Environmental Change – Page 33 – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Finishing my year as a Cabot Institute Masters Research Fellow

Posted on January 11, 2018April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

In January 2017, I posted my early reflections on sustainability in the UK. Now, 10 months later, I have been living in England for over a year. I submitted my thesis for the MSc Environmental Policy and Management program last month, and I am working for the Environmental Defense Fund in London. This post will have a few parts to it: a recap of my thesis topic, a reflection on my time in Bristol, and a discussion of what I’m doing now and planning for the future.

I titled my thesis “Compensating Environmental Policies’ Victims: Typologies and Recommendations for Success.” By compensation, I mean of those individuals or demographics, companies or industries that environmental protection policy actually hurts. Think coal miners as policy accelerates the transition to clean energy, or low-income households as a carbon tax raises the price of petrol.

Strong environmental policies are wildly important, but often they impart uneven costs, and few (if any) studies discuss compensation for these costs. Reviewing compensation in theory and across ten cases, I developed a typology by which environmental policies’ uneven costs can be classified. I then presented recommendations for compensation, in general and specific to certain typological classifications. Among my general conclusions, I found that fewer, targeted compensatory mechanisms prove more cost-effective and visible than more, broad ones; exemptions dampen policy incentives, hurting environmental performance; and targeted payments or flexible subsidies, financed with related policy revenue, work well. I developed the following chart, which allows a policymaker to trace through certain characteristics of a policy and find a recommended compensatory package.

I won’t drag on through my thesis in this post, but I am happy to share it with anyone wishing to follow up. I was selected to present it at the Oxford Symposium on Population, Migration, and the Environment in December. The Cabot Institute is generously sponsoring my participation, so expect a post from me about the conference soon.

On to my experience of Bristol: the city became a true second home to me. I returned just a few weekends ago for a visit, and the bittersweet wave of nostalgia washed over me. The city is so dynamic, so lively, and so walkable. I arrived on a Friday evening. The sun had set, and Bristol’s abounding student and young adult population pumped through the streets. As I walked up Park Street, two Bristolians struck up a conversation with me. For a few shared minutes fighting Park Street’s incline, we talked about ourselves, the city, our evening plans. Bristol is a city in its offerings—great food, art, culture, parks, but it is a small town in its accessibility. It is walkable, its people are friendly, and it gives you the impression that you can truly get to know it if you spend some time there. I like to think I know Bristol now, and I will continue to miss it immensely now that I’ve gone.

I’m in London in the short term, interning with the Environmental Defense Fund, a US NGO that expanded to the UK/Europe a couple years ago. I focus on methane emission reduction in the oil and gas sector, helping our organisation to develop a strategy that will work in Europe. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide, and it is over 80-times more potent in warming the Earth than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timespan. By some estimates, it accounts for about a quarter of the warming we’ve felt since the pre-industrial age. The oil and gas sector accounts for at least a fifth of Europe’s methane emissions, not accounting for the embodied methane of the bloc’s imports. These emissions come from across the supply chain, from production of a well, storage, and the natural gas distribution networks in our towns. I advocate for stronger methane policy at the EU level, engage with companies to apply pressure, and work with scientific bodies that help to better count and record these emissions. I am learning a lot and making invaluable connections, and I have a fellow Cabot Masters Fellow, Mireille Meneses Campos, to thank. She connected me with the organisation when they were seeking someone for the role.

I will be in London for a couple more months, then I will return to Houston to work with the management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. The firm works in various industries; I will likely work mostly on projects related to energy and electricity, but as a general consultant my project placements may be broader. I am excited for the skills that consulting will help me build, and to be back in Texas for a time. Texas and US environmental protection can only benefit from more supportive voices, and I plan to be loud. I will have been away just a year and a half, but I return with more knowledge and experience to back my advocacy. The Cabot Institute has played a large part in my acquisition of this knowledge and experience, so I am incredibly grateful. I also wish to thank the US-UK Fulbright Program, which brought me to the UK in the first place.
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This blog is written by Michael Donatti in October 2017. Michael is a Cabot Institute Masters Research Fellow.

