Unintended consequences

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences

 

An erosion gully in Australia caused by rabbits, an unintended consequence of their introduction as game animals.

 

In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton.

Unintended consequences can be grouped into three types:

• Unexpected benefit: A positive unexpected benefit (also referred to as luck, serendipity or a windfall).
• Unexpected drawback: An unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation schemes provide people with water for agriculture, they can increase waterborne diseases that have devastating health effects, such as schistosomiasis).
• Perverse result: A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse).

History

John Locke

The idea of unintended consequences dates back at least to John Locke who discussed the unintended consequences of interest rate regulation in his letter to Sir John Somers, Member of Parliament.

Adam Smith

The idea was also discussed by Adam Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment, and consequentialism (judging by results).

Robert K. Merton

Sociologist Robert K. Merton popularised this concept in the twentieth century.

In "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action" (1936), Merton tried to apply a systematic analysis to the problem of unintended consequences of deliberate acts intended to cause social change. He emphasized that his term purposive action, "[was exclusively] concerned with 'conduct' as distinct from 'behavior.' That is, with action that involves motives and consequently a choice between various alternatives". Merton's usage included deviations from what Max Weber defined as rational social action: instrumentally rational and value rational. Merton also stated that "no blanket statement categorically affirming or denying the practical feasibility of all social planning is warranted."

Everyday usage

More recently, the law of unintended consequences has come to be used as an adage or idiomatic warning that an intervention in a complex system tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes.

Akin to Murphy's law, it is commonly used as a wry or humorous warning against the hubristic belief that humans can fully control the world around them. 

Causes

Possible causes of unintended consequences include the world's inherent complexity (parts of a system responding to changes in the environment), perverse incentives, human stupidity, self-deception, failure to account for human nature, or other cognitive or emotional biases. As a sub-component of complexity (in the scientific sense), the chaotic nature of the universe—and especially its quality of having small, apparently insignificant changes with far-reaching effects (e.g., the butterfly effect)—applies.

Robert K. Merton listed five possible causes of unanticipated consequences in 1936:^[13]

1. Ignorance, making it impossible to anticipate everything, thereby leading to incomplete analysis.
2. Errors in analysis of the problem or following habits that worked in the past but may not apply to the current situation.
3. Immediate interests overriding long-term interests.
4. Basic values which may require or prohibit certain actions even if the long-term result might be unfavourable (these long-term consequences may eventually cause changes in basic values).
5. Self-defeating prophecy, or, the fear of some consequence which drives people to find solutions before the problem occurs, thus the non-occurrence of the problem is not anticipated.

In addition to Merton's causes, psychologist Stuart Vyse has noted that groupthink, described by Irving Janis, has been blamed for some decisions that result in unintended consequences.

Examples

Unexpected benefits

The creation of "no-man's lands" during the Cold War, in places such as the border between Eastern and Western Europe, and the Korean Demilitarized Zone, has led to large natural habitats.

The sinking of ships in shallow waters during wartime has created many artificial coral reefs, which can be scientifically valuable and have become an attraction for recreational divers. Retired ships have been purposely sunk in recent years, in an effort to replace coral reefs lost to global warming and other factors.

In medicine, most drugs have unintended consequences ('side effects') associated with their use. However, some are beneficial. For instance, aspirin, a pain reliever, is also an anticoagulant that can help prevent heart attacks and reduce the severity and damage from thrombotic strokes. The existence of beneficial side effects also leads to off-label use—prescription or use of a drug for an unlicensed purpose. Famously, the drug Viagra was developed to lower blood pressure, with its use for treating erectile dysfunction being discovered as a side effect in clinical trials. 

Unexpected drawbacks

The implementation of a profanity filter by AOL in 1996 had the unintended consequence of blocking residents of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts due to a false positive. The accidental censorship of innocent language, known as the Scunthorpe problem, has been repeated and widely documented.

In 1990, the Australian state of Victoria made safety helmets mandatory for all bicycle riders. While there was a reduction in the number of head injuries, there was also an unintended reduction in the number of juvenile cyclists—fewer cyclists obviously leads to fewer injuries, assuming all else being equal. The risk of death and serious injury per cyclist seems to have increased, possibly due to risk compensation. Research by Vulcan, et al. found that the reduction in juvenile cyclists was because the youths considered wearing a bicycle helmet unfashionable. A health-benefit model developed at Macquarie University in Sydney suggests that, while helmet use reduces "the risk of head or brain injury by approximately two-thirds or more", the decrease in exercise caused by reduced cycling as a result of helmet laws is counterproductive in terms of net health.

