Climate Change Inaction and Meaning

Continuing growth, insofar as it increases human environmental impact, is in conflict with the environment. ‘Green growth’, if it increases the absolute size of the economy, is an oxymoron. Environmental limits are discountenanced, a pretence made possible because they are difficult to specify in advance. The consequent weakness in public discourse, both moral and intellectual, has worsened into contradiction as it has become ever more studiously unadmitted. It is obscured with language that is misleading or self-contradictory, and even issues from institutions that exist (and are relied upon) to respect correctness. At its most conforming it gives rise to overshoot, by which statements meant to sound authoritative are in fact open to ridicule. Such untruthfulness perpetuates climate change inaction, and in a kind of direct action those using such language, contrary to their public or professional duty, could be asked to justify themselves in plain English.

Historical and fossil evidence of an extinct endemic species of Leiocephalus (Squamata: Leiocephalidae) from the Guadeloupe Islands

Documenting recent extinction events against the backdrop of increasing human-induced environmental pressure is complicated by the lack of historical and subfossil evidence for most parts of the world. This paucity of data renders it particularly difficult to evaluate the human impact on fragile environments, such as small islands, that may have been heavily altered by historical human exploitation. Here we describe a new species of an extinct Leiocephalus lizard from Guadeloupe, Leiocephalus roquetus sp. nov. based on recent discoveries of both a previously undocumented historically taxidermy specimen and of a large assemblage of subfossil bone remains from La Désirade Island. This new species presents a primitive morphology compared to all extant species of its genus and provides evidence for the past existence of a Lesser Antillean clade of Leiocephalus lizards that was completely wiped out in the centuries following the European colonization of these islands. Our study demonstrates how paleontological approaches can help to better understand the history of human environmental impact as well as the degree of degradation of modern ecosystems.

An Investigation of How Environmental Science Textbooks Link Human Environmental Impact to Ecology and Daily Life

Pre-college and college-level environmental science textbook case studies were analyzed for how they portray the human-environment connection. It was found that daily life connections were frequently absent from human impact discussions and that almost all case studies described human impacts without linking them to their ecological underpinnings.

Explicitly Linking Human Impact to Ecological Function in Secondary School Classrooms

Both the old National Science Education Standards (NSES) and the recent Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) devote significant resources to learning about human environmental impact. Whereas the NSES advocate learning about human environmental impact in a section apart from the science-content learning strands, the NGSS embed them in the core life-science and ecology learning strands. We describe a study that compared the effects of these different approaches on ninth-grade biology student learning. It found that students learned significantly more human-environmental-impact and ecological-function content when human-impact content was embedded in ecology content than when human impact was taught as a discrete unit from ecology.

The stratigraphic status of the Anthropocene

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.

The Lost Woodlands of Ancient Nasca

This book presents an archaeological case of prehistoric human environmental impact: a study of ecological and cultural change from the arid south coast of Peru, beginning around 750 bc and culminating in a collapse during the Middle Horizon, around ad 900. Its focus is the lower Ica Valley — today depopulated and bereft of cultivation and yet with archaeological remains attesting to substantial prehistoric occupations — thereby presenting a prima facie case for changed environmental conditions. Previous archaeological interpretations of cultural changes in the region rely heavily on climatic factors such as El Niño floods and long droughts. While the archaeological, geomorphological, and archaeobotanical records presented here do indeed include new evidence of huge ancient flood events, they also demonstrate the significance of more gradual, human-induced destruction of Prosopis pallida (huarango) riparian dry-forest. The huarango is a remarkable leguminous hardwood that lives for over a millennium and provides forage, fuel, and food. Moreover, it is crucial to the integration of a fragile desert ecosystem, enhancing microclimate and soil fertility and moisture. Its removal exposed this landscape to the effects of El Niño climatic perturbations long before Europeans arrived in Peru. This case study therefore contradicts the popular perception that Native Americans inflicted barely perceptible disturbance upon a New World Eden. Yet, it also records correlations between changes in society and degrees of human environmental impact. These allow inferences about the specific contexts in which significant human environmental impacts in the New World did, and did not, arise.