Michael Donatti

More blogs by Michael Donatti:

Reflections on sustainability in my first few months in the UK

Putting algae and seaweed on the menu could help save our seafood

Posted on December 15, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

File 20171213 27593 sfv3nk.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — Shutterstock

This article was written by Pallavi Anand, The Open University and Daniela Schmidt, University of Bristol Cabot Institute.

If we have to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050, food from the ocean will have to play a major role. Ending hunger and malnutrition while meeting the demand for more meat and fish as the world grows richer will require 60% more food by the middle of the century.But around 90% of the world’s fish stocks are already seriously depleted. Pollution and increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere, which is making the oceans warmer and more acidic, are also a significant threat to marine life.There is potential to increase ocean food production but, under these conditions, eating more of the species at the top of the food chain, such as tuna and salmon, is just not sustainable. As a recent EU report highlighted, we should instead be looking at how we can harvest more smaller fish and shellfish, but also species that aren’t as widely eaten such as seaweed and other algae.The oceans have absorbed around one third of the CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The absorbed CO₂ goes through a series of chemical reactions that form carbonic acid and lower the pH of the water. These reactions also reduce the concentration of carbonate ions, which are vital for those creatures that grow external skeletons such as corals and shellfish.

The acid and the lack of carbonate mean these organisms form weaker skeletons and have to use more energy to do so, leaving less energy for growth and reproduction. Consequently, they up smaller in size. Aside from the impact this has on shellfish, several of the species affected, such as corals in the tropics or coralline algae in the waters around the UK, also play a key role in providing food and nursing grounds for fish. And less fish food leads to fewer fish for us to catch.

Climate change is affecting food production

The impact of ocean acidification varies widely across the globe. But it is already affecting marine food production, particularly of shellfish. For example, CO₂-rich water along the west coast of the US means more oysters in local hatcheries are dying when they are still larvae.
Warmer seas due to climate change are also affecting food supplies. Some species are moving towards the poles in search of cooler water, forcing fishermen into more northerly waters or leaving them without stocks altogether. Some fishing fleets in northern locations will find more fish available but many will see the amount of fish available to catch fall by between 6% and 30% depending on the region. The biggest impact will be on areas that are already the most dependent on fishing, such as Southeast Asia and West Africa.

One possible solution is to eat more smaller fish and shellfish such as mussels. Large fish need to eat smaller fish to grow. If we eat smaller fish instead then we remove a step from the food chain and reduce the amount of energy lost in the process. What’s more, it might become easier to farm these smaller fish because the algae, cyanobacteria and other plankton they eat could actually benefit from warmer waters and higher levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere. This is because they get their energy from photosynthesis and so use CO₂ like fuel.

Spirulina, the new seafood cocktail.
Shutterstock

It might also be possible to take this a step further and add some of these organisms directly to our diet, giving us an abundant new source of food. Seaweed, for example, is a type of algae that has been eaten for centuries, but only 35 countries commercially harvest it today. Spirulina cyanobacteria is already eaten as a food supplement and several companies are trying to turn other forms of algae into a human food source.

Farming these organisms in the right way could even help counter some of the effects of climate change on the rest of the food chain. For example, growing more seaweed lowers the amount of CO2 in the surrounding water, reduces acidification, and improves the environment for oysters and other shellfish. Managing seaweed harvest correctly will also maintain the dissolved oxygen and nutrient levels in the water, contributing to the overall health of the ocean.

Making algae a common part of more people’s diets won’t be easy. We need to ensure that any new algae food products on our dinner plates have the needed nutritional value but are also attractive and safe to eat. But sticking with our traditional salmon and tuna diet isn’t sustainable. Expanding our seafood menus could be a vital way of keeping the ocean healthy while it supplies the food we need.
Pallavi Anand, Lecturer in Ocean Biogeochemistry, The Open University and Daniela Schmidt, Professor in Palaebiology, University of Bristol

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Unless we regain our historic awe of the deep ocean, it will be plundered

Posted on December 6, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

File 20171107 1017 1vsenhn.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Image credit: BBC Blue Planet

In the memorable second instalment of Blue Planet II, we are offered glimpses of an unfamiliar world – the deep ocean. The episode places an unusual emphasis on its own construction: glimpses of the deep sea and its inhabitants are interspersed with shots of the technology – a manned submersible – that brought us these astonishing images. It is very unusual and extremely challenging, we are given to understand, for a human to enter and interact with this unfamiliar world.The most watched programme of 2017 in the UK, Blue Planet II provides the opportunity to revisit questions that have long occupied us. To whom does the sea belong? Should humans enter its depths? These questions are perhaps especially urgent today, when Nautilus Minerals, a mining company registered in Vancouver, has been granted a license to extract gold and copper from the seafloor off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Though the company has suffered some setbacks, mining is still scheduled to begin in 2019.