Prohibition in the 1920s United States, originally enacted to suppress the alcohol trade, drove many small-time alcohol suppliers out of business and consolidated the hold of large-scale organized crime over the illegal alcohol industry. Since alcohol was still popular, criminal organisations producing alcohol were well-funded and hence also increased their other activities. Similarly, the War on Drugs, intended to suppress the illegal drug trade, instead increased the power and profitability of drug cartels who became the primary source of the products.

In CIA jargon, "blowback" describes the unintended, undesirable consequences of covert operations, such as the funding of the Afghan Mujahideen and the destabilization of Afghanistan contributing to the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

The introduction of exotic animals and plants for food, for decorative purposes, or to control unwanted species often leads to more harm than good done by the introduced species.

• The introduction of rabbits in Australia and New Zealand for food was followed by an explosive growth in the rabbit population; rabbits have become a major feral pest in these countries.
• Cane toads, introduced into Australia to control canefield pests, were unsuccessful and have become a major pest in their own right.
• Kudzu, introduced to the US as an ornamental plant in 1876 and later used to prevent erosion in earthworks, has become a major problem in the Southeastern United States. Kudzu has displaced native plants and has effectively taken over significant portions of land.

The protection of the steel industry in the United States reduced production of steel in the United States, increased costs to users, and increased unemployment in associated industries.

Perverse results

In 2003, Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully sued Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for posting a photograph of her home online. Before the lawsuit had been filed, only 6 people had downloaded the file, two of them Streisand's attorneys. The lawsuit drew attention to the image, resulting in 420,000 people visiting the site. The Streisand effect was named after this incident, describing when an attempt to censor or remove a certain piece of information instead draws attention to the material being suppressed, resulting in the material instead becoming widely known, reported on, and distributed.

Passenger-side airbags in motorcars were intended as a safety feature, but led to an increase in child fatalities in the mid-1990s as small children were being hit by deploying airbags during collisions. The supposed solution to this problem, moving the child seat to the back of the vehicle, led to an increase in the number of children forgotten in unattended vehicles, some of whom died under extreme temperature conditions.

Risk compensation, or the Peltzman effect, occurs after implementation of safety measures intended to reduce injury or death (e.g. bike helmets, seatbelts, etc.). People may feel safer than they really are and take additional risks which they would not have taken without the safety measures in place. This may result in no change, or even an increase, in morbidity or mortality, rather than a decrease as intended.

According to an anecdote, the British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobra snakes in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. This was a successful strategy as large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, enterprising people began breeding cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, they scrapped the reward program, causing the cobra breeders to set the now-worthless snakes free. As a result, the wild cobra population further increased. The apparent solution for the problem made the situation even worse, becoming known as the Cobra effect.

Theobald Mathew's temperance campaign in 19th-century Ireland resulted in thousands of people vowing never to drink alcohol again. This led to the consumption of diethyl ether, a much more dangerous intoxicant — due to its high flammability — by those seeking to become intoxicated without breaking the letter of their pledge.

It was thought that adding south-facing conservatories to British houses would reduce energy consumption by providing extra insulation and warmth from the sun. However, people tended to use the conservatories as living areas, installing heating and ultimately increasing overall energy consumption.

A reward for lost nets found along the Normandy coast was offered by the French government between 1980 and 1981. This resulted in people vandalizing nets to collect the reward.

Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, the Canadian federal government gave the Catholic Church in Quebec $2.25 per day per psychiatric patient for their cost of care, but only $0.75 a day per orphan. The perverse result is that the orphan children were diagnosed as mentally ill so the church could receive the larger amount of money. This psychiatric misdiagnosis affected up to 20,000 people, and the children are known as the Duplessis Orphans.

There have been attempts to curb the consumption of sugary beverages by imposing a tax on them. However, a study found that the reduced consumption was only temporary. Also, there was an increase in the consumption of beer among households.

The New Jersey Childproof Handgun Law, which was intended to protect children from accidental discharge of firearms by forcing all future firearms sold in New Jersey to contain "smart" safety features, has delayed, if not stopped entirely, the introduction of such firearms to New Jersey markets. The wording of the law caused significant public backlash, fuelled by gun rights lobbyists, and several shop owners offering such guns received death threats and stopped stocking them In 2014, 12 years after the law was passed, it was suggested the law be repealed if gun rights lobbyists agree not to resist the introduction of "smart" firearms.

Drug prohibition can lead drug traffickers to prefer stronger, more dangerous substances, that can be more easily smuggled and distributed than other, less concentrated substances.

Televised drug prevention advertisements may lead to increased drug use.

Increasing usage of search engines, also including recent image search features, has contributed in the ease of which media is consumed. Some abnormalities in usage may have shifted preferences for pornographic film actors, as the producers began using common search queries or tags to label the actors in new roles.

