Earth 2020 An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet EDITED BY PHILIPPE TORTELL P HILIPPE Earth 2020 Fi� y years has passed since the fi rst Earth Day, on April 22nd, 1970. This accessible, incisive and � mely collec� on of essays brings together a diverse set of expert voices to examine how the Earth’s environment has changed over these past fi � y years, and to An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly consider what lies in store for our planet over the coming fi � y years. T ORTELL Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet responds to a public Changing Planet increasingly concerned about the deteriora� on of Earth’s natural systems, off ering readers a wealth of perspec� ves on our shared ecological past, and on the future trajectory of planet Earth. ( ED Wri� en by world-leading thinkers on the front-lines of global change research and .) policy, this mul� -disciplinary collec� on maintains a dual focus: some essays inves� gate specifi c facets of the physical Earth system, while others explore the social, legal and poli� cal dimensions shaping the human environmental footprint. In doing so, the essays collec� vely highlight the urgent need for collabora� on and diverse exper� se in addressing one of the most signifi cant environmental challenges facing us today. Earth 2020 is essen� al reading for everyone seeking a deeper understanding of the E past, present and future of our planet, and the role that humanity plays within this ARTH trajectory. As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the 2020 publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com Cover image: Earthrise (24 December 1968). Photo taken by Apollo 8 crewmember Bill Anders, Wikimedia, htt ps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NASA_Earthrise_AS08-14-2383_ Apollo_8_1968-12-24.jpg Cover design: Anna Gatti book eebook and OA edi� ons also available OPEN ACCESS OBP www.openbookpublishers.com EDITED BY PHILIPPE TORTELL EARTH 2020 Earth 2020 An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet Philippe Tortell https://www.openbookpublishers.com Text © 2020 Philippe Tortell. Copyright of individual chapters is maintained by the chapters’ authors. Photgraphs © copyright Edward Burtynsky. The photos are published under an ‘all rights reserved’ license and have been reproduced at 72 dpi in the digital editions due to copyright restrictions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Philippe Tortell (ed.), Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0193 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit https://doi.org/10.11647/ OBP.0193#copyright All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Any digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at: https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0193#resources Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-845-7 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-849-5 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-846-4 ISBN Digital (XML): 978-1-78374-850-1 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-847-1 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0193 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-848-8 Cover image: Earthrise (24 December 1968). Photo taken by Apollo 8 crewmember Bill Anders, Wikimedia, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NASA_Earthrise_AS08-14-2383_Apollo_8_1968-12-24.jpg Cover design: Anna Gatti Contents 1 Introduction 67 Forests Philippe Tortell Sally N. Aitken 9 Earth Sounds 77 Environmental Economics Philippe Tortell, Chris Chafe, Jonathan Girard Don Fullerton and Greg Niemeyer 85 Air 13 Impatient Earth Jon Abbatt John Harte and Robert Socolow 93 Geoengineering 23 Climate 1970–2020 Douglas G. MacMartin and Katharine L. Ricke Tapio Schneider 101 Ice 33 Politics and Law Julian Dowdeswell Elizabeth May 111 Imaging Earth 43 Carbon Edward Burtynsky David Archer 133 Mother Earth 51 Everyday Biodiversity Deborah McGregor Jeffrey R. Smith and Gretchen C. Daily 141 Sea Level Rise, 1970–2070: 59 Energy A View from the Future Elizabeth J. Wilson and Elias Grove Nielsen Robert E. Kopp 151 Climate Negotiations 213 Earth and Plastic Rosemary Lyster Roland Geyer 161 Weather 221 Fresh Water Neville Nicholls Janet G. Hering 169 Knowing Earth 231 Media Sheila Jasanoff Candis Callison 177 Fish 239 Space Junk U. Rashid Sumaila and Daniel Pauly Alice Gorman 185 The Global Chemical Experiment 247 Saving the Boat Elsie Sunderland and Charlotte C Wagner Zoe Craig-Sparrow and Grace Nosek 195 Land 253 Index Navin Ramankutty and Hannah Wittman 203 Oceans 2020 263 Author Biographies David M. Karl vi Earth 2020 Epigraph Whoa, ah, mercy mercy me Oh things ain’t what they used to be, no no Where did all the blue skies go? Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east Whoa mercy, mercy me, Oh things ain’t what they used to be, no no Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas, fish full of mercury Ah, oh mercy, mercy me Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no Radiation underground and in the sky Animals and birds who live nearby are dying Oh mercy, mercy me Oh things ain’t what they used to be What about this overcrowded land How much more abuse from man can she stand? Marvin Gaye, ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’, What’s Going On (Motown Records, 1971). Acknowledgements I am grateful, first and foremost, to all of the authors who contributed their words and insights to this volume. They worked under tight deadlines, juggling many other commitments, and were exceedingly patient with all of my many editorial suggestions. Through their eyes, I have come to a much deeper understanding of Earth’s environmental history over the past half century. I wish also to thank the group at Open Book Publishers, whose outstanding (and very rapid) work made this book a reality. Alessandra Tosi was enthusiastic about this project from the start, and marshaled the team to keep things moving forward throughout. Both Alessandra and Adèle Kreager provided excellent editorial suggestions, while Luca Baffa developed a beautiful design and layout, and Laura Rodriguez helped spread the word about this project far and wide. During the early phases of this project, Margot Young, Mark Turin and Jesse Finkelstein provided much needed advice and inspiration. Finally, I wish to thank my family for support and patience as I set aside weekends, evenings and early mornings to find time to work on this project amidst a sea of other responsibilities. I hope they agree that the result was well worth the effort. Introduction —— Philippe Tor tell n 22 April, 1970, millions of people took to the streets in cities and towns across O the United States, giving voice to an emerging consciousness of humanity’s impact on planet Earth. This first Earth Day was the brainchild of US Senator Gaylord Nelson, and was organized by a grassroots movement coordinated by Denis Hayes, a twenty-five- year-old Harvard student. The Earth Day events included demonstrations, teach-ins and community clean-ups (‘Trash Wednesday’) in over 2,000 communities across the country. Protesters shut down Fifth Avenue in New York City, while students in Boston staged a ‘die-in’ at Logan airport, lying in coffins to raise awareness about the dangers of airplane- related pollution. Demonstrators in Chicago called for an end to the internal combustion engine. The protesters were mostly white, middle-class and overwhelmingly young, but their message also reached some in the older generation. Walter Cronkite, by then widely seen as the most trusted man in America, hosted a half-hour Earth Day special on the CBS Evening News. He had become increasingly concerned about ‘the fouled skies, the filthy waters and the littered earth’, as he put it, and he concluded the news special with a call for the public to heed ‘the unanimous voice of the scientists warning that half-way measures and business as usual cannot possibly pull us back from the edge of the precipice’. Today, half a century later, Cronkite’s words are eerily familiar. Since the first Earth Day, we have, no doubt, made significant progress in addressing a range of acute environmental problems. Yet, other more pernicious threats have emerged, from climate © Philippe Tortell, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0193.01 change to global biodiversity loss; the warnings seem louder, and the edge of the precipice ever closer, as growing evidence demonstrates planetary-scale human perturbations of the Earth System. As we look back to the first Earth Day fifty years ago, understanding the environmental trajectory of planet Earth, and the societal evolution of its most dominant species — humans — provides us with important lessons from the past, and, hopefully, insights for the future. Such lessons and insights are gathered together in the present collection of essays, which mark the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day in 2020.