This marks a new era in our interaction with the oceans. For a long time in Western culture, to go to sea at all was to transgress. In Seneca’s Medea, the chorus blames advances in navigation for having brought the Golden Age to an end, while for more than one Mediterranean culture to travel through the Straits of Gibraltar and into the wide Atlantic was considered unwisely to tempt divine forces. The vast seas were associated with knowledge that humankind was better off without – another version, if you will, of the apple in the garden.

If to travel horizontally across the sea was to trespass, then to travel vertically into its depths was to redouble the indiscretion. In his 17th-century poem Vanitie (I), George Herbert writes of a diver seeking out a “pearl” which “God did hide | On purpose from the ventrous wretch”. In Herbert’s imagination, the deep sea is off limits, containing tempting objects whose attainment will damage us. Something like this vision of the deep resurfaces more than 300 years later in one of the most startling passages of Thomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus (1947), as a trip underwater in a diving bell figures forth the protagonist’s desire for occult, ungodly knowledge.

Mann’s deep sea is a symbolic space, but his reference to a diving bell gestures towards the technological advances that have taken humans and their tools into the material deep. Our whale-lines and fathom-lines have long groped into the oceans’ dark reaches, while more recently deep-sea cables, submarines and offshore rigs have penetrated their secrets. Somewhat paradoxically, it may be that our day-to-day involvement in the oceans means that they no longer sit so prominently on our cultural radar: we have demystified the deep, and stripped it of its imaginative power.

But at the same time, technological advances in shipping and travel mean that our culture is one of “sea-blindness”: even while writing by the light provided by oil extracted from the ocean floor, using communications provided by deep-sea cables, or arguing over the renewal of Trident, we perhaps struggle to believe that we, as humans, are linked to the oceans and their black depths. This wine bottle, found lying on the sea bed in the remote Atlantic, is to most of us an uncanny object: a familiar entity in an alien world, it combines the homely with the unhomely.

For this reason, the activities planned by Nautilus Minerals have the whiff of science fiction. The company’s very name recalls that of the underwater craft of Jules Verne’s adventure novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas (1870), perhaps the most famous literary text set in the deep oceans. But mining the deep is no longer a fantasy, and its practice is potentially devastating. As the Deep Sea Mining Campaign points out, the mineral deposits targeted by Nautilus gather around hydrothermal vents, the astonishing structures which featured heavily in the second episode of Blue Planet II. These vents support unique ecosystems which, if the mining goes ahead, are likely to be destroyed before we even begin to understand them. (Notice the total lack of aquatic life in Nautilus’s corporate video: they might as well be drilling on the moon.) The campaigners against deep sea mining also insist – sounding not unlike George Herbert – that we don’t need the minerals located at the bottom of the sea: that the reasons for wrenching them from the deep are at best suspect.

So should we be leaving the deep sea well alone? Sadly, it is rather too late for that. Our underwater cameras transmit images of tangled fishing gear, cables and bottles strewn on the seafloor, and we find specimens of deep sea animals thousands of metres deep and hundreds of kilometres away from land with plastic fibres in their guts and skeletons. It seems almost inevitable that deep sea mining will open a new and substantial chapter on humanity’s relationship with the oceans. Mining new resources is still perceived to be more economically viable than recycling; as natural resources become scarcer, the ocean bed will almost certainly become of interest to global corporations with the capacity to explore and mine it – and to governments that stand to benefit from these activities. These governments are also likely to compete with one another for ownership of parts of the global ocean currently in dispute, such as the South China Sea and the Arctic. The question is perhaps not if the deep sea will be exploited, but how and by whom. So what is to be done?