The passage of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act has led to a reported increase in risky behaviors by sex workers as a result of quashing their ability to seek and screen clients online, forcing them back onto the streets or into the dark web. The ads posted were previously an avenue for advocates to reach out to those wanting to escape the trade.

Other

According to Lynn White, the invention of the horse stirrup enabled new patterns of warfare that eventually led to the development of feudalism (see Great Stirrup Controversy).

Environmental intervention

Most modern technologies have negative consequences that are both unavoidable and unpredictable. For example, almost all environmental problems, from chemical pollution to global warming, are the unexpected consequences of the application of modern technologies. Traffic congestion, deaths and injuries from car accidents, air pollution, and global warming are unintended consequences of the invention and large scale adoption of the automobile. Hospital infections are the unexpected side-effect of antibiotic resistance, and even human overpopulation is the side effect of various technological (i.e., agricultural and industrial) revolutions.

Because of the complexity of ecosystems, deliberate changes to an ecosystem or other environmental interventions will often have (usually negative) unintended consequences. Sometimes, these effects cause permanent irreversible changes. Examples include:

• During the Four Pests Campaign a killing of sparrows was declared. Chinese leaders later realized that sparrows ate a large amount of insects, as well as grains. Rather than being increased, rice yields after the campaign were substantially decreased.
• During the Great Plague of London a killing of dogs and cats was ordered. If left untouched, they would have made a significant reduction in the rat population that carried the fleas which transmitted the disease.
• The installation of smokestacks to decrease pollution in local areas, resulting in spread of pollution at a higher altitude, and acid rain on an international scale.
• After about 1900, public demand led the US government to fight forest fires in the American West, and set aside land as national forests and parks to protect them from fires. This policy led to fewer fires, but also led to growth conditions such that, when fires did occur, they were much larger and more damaging. Modern research suggests that this policy was misguided, and that a certain level of wildfires is a natural and important part of forest ecology.
• Side effects of climate engineering to counter global warming could involve even further warming as a consequence of reflectivity-reducing afforestation or crop yield reductions and rebound effects after solar dimming measures with even more accelerated warming.

Technological fix

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix

 

Renewable energy is one primary example of a technological fix, as it has been designed to combat the issues with global warming and climate change.

 

A technological fix, technical fix, technological shortcut or solutionism refers to the attempt of using engineering or technology to solve a problem (often created by earlier technological interventions).

Some references define technological fix as an "attempt to repair the harm of a technology by modification of the system", that might involve modification of the machine and/or modification of the procedures for operating and maintaining it.

Technological fixes are inevitable in modern technology. It has been observed that many technologies, although invented and developed to solve certain perceived problems, often create other problems in the process, known as externalities. In other words, there would be modification of the basic hardware, modification of techniques and procedures, or both.

Technological fix is the idea that all problems can find solutions in better and new technologies. It now is used as a dismissive phrase to describe cheap, quick fixes by using inappropriate technologies; these fixes often create more problems than they solve, or give people a sense that they have solved the problem.

Contemporary context

In the contemporary context, technological fix is sometimes used to refer to the idea of using data and intelligent algorithms to supplement and improve human decision making in hope that this would result in ameliorating the bigger problem. One critic, Evgeny Morozov defines this as "Recasting all complex social situations either as neat problems with definite, computable solutions or as transparent and self-evident processes that can be easily optimized--if only the right algorithms are in place." While some criticizes this approach to the issues of today as detrimental to efforts to truly solve these problems, opponents finds merits in such approach to technological improvement of our society as complements to existing activists and policy efforts.

An example of the criticism is how policy makers may be tempted to think that installing smart energy monitors would help people conserve energy better, thus improving global warming, rather than focusing on the arduous process of passing laws to tax carbon, etc. Another example is thinking of obesity as a lifestyle choice of eating high caloric foods and not exercising enough, rather than viewing obesity as more of a social and class problem where individuals are predisposed to eat certain kind of foods (due to the lack of affordable health-supporting food in urban food deserts), to lack optimally evidence-based health behaviors, and lack of proper health care to mitigate behavioral outcomes.

Climate change

The technological fix for climate change is an example of the use of technology to restore the environment. This can be seen through various different strategies such as: geo-engineering and renewable energy.

Geo-engineering

Geo-engineering is referred as "the artificial modification of Earth's climate systems through two primary ideologies, Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)".^{[citation needed]} Different schemes, projects and technologies have been designed to tackle the effects of climate change, usually by removing CO2 from the air as seen by Klaus Lackner's invention of a Co2 prototype, or by limiting the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, by space mirrors. However, "critics by contrast claim that geoengineering isn't realistic – and may be a distraction from reducing emissions." It has been argued that geo-engineering is an adaptation to global warming. It allows TNC's, humans and governments to avoid facing the facts that global warming is a crisis that needs to be dealt with head-on by reducing emissions and implementing green technologies, rather than developing ways to control the environment and ultimately allow Greenhouse Gases to continue to be released into the atmosphere.

