses-free augmented reality is of great interest by fusing virtual 3D images naturally with physical world without the aid of any wearable equipment. Here we propose a large-scale spatial multiplexing holographic see-through combiner for full-color 3D display. The pixelated metagratings with varied orientation and spatial frequency discretely reconstruct the propagating lightfield. The irradiance pattern of each view is tailored to form super Gaussian distribution with minimized crosstalk. What’s more, spatial multiplexing holographic combiner with customized aperture size is adopted for the white balance of virtually displayed full-color 3D scene. In a 32-inch prototype, 16 views form a smooth parallax with a viewing angle of 47°. A high transmission (>75%) over the entire visible spectrum range is achieved. We demonstrated that the displayed virtual 3D scene not only preserved natural motion parallax, but also mixed well with the natural objects. The potential applications of this study include education, communication, product design, advertisement, and head-up display.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2201
Author(s):  
Hanlin Ye ◽  
Huadong Guo ◽  
Guang Liu ◽  
Jinsong Ping ◽  
Lu Zhang ◽  
...  

Moon-based Earth observations have attracted significant attention across many large-scale phenomena. As the only natural satellite of the Earth, and having a stable lunar surface as well as a particular orbit, Moon-based Earth observations allow the Earth to be viewed as a single point. Furthermore, in contrast with artificial satellites, the varied inclination of Moon-based observations can improve angular samplings of specific locations on Earth. However, the potential for estimating the global outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from the Earth with such a platform has not yet been fully explored. To evaluate the possibility of calculating OLR using specific Earth observation geometry, we constructed a model to estimate Moon-based OLR measurements and investigated the potential of a Moon-based platform to acquire the necessary data to estimate global mean OLR. The primary method of our study is the discretization of the observational scope into various elements and the consequent integration of the OLR of all elements. Our results indicate that a Moon-based platform is suitable for global sampling related to the calculation of global mean OLR. By separating the geometric and anisotropic factors from the measurement calculations, we ensured that measured values include the effects of the Moon-based Earth observation geometry and the anisotropy of the scenes in the observational scope. Although our results indicate that higher measured values can be achieved if the platform is located near the center of the lunar disk, a maximum difference between locations of approximately 9 × 10−4 W m−2 indicates that the effect of location is too small to remarkably improve observation performance of the platform. In conclusion, our analysis demonstrates that a Moon-based platform has the potential to provide continuous, adequate, and long-term data for estimating global mean OLR.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Gabriel Lopez Porras

Despite international efforts to stop dryland degradation and expansion, current dryland pathways are predicted to result in large-scale migration, growing poverty and famine, and increasing climate change, land degradation, conflicts and water scarcity. Earth system science has played a key role in analysing dryland problems, and has been even incorporated in global assessments such as the ones made by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. However, policies addressing dryland degradation, like the ‘Mexican programme for the promotion of sustainable land management’, do not embrace an Earth system perspective, so they do not consider the complexity and non-linearity that underlie dryland problems. By exploring how this Mexican programme could integrate the Earth system perspective, this paper discusses how ’Earth system’ policies could better address dryland degradation and expansion in the Anthropocene.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (86) ◽  
pp. 11733-11746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grazia Malta ◽  
Simon J. Freakley ◽  
Simon A. Kondrat ◽  
Graham J. Hutchings

The replacement of mercuric chloride in the production of vinyl chloride monomer, a precursor to PVC, would greatly reduce the environmental impact of this large scale industrial process.


1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Winterson

Originally, the creative music workshop involving professional players was intended to give direct support to school teachers and to enhance music in the classroom, but today's large-scale, high-profile projects mounted by orchestras and opera companies appear to be developing into a full-scale industry on their own. Their role in partnership with schools and colleges now requires clarification: a survey of education policies has revealed some confusion of aims with few bodies looking closely at objectives, outcomes and effects. Music companies could profit from the experience of museums and art galleries.


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