A feather star in the deep waters of the Antarctic. BBC NHU

Rather than declaring the deep sea off-limits, we think our best course of action is to regain our fascination with it. We may have a toe-hold within the oceans; but, as any marine scientist will tell you, the deep still harbours unimaginable secrets. The onus is on both scientists and those working in what has been dubbed the “blue humanities” to translate, to a wider public, the sense of excitement to be found in exploring this element. Then, perhaps, we can prevent the deep ocean from becoming yet another commodity to be mined – or, at least, we can ensure that such mining is responsible and that it takes place under proper scrutiny.

The sea, and especially the deep sea, will never be “ours” in the way that tracts of land become cities, or even in the way rivers become avenues of commerce. This is one of its great attractions, and is why it is so easy to sit back and view the deep sea with awed detachment when watching Blue Planet II. But we cannot afford to pretend that it lies entirely beyond our sphere of activity. Only by expressing our humility before it, perhaps, can we save it from ruthless exploitation; only by acknowledging and celebrating our ignorance of it can we protect it from the devastation that our technological advances have made possible.-

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This blog is written by Laurence Publicover, Lecturer in English, University of Bristol and Katharine Hendry, Reader in Geochemistry, University of Bristol and both members of the University’s Cabot Institute. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

New research by Cabot Institute members reveals super eruptions more frequent than previously thought

Posted on November 30, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

Toba supervolcano – image credit NASA METI AIST Japan Space Systems, and U.S. Japan ASTER Science Team

I’m sat in my office in the Earth Sciences department reading a research paper entitled ‘The global magnitude-frequency relationship for large explosive volcanic eruptions’. Two lines in and I can already picture the headlines: ‘APOCOLYPTIC VOLCANIC ERUPTION DUE ANY DAY’ or perhaps ‘MANAGED TO GET OFF BALI? YOU’RE STILL NOT SAFE FROM THE VOLCANOES. The temptation is to laugh but I suppose it’s not actually very funny.

The paper in question, produced by four Bristol scientists and published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters on Wednesday, uses a database of recorded volcanic eruptions to make estimates about the timing of large world-changing eruptions. It is the first estimate of its kind to use such a comprehensive database and the results are a little surprising.

In case you’re in a rush, the key take-home message is this…

When it comes to rare volcanic eruptions, the past is the key to the future. Volcanoes have erupted in the past. A lot. These past eruptions establish a pattern, which, assuming nothing has changed, can give us clues about the future. This can be done for a range of eruption sizes, but this paper focusses on the biggest of the lot. It turns out they have happened more frequently than previously thought. Yes, it’s surprising. No, you don’t need to worry.

Here’s how they did it:

In reality, supplying the kind of information needed for a study like this is an enormous task. Generations of volcanologists have found evidence of volcanic material from thousands of past eruptions scattered all over the world. Key bits of information on these eruptions has been collected across many years by hundreds of geologists and collated in one place called the LaMEVE database.

The database essentially turns each volcanic eruption into a statistic based on when it erupted and the eruption size. These statistics are the fuel for the study by statistician Prof Jonty Rougier and three volcanologists (and Cabot Institute members), Prof. Steve Sparks, Prof. Katharine Cashman and Dr Sarah Brown.

The paper highlights that overwhelming majority of these eruptions have been fairly small (think Eyjafjallajökull*, think Stromboli), a smaller proportion have been a bit more lively (heard of Krakatau? Mount St. Helens?) and a really very tiny proportion are so big they might be described as ‘civilisation ending’ if they occurred today. I can’t give a well-known example of one of these as we, fairly obviously, haven’t had one in human timescales.

Mount St Helens. Credit: Keri McNamara.

To give you a flavour, here are some statistics from the Toba super-eruption that occurred about 75 thousand years ago. The eruption produced a minimum of 2800km³of material.^.That is equivalent to covering the entire area of the UK in a 12-meter-thick layer of volcanic material, or filling the O2 arena a million times. It is thought the corresponding ash and aerosols that circled the earth cooled the surface temperature by between 3 and 10^oC. The reduction in the sun’s radiation would see the death of the majority of plant species, and consequently human’s primary food source.

It paints a rather grim picture. The alarming part of the new study is that eruptions such as Toba might not be as rare as previously thought. Earlier reports have suggested that these eruptions occur every 45-714 thousand years. The new paper revises this range down to 5.2 -48 thousand years with a best guess of one every 17 thousand years. According to geological records, the most recent super eruptions were between 20 and 30 thousand years ago (Taupo 25 ka, Aira 27 ka).