Renewable energy

Wind Turbine

 

Renewable Energy is also another example of a technological fix, as technology is being used in attempts to reduce and mitigate the effects of global warming. Renewable Energy refers to technologies that has been designed to be eco-friendly and efficient for the well-being of the Earth. They are generally regarded as infinite energy sources, which means they will never run out, unlike fossil fuels such as oil and coal, which are finite sources of energy. They additionally release no green house gases such as carbon dioxide, which is harmful for the planet as it depletes the ozone layer. Examples of renewable energy can be seen by wind turbines, solar energy such as solar panels and kinetic energy from waves. These energies are regarded as a technological fix as they have been designed and innovated to overcome issues with energy insecurity, as well as to help protect Earth from the harmful emissions released from non-renewable energy sources, and thus overcome global warming. It is also known that such technologies will in turn require their own technological fixes. For example, some types of solar energy have local impacts on ambient temperature, which can be a hazard to birdlife.

Food famine

It has been made explicit within society that the world's population is rapidly increasing, with the "UNICEF estimating that an average of 353,000 babies are born each day around the world." Therefore, it is expected that the production of food will not be able to progress and develop to keep up with the needs of species. Ester Boserup highlighted in 1965 that when the human population increases and food production decreases, an innovation will take place. This can be demonstrated in the technological development of hydroponics and genetically modified crops.

hydroponics

 

Hydroponics

Hydroponics is an example of a technological fix. It demonstrates the ability for humans to recognise a problem within society, such as the lack of food for an increasing population, and therefore attempt to fix this problem with the development of an innovative technology. Hydroponics is a method of food production to increase productivity, in an "artificial environment." The soil is replaced by a mineral solution that is left around the plant roots. Removing the soil allows a greater crop yield, as there is less chance of soil-borne diseases, as well as being able to monitor plant growth and mineral concentrations. This innovative technology to yield more food reflects the ability for humans to develop their way out of a problem, portraying a technological fix. 

Genetically modified organism

Genetically modified organism (GMO) reflect the use of technology to innovate our way out of a problem such as the lack of food to cater for the growing population, demonstrating a technological fix. GM crops can create many advantages, such as higher food fields, added vitamins and increased farm profits. Depending on the modifications, they may also introduce the problem of increasing resistance to pesticides and herbicides, which may inevitably precipitate the need for further fixes in the future.

Golden rice

Golden rice is one example of a technological fix. It demonstrates the ability for humans to develop and innovate themselves out of problems, such as the deficiency of vitamin A in Taiwan and Philippines, in which the World Health Organization reported that about 250 million preschool children are affected by. Through the technological development of GM Crops, scientists were able to develop golden rice that can be grown in these countries with genetically higher levels of beta-carotene (a precursor of vitamin A). This enables healthier and fulfilling lifestyles for these individuals and consequently helps to reduce the deaths caused by the deficiency.

Externalities

Externalities refer to the unforeseen or unintended consequences of technology. It is evident that everything new and innovative can potentially have negative effects, especially if it is a new area of development. Although technologies are invented and developed to solve certain perceived problems, they often create other problems in the process.

DDT

DDT was initially use by the Military in World War II to control a range of different illnesses, varying from Malaria to the bubonic plague and body lice. Due to the efficiency of DDT, it was soon adopted as a farm pesticide to help maximise crop yields to consequently cope with the rising populations food demands post WWII. This pesticide proved to be extremely effective in killing bugs and animals on crops, and was often referred as the "wonder-chemical." However, despite being banned for over forty years, we are still facing the externalities of this technology. It was found that DDT had major health impacts on both humans and animals. It was found that DDT accumulated within the fatty cells of both humans and animals and therefore highlights that technological fixes have their negatives as well as positives.

DDT being sprayed

 

Humans

• Breast & other cancers
• Male infertility
• Miscarriages & low birth weight
• Developmental delay
• Nervous system & liver damage

Animals

• DDT is toxic to birds when eaten.
• Decreases the reproductive rate of birds by causing eggshell thinning and embryo deaths.
• Highly toxic to aquatic animals. DDT affects various systems in aquatic animals including the heart and brain.
• DDT moderately toxic to amphibians like frogs, toads, and salamanders. Immature amphibians are more sensitive to the effects of DDT than adults.

Automobile

 

Global warming

Global warming can be a natural phenomenon that occurs in long (geologic) cycles. However, it has been found that man-made ozone layer depletion and the release of Greenhouse Gases through industry, and traffic, causes the earth to heat up to unnatural temperatures. This is causing externalities on the environment, such as melting icecaps, shifting biomes and extinction of many aquatic species, through ocean acidification and changing temperatures.

Automobiles

Automobiles with internal combustion engines have revolutionised civilisation and technology. However, whilst the technology was new and innovative, helping to connect places through the ability of transport, it was not recognised at the time that burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, inside the engines would release pollutants. This is an explicit example of an externality caused by a technological fix, as the problems caused from the development of the technology was not recognised at the time.

Different types of technological fixes

High-tech megaprojects

High-tech megaprojects are large scale and require huge sums of investment and revenue to be created. Examples of these high technologies are Dams, nuclear power plants, and airports. They usually cause externalities on other factors such as the environment, are highly expensive, and are top-down governmental plans.

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam.

 

Three Gorges Dam

The Three Gorges Dam is an example of a high-tech technological fix. The creation of the multi-purpose navigation hydropower and flood control scheme was designed to fix the issues with flooding whilst providing efficient, clean renewable hydro-electric power in China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW). The dam is the largest operating hydroelectric facility in terms of annual energy generation, generating 83.7 TWh in 2013 and 98.8 TWh in 2014, while the annual energy generation of the Itaipú Dam in Brazil and Paraguay was 98.6 TWh in 2013 and 87.8 in 2014. It was estimated to have cost over £25 billion. There have been many externalities from this technology, such as the extinction of the Chinese River Dolphin, an increase in pollution, as the river can no longer 'flush' itself, and over 4 million locals being displaced in the area.

Intermediate technology

Rainwater harvesting

Is usually small-scale and cheap technologies that are usually seen in developing countries. The capital to build and create these technologies are usually low, yet labour is high. Local expertise can be used to maintain these technologies making them very quick and effective to build and repair. An example of an intermediate technology can be seen by water wells, rain barrels and pumpkin tanks.

Appropriate technologies

Technology that suits the level of income, skills and needs of the people. Therefore, this factor encompasses both high and low technologies.

An example of this can be seen by developing countries that implement technologies that suit their expertise, such as rain barrels and hand pumps. These technologies are low costing and can be maintained by local skills, making them affordable and efficient. However, to implement rain barrels in a developed country would not be appropriate, as it would not suit the technological advancement apparent in these countries. Therefore, appropriate technological fixes take into consideration the level of development within a country before implementing them. 

Concerns

Michael and Joyce Huesemann caution against the hubris of large-scale techno-fixes In the book Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won't Save Us Or the Environment they show why negative unintended consequences of science and technology are inherently unavoidable and unpredictable, why counter-technologies or techno-fixes are no lasting solutions, and why modern technology in current context does not promote sustainability but instead collapse. Naomi Klein is a prominent opponent of the view that simply technological fixes will solve our problems. She explained her concerns in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate and states that technical fixes for climate change such as geoengineering bring significant risks as "we simply don't know enough about the Earth system to be able to re-engineer it safely". According to her the proposed technique of dimming the rays of the sun with sulphate-spraying helium balloons in order to mimic the cooling effect on the atmosphere of large volcanic eruptions for instance is highly dangerous and such schemes will surely be attempted if abrupt climate change gets seriously under way. Various experts and environmental groups have also come forward with their concerns over views and approaches that look for techno fixes as solutions and warn that those would be "misguided, unjust, profoundly arrogant and endlessly dangerous" approaches as well as over the prospect of a technological 'fix' for global warming, however impractical, causing lessened political pressure for a real solution.

Novel ecosystem

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel_ecosystem

Novel ecosystems are human-built, modified, or engineered niches of the Anthropocene. They exist in places that have been altered in structure and function by human agency. Novel ecosystems are part of the human environment and niche (including urban, suburban, and rural), they lack natural analogs, and they have extended an influence that has converted more than three-quarters of wild Earth. These anthropogenic biomes include technoecosystems that are fuelled by powerful energy sources (fossil and nuclear) including ecosystems populated with technodiversity, such as roads and unique combinations of soils called technosols. Vegetation associations on old buildings or along field boundary stone walls in old agricultural landscapes are examples of sites where research into novel ecosystem ecology is developing.

Overview

Human society has transformed the planet to such an extent that we may have ushered in a new epoch known as the anthropocene. The ecological niche of the anthropocene contains entirely novel ecosystems that include technosols, technodiversity, anthromes, and the technosphere. These terms describe the human ecological phenomena marking this unique turn in the evolution of Earth's history. The total human ecosystem (or anthrome) describes the relationship of the industrial technosphere to the ecosphere. 