Given that humans started to use agriculture around 12 thousand years ago, it seems as though our modern civilization has flourished in the gap between super eruptions. As Prof.Rougier commented: “on balance, we have been slightly lucky not to experience any super-eruptions in the last 20 thousand years.” A little scary perhaps?

Here’s why you shouldn’t worry:

The really important part of all this is uncertainty.There is a huge amount of statistical leeway either side of these estimates.
Trying to put an exact number on the recurrence interval of something so naturally complex is a bit like trying to estimate the final score of a football match without knowing exactly who the players are. You know how well the team has performed in the past, but you don’t know who will play in the future, or if the same player will behave the same way in every game. There are
also a whole range of things that could happen but probably won’t – perhaps the whole match will get rained off?

Volcanoes aren’t much different. Just because a volcano has exhibited one pattern in the past, doesn’t necessarily mean it will do the same in the future. Volcanic systems are infinitely complicated and affected by a huge range of different variables. Assuming perfect cyclicity in eruption recurrence intervals just isn’t realistic. As Prof. Rougier said ‘It is important to appreciate that the absence of super-eruptions in the last 20 ,000 years does not imply that one is overdue. Nature is not that regular.’

On top of that, our records of volcanic eruptions in the past are far from perfect. Sizes of prehistoric eruptions are easily under or overestimated, and some are simply missing from the record. Generally, the further you go back in time, the hazier it gets. While Rougier and his co-authors have done their best to account for these uncertainties, it is impossible to do so completely.

If that wasn’t enough to put your mind at rest, it is important to remember that geological timescales are a lot bigger than human ones. Whether a volcano erupts every 200 thousand years or 202 thousand years is a very small difference in the context of a volcano’s period of dormancy.
But the extra few thousand years encompasses the last two millennia and the
hundreds of human generations that have lived within it.

When it comes down to it, the real risks from volcanoes come not from the super-eruptions, but from the smaller, frequent, more locally devastating eruptions. Ultimately, when volcanoes like Agung in Bali erupt, it isn’t us who will suffer. It is those who depend on the volcano for their homes and livelihood who will have to uproot and leave. The real value in this research is not in scare mongering, or in a dramatic headline, it’s developing new techniques that further our understanding of these unpredictable natural phenomena.

(*Remember
in 2010 when a volcano in Iceland erupted and shut European airspace?
Eyjafjallajökull: Pronounced ‘eye-ya–fiyat-la-yer–kitle’ in case anyone’s interested)

Read the original press release Time between world-changing volcanic super-eruptions less than previously thought

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This blog is written by Keri McNamara: Cabot Institute writer and geologist in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. Keri’s current research looks at using ash layers to improve records of volcanism in the central Main Ethiopian Rift.

Keri McNamara

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My Reflections on COP23 – challenges, inspiration, and hopes for the future

Posted on November 22, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

I had the great pleasure of attending COP21 in Paris, 2015. The air was full of anticipation, hope and a clear sense of urgency. The achievements of the conference were remarkable and as a climate scientist I felt a degree of reassurance (albeit uneasy reassurance) that there was now a serious global commitment that may lead to a turning point in climate action.

Two years on, I was therefore excited to attend COP23 in Bonn as part of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) delegation, to see how things were progressing.

I was immediately struck by the difference. The negotiations here were largely focussed on how to implement the Paris Agreement. The discussion were necessarily more technical, but less awe-inspiring, ‘nuts and bolts’. Without the big deadline and the huge public pressure to sign a global agreement, it seems things in the negotiations moved slowly, and there was an air of frustration amongst some negotiators and campaigners.

Despite the slow pace in the negotiations, this blog shares some real highlights from the week, as well as some low lights, alongside my thoughts on proceedings.

Last one out

COP23 started with an announcement from Syria that they would sign the Paris Agreement, leaving the USA isolated as the only country that will not be part of the Agreement – Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the Agreement offers a stark reminder of the impact of domestic political change on international initiatives.

The #wearestillin campaign has caught
the imagination of businesses and civil
society alike.