Technoecosystems interface with natural life-supporting ecosystems in competitive and parasitic ways. Odum (2001) attributes this term to a 1982 publication by Zev Naveh: "Current urban-industrial society not only impacts natural life-support ecosystems, but also has created entirely new arrangements that we can call techno-ecosystems, a term believed to be first suggested by Zev Neveh (1982). These new systems involve new, powerful energy sources (fossil and atomic fuels), technology, money, and cities that have little or no parallels in nature." The term technoecosystem, however, appears earliest in print in a 1976 technical report and also appears in a book chapter.^[11]

Novel Ecosystems

A novel ecosystem is one that has been heavily influenced by humans but is not under human management. A working tree plantation doesn't qualify; one abandoned decades ago would.

Marris 2009^[12]:450

Novel ecosystems "differ in composition and/or function from present and past systems". Novel ecosystems are the hallmark of the recently proposed anthropocene epoch. They have no natural analogs due to human alterations on global climate systems, invasive species, a global mass extinction, and disruption of the global nitrogen cycle. Novel ecosystems are creating many different kinds of dilemmas for conservation biologists. On a more local scale, abandoned lots, agricultural land, old buildings, field boundary stone walls or residential gardens provide study sites on the history and dynamics of ecology in novel ecosystems.

Anthropogenic biomes

Anthropogenic biomes tell a completely different story, one of “human systems, with natural ecosystems embedded within them”. This is no minor change in the story we tell our children and each other. Yet it is necessary for sustainable management of the biosphere in the 21st century.

Ellis (2008) identifies twenty-one different kinds of anthropogenic biomes that sort into the following groups: 1) dense settlements, 2) villages, 3) croplands, 4) rangeland, 5) forested, and 6) wildlands. These anthropogenic biomes (or anthromes for short) create the technosphere that surrounds us and are populated with diverse technologies (or technodiversity for short). Within these anthromes the human species (one species out of billions) appropriates 23.8% of the global net primary production. "This is a remarkable impact on the biosphere caused by just one species." 

Noosphere

Noosphere (sometimes noösphere) is the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς (nous "mind") + σφαῖρα (sphaira "sphere"), in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere". Introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1922  in his Cosmogenesis". Another possibility is the first use of the term by Édouard Le Roy, who together with Chardin was listening to lectures of Vladimir Vernadsky at Sorbonne. In 1936 Vernadsky presented on the idea of the Noosphere in a letter to Boris Leonidovich Lichkov (though, he states that the concept derives from Le Roy). 

Technosphere

The technosphere is the part of the environment on Earth where technodiversity extends its influence into the biosphere. "For the development of suitable restoration strategies, a clear distinction has to be made between different functional classes of natural and cultural solar-powered biosphere and fossil-powered technosphere landscapes, according to their inputs and throughputs of energy and materials, their organisms, their control by natural or human information, their internal self-organization and their regenerative capacities." The weight of Earth's technosphere has been calculated as 30 trillion tons, a mass greater than 50 kilos for every square metre of the planet's surface.

Technoecosystems

The concept of technoecosystems has been pioneered by ecologists Howard T. Odum and Zev Naveh. Technoecosystems interface with and are competitive toward natural systems. They have advanced technology (or technodiversity) money-based market economies and have a large ecological footprints. Technoecosystems have far greater energy requirements than natural ecosystems, excessive water consumption, and release toxic and eutrophicating chemicals. Other ecologists have defined the extensive global network of road systems as a type of technoecosystem.

Technoecotypes

"Bio-agro- and techno-ecotopes are spatially integrated in larger, regional landscape units, but they are not structurally and functionally integrated in the ecosphere. Because of the adverse impacts of the latter and the great human pressures on bio-ecotopes, they are even antagonistically related and therefore cannot function together as a coherent, sustainable ecological system."

Technosols

Technosols are a new form of ground group in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). Technosols are " mainly characterised by anthropogenic parent material of organic and mineral nature and which origin can be either natural or technogenic."

Technodiversity

Technodiversity refers to the varied diversity of technological artifacts that exist in technoecosystems.

Anthropogenic biome

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropogenic_biome 

 

Anthropogenic biomes

 

Anthropogenic biomes, also known as anthromes or human biomes, describe the terrestrial biosphere in its contemporary, human-altered form using global ecosystem units defined by global patterns of sustained direct human interaction with ecosystems. Anthromes were first named and mapped by Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty in their 2008 paper, "Putting People in the Map: Anthropogenic Biomes of the World". Anthrome maps now appear in numerous textbooks and in the National Geographic World Atlas.

Anthropogenic transformation of the Biosphere

For more than a century, the biosphere has been described in terms of global ecosystem units called biomes, which are vegetation types like tropical rainforests and grasslands that are identified in relation to global climate patterns. Considering that human populations and their use of land have fundamentally altered global patterns of ecosystem form, process, and biodiversity, anthropogenic biomes provide a framework for integrating human systems with the biosphere in the Anthropocene. 

Before 1700

Humans have been altering ecosystems since we have evolved. Evidence suggests that our ancestors were burning land to clear it at one million years ago. 600,000 years ago, humans were using spears to kill horses and other large animals in Great Britain and China. For the past tens of thousands of years, humans have greatly changed the plant and animal life around the globe, from what type of wildlife and plant life dominated to what type of ecosystems dominate. Examples include Native Americans; they altered the forest, burnt land to clear it, settled in cities, disrupting forests and other ecosystems, and built monuments that required moving large amounts of earth, such as the Cahokia Monuments. More examples are the civilizations of the ancient world; they mined large amounts of material, made roads, and especially for the Romans, when mining lead, released large amounts of Mercury and lead into the air. They also moved large numbers of animals for entertainment, disrupting wildlife patterns. Archaeological evidence reveals that human societies have been transforming landscapes through different forms of land use around the world for more than 10,000 years, leaving most transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists by 3000 years ago. 

Agriculture (1700–present)

Humans have been altering ecosystems since before agriculture first developed, and as the human population has grown and become more technologically advanced over time, the land use for agricultural purposes has increased significantly. The anthropogenic biome in the 1700s, before the industrial revolution, was made up of mostly wild, untouched land, with no human settlement disturbing the natural state. In this time period, most of the Earth's ice-free land consisted of wildlands and natural anthromes, and it wasn't until after the industrial revolution in the 19th century that land use for agriculture and human settlements started to increase. With technology advancing and manufacturing processes becoming more efficient, the human population was beginning to thrive, and was subsequently requiring and using more natural resources. By the year 2000, over half of the Earth's ice free land was transformed into rangelands, croplands, villages and dense settlements, which left less than half of the Earth's land untouched. Anthropogenic changes between 1700 and 1800 were far smaller than those of the following centuries, and as such the rate of change has increased over time. As a result, the 20th century had the fastest rate of anthropogenic ecosystem transformation of the past 300 years.

Land distribution

As the human population steadily increased in numbers throughout history, the use of natural resources and land began to increase, and the distribution of land used for various agricultural and settlement purposes began to change. The use of land around the world was transformed from its natural state to land used for agriculture, settlements and pastures to sustain the population and its growing needs. The distribution of land among anthromes underwent a shift away from natural anthromes and wildlands towards human-altered anthromes we are familiar with today. Now, the most populated anthromes (dense settlements and villages) account for only a small fraction of the global ice-free land. From the year 1700-2000, lands used for agriculture and urban settlements increased significantly, however the area occupied by rangelands increased even more rapidly, so that it became the dominant anthrome in the 20th century. As a result, the biggest global land-use change as a result of the industrial revolution, was the expansion of pastures.

Human population

Following the industrial revolution, the human population experienced a rapid increase. The human population density in certain anthromes began to change, shifting away from rural environments to urban settlements, where the population density was much higher. These changes in population density between areas shifted global patterns of anthrome emergence, and also had wide-spread effects on various ecosystems. Half of the Earth's population now lives in cities, and most people reside in urban anthromes, with some populations dwelling in smaller cities and towns. Currently, human populations are expected to grow until at least midcentury, and the transformation of the Earth's anthromes are expected to follow this growth.

Current state of the anthropogenic biosphere

The present state of the terrestrial biosphere is predominantly anthropogenic. More than half of the terrestrial biosphere remains unused directly for agriculture or urban settlements, and of these unused lands still remaining, less than half are wildlands. Most of Earth's unused lands are now within the agricultural and settled landscapes of semi-natural, rangeland, cropland and village anthromes.

Major anthromes

Anthromes include dense settlements (urban and mixed settlements), villages, croplands, rangelands and semi-natural lands and have been mapped globally using two different classification systems, viewable on Google Maps and Google Earth. There are currently 18 anthropogenic biomes, the most prominent of which are listed below.

Dense settlements

Dense Settlements are the second most densely populated regions in the world. They are defined as areas with a high population density, though the density can be variable. The Population density, however, never falls below 100 persons/km, even in the non-urban parts of the dense settlements, and it has been suggested that these areas consist of both the edges of major cities in underdeveloped nations, and the long standing small towns throughout western Europe and Asia. Most often we think of dense settlements as cities, but dense settlements can also be suburbs, towns and rural settlements with high but fragmented populations.