It was however encouraging to go to the launch of the US #wearestillin campaign – a collection of states, cities, businesses, NGOs, civil society etc that are willing to make a commitment to climate change despite Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement. With Bloomberg having offered to cover for the USA’s climate finance and on our side of the pond, Macron offering to cover their commitments to the IPCC (with a little top up also from the UK government).

Despite anticipating that the US delegation might join Saudia Arabia and others to stall progress, they sent the usual negotiators who were being helpful in the side-lines, if quiet during decisions. China, on the other hand, were not being as constructive as they could have…..

Climate finance, historical responsibilities and ability to pay.

Finance is always one of the biggest sticking points of negotiations, and this year was no different. China (and others) want America to put up large sums of climate finance (to fund adaptation and mitigation in other countries), taking historical responsibility for their emissions, but America will not do this. Even Obama, who strongly supported Paris, would not agree to take responsibility for emissions before there was widespread acceptance of on climate change being anthropogenic.

In the past, developed and developing countries had differentiated responsibilities for mitigation of climate change, reflecting their different historical contributions and capabilities. Only “Annex I” (“developed”) countries such as the EU, USA and Canada had mitigation targets and financial opbligations under the Kyoto Protocol. Economies in Transition (such as China) and developing countries did not. Moving forward in Paris, the process of countries setting their own targets (Nationally Determined Contributions) gave all countries responsibilities but also control over their own action, reducing the need for formalised differentiation.

China remains keen to retain formal differentiation, but many at the conference began to question the legitimacy of China’s appeals for finance and differentiation when they have become the largest pollution nation (albeit with lower per capita emissions that America) and one of the most rapidly growing economies.

Reconnecting with the lived experience of climate change

There was an overwhelming number of science talks at a huge verity of side events. For me though, the best thing about COP was the opportunity to mix with people, hear stories and go to talks that I wouldn’t normally get the chance to. It takes me away from my number crunching to hear how people are experiencing climate change, to talk about the realities of adaption and mitigation, to remind us how the world really works outside of computer models.

Talking to a young African man and an indigenous Guatemalan woman about how people are experiencing climate change now, they explained that people often don’t really know that that is the reason their crops have failed three years running, or there are more regular storms of higher intensity, or their houses are washing away. They are worrying how to feed themselves and pay for their kids to go to school. They are not concerned with how they can mitigate climate change, but how they can live.

Developing countries and indigenous groups attended in force, raising awareness of how climate change is affecting them now, and demanding action. These groups reconnected us with the urgency of the task at hand, and with the talks under the Presidency of Fiji this year, there was a loud and passionate voice from the Pacific Islands. Many islanders are already having to leave their homes due to sea level rise, salt water inundation of crops and drinking water aquifers – not to mention the series of increasingly frequent and devastating storms. One of the Island country negotiators told me that many other countries were keen to gain the favour of the Pacific Islands as the many countries (and therefore many votes) could lead them to become a powerful influencer.

A triumph or misfortune of participation?

One news article noted the five largest delegations were from African countries (nearly 500 from Cote d’Ivoire). While on the surface this is a major accomplishment, there were mutterings in the conference from younger African delegates that some senior colleagues had little interest in proceedings. While the importance of gender issues and climate was a major issue on the table at COP23, the proceedings also reflected other revelations of sexual misconduct with complaints of senior powerful male figures taking advantage of young female staff.

Some final thoughts

All in all, I have not come away from COP23 with the sense of achievement and exhilaration at the end of COP21 Paris, but a sense of urgency of the need to make it happen faster.

‘Young and future generations day’. Image credit: UNFCC

As Kevin Anderson from Tyndall said to me – we have known about this for some time now and yet we are failing, every one of us, to make anything happen at the scale and rate it needs to.

As I claw for answers on how to achieve this, I’m reminded that this year at COP there was a focus on youth. I saw some amazing youth speakers and participants, including one of our 3rd year undergraduate geography students. I also met two of our recent MSc graduates, one who was on the Mexican Delegation and one working for and NGO Climate Action Network.

I take great inspiration from these hugely talented young people, and they, alongside the impassioned and increasingly powerful voices of developing nations, offer hope. Whilst the responsibility for dealing with the implications of climate change should not rest solely in their hands – the devolution of power/ resource to those with fresh ideas and approaches could be exactly what we need to catalyse change.