Croplands

Croplands are another major anthrome throughout the world. Croplands include most of the cultivated lands of the world, and also about a quarter of global tree cover. Croplands which are locally irrigated have the highest human population density, likely due to the fact that it provides crops with a constant supply on water. This makes harvest time and crop survival more predictable. Croplands that are sustained mainly from the local rainfall are the most extensive of the populated anthromes, with annual precipitation near 1000 mm in certain areas of the globe. In these areas, there is sufficient water supplied by the climate to support all aspects of life without hardly any irrigation. However, in dryer areas, this method of agriculture would not be as productive. 

Rangelands

Rangelands are a very broad anthropogenic biome group that has been described according to three levels of population density: residential, populated and remote. The Residential rangeland anthrome has two key features: its population density is never below 10 persons per square kilometre, and a substantial portion of its area is used for pasture. Pastures in rangelands are the most dominant land cover. Bare earth is significant in this anthrome, covering nearly one third of the land for every one square kilometer. Rangeland anthromes are less altered than croplands, but their alteration tends to increase with population. Domesticated grazing livestock are typically adapted to grasslands and savannas, so the alteration of these biomes tends to be less noticeable.

Forests

Forested anthromes are dominated by tree cover, and they have high precipitation and minimal human populations, where the population density is usually less than 3 persons/km². Most populated forests act as carbon sinks because of the lack of human activity. Without harmful emissions being released in the forests due to human activity, the vegetation is able to utilize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and act as a sink. Remote forests are a little different than populated forests because the majority of the vegetation in these forests have been clear-cut for human consumption. Forests are generally cleared to sustain substantial populations of domestic livestock, and to utilize the lumber. 

Indoor

Very few biologists have studied the evolutionary processes at work in indoor environments. Estimates of the extent of residential and commercial buildings range between 1.3% and 6% of global ice-free land area. This area is just as extensive as other small biomes such as flooded grass-lands and tropical coniferous forests. The indoor biome is rapidly expanding, while forest anthromes are shrinking. The indoor biome of Manhattan is almost three times as large, in terms of its floor space, as is the geographical area of the island itself, due to the buildings rising up instead of spreading out. Thousands of species live in the indoor biome, many of them preferentially or even obligatorily. The only action that humans take to alter the evolution of the indoor biome is with cleaning practices. The field of indoor biomes will continue to change as long as our culture will change.

Aquatic

Managed aquatic biomes or aquatic anthromes have rarely been studied as such. They range from fish ponds, marine shrimp and bentic farming sites to large tracts of land such as parts of the Guadalquivir Marshes in Andalusia, Spain.

Implications of an anthropogenic biosphere

Humans have fundamentally altered global patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem processes. It is no longer possible to explain or predict ecological patterns or processes across the Earth without considering the human role. Human societies began transforming terrestrial ecology more than 50 000 years ago, and evolutionary evidence has been presented demonstrating that the ultimate causes of human transformation of the biosphere are social and cultural, not biological, chemical, or physical. Anthropogenic biomes offer a new way forward by acknowledging human influence on global ecosystems and moving us toward models and investigations of the terrestrial biosphere that integrate human and ecological systems.

Challenges facing biodiversity in the anthropogenic biosphere

Extinctions

Over the past century, anthrome extent and land use intensity increased rapidly together with growing human populations, leaving wildlands without human population or land use in less than one quarter of the terrestrial biosphere. This massive transformation of Earth's ecosystems for human use has occurred with enhanced rates of species extinctions. Humans are directly causing species extinctions, especially of megafauna, by reducing, fragmenting and transforming native habitats and by overexploiting individual species. Current rates of extinctions vary greatly by taxa, with mammals, reptiles and amphibians especially threatened; however there is growing evidence that viable populations of many, if not most native taxa, especially plants, may be sustainable within anthromes. With the exception of especially vulnerable taxa, the majority of native species may be capable of maintaining viable populations in anthromes.

Conservation

Anthromes present an alternative view of the terrestrial biosphere by characterizing the diversity of global ecological land cover patterns created and sustained by human population densities and land use while also incorporating their relationships with biotic communities. Biomes and ecoregions are limited in that they reduce human influences, and an increasing number of conservation biologists have argued that biodiversity conservation must be extended to habitats directly shaped by humans. Within anthromes, including densely populated anthromes, humans rarely use all available land. As a result, anthromes are generally mosaics of heavily used lands and less intensively used lands. Protected areas and biodiversity hotspots are not distributed equally across anthromes. Less populated anthromes contain a greater proportion of protected areas. While 23.4% of remote woodland anthrome is protected, only 2.3% of irrigated village anthrome is protected. There is increasing evidence that suggests that biodiversity conservation can be effective in both densely and sparsely settled anthromes. Land sharing and land sparing are increasingly seen as conservation strategies.