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This blog is written by Jo House: Reader in Environmental science and policy, Department of Geographical Sciences, and Co-Chair of the Cabot Institute‘s Global Environmental Change research theme.

Jo House

How to turn a volcano into a power station – with a little help from satellites

Posted on November 7, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

File 20171031 18735 1gapo0c.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Erta Ale in eastern Ethiopia. mbrand85

Ethiopia tends to conjure images of sprawling dusty deserts, bustling streets in Addis Ababa or the precipitous cliffs of the Simien Mountains – possibly with a distance runner bounding along in the background. Yet the country is also one of the most volcanically active on Earth, thanks to Africa’s Great Rift Valley, which runs right through its heart.

Rifting is the geological process that rips tectonic plates apart, roughly at the speed your fingernails grow. In Ethiopia this has enabled magma to force its way to the surface, and there are over 60 known volcanoes. Many have undergone colossal eruptions in the past, leaving behind immense craters that pepper the rift floor. Some volcanoes are still active today. Visit them and you find bubbling mud ponds, hot springs and scores of steaming vents.

Steam rising at Aluto volcano, Ethiopia. William Hutchison

This steam has been used by locals for washing and bathing, but underlying this is a much bigger opportunity. The surface activity suggests extremely hot fluids deep below, perhaps up to 300°C–400°C. Drill down and it should be possible access this high temperature steam, which could drive large turbines and produce huge amounts of power. This matters greatly in a country where 77% of the population has no access to electricity, one of the lowest levels in Africa.

Geothermal power has recently become a serious proposition thanks to geophysical surveys suggesting that some volcanoes could yield a gigawatt of power. That’s the equivalent of several million solar panels or 500 wind turbines from each. The total untapped resource is estimated to be in the region of 10GW.

Converting this energy into power would build on the geothermal pilot project that began some 20 years ago at Aluto volcano in the lakes region 200km south of Addis Ababa. Its infrastructure is currently being upgraded to increase production tenfold, from 7MW to 70MW. In sum, geothermal looks like a fantastic low-carbon renewable solution for Ethiopia that could form the backbone of the power sector and help lift people out of poverty.

Scratching the surface

The major problem is that, unlike more developed geothermal economies like Iceland, very little is known about Ethiopia’s volcanoes. In almost all cases, we don’t even know when the last eruption took place – a vital question since erupting volcanoes and large-scale power generation will not make happy bedfellows.

In recent years, the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has been funding RiftVolc, a consortium of British and Ethiopian universities and geological surveys, to address some of these issues. This has focused on understanding the hazards and developing methods for exploring and monitoring the volcanoes so that they can be exploited safely and sustainably.

Teams of scientists have been out in the field for the past three years deploying monitoring equipment and making observations. Yet some of the most important breakthroughs have come through an entirely different route – through researchers analysing satellite images at their desks.

This has produced exciting findings at Aluto. Using a satellite radar technique, we discovered that the volcano’s surface is inflating and deflating. The best analogy is breathing – we found sharp “inhalations” inflating the surface over a few months, followed by gradual “exhalations” which cause slow subsidence over many years. We’re not exactly sure what is causing these ups and downs, but it is good evidence that magma, geothermal waters or gases are moving around in the depths some five km below the surface.

Taking the temperature

In our most recent paper, we used satellite thermal images to probe the emissions of Aluto’s steam vents in more detail. We found that the locations where gases were escaping often coincided with known fault lines and fractures on the volcano.

When we monitored the temperature of these vents over several years, we were surprised to find that most were quite stable. Only a few vents on the eastern margin showed measurable temperature changes. And crucially, this was not happening in synchronicity with Aluto’s ups and downs – we might have expected that surface temperatures would increase following a period of inflation, as hot fluids rise up from the belly of the volcano.

A productive geothermal well on Aluto. William Hutchison

It was only when we delved into the rainfall records that we came up with an explanation: the vents that show variations appear to be changing as a delayed response to rainfall on the higher ground of the rift margin. Our conclusion was that the vents nearer the centre of the volcano were not perturbed by rainfall and thus represent a better sample of the hottest waters in the geothermal reservoir. This obviously makes a difference when it comes to planning where to drill wells and build power stations on the volcano, but there’s a much wider significance.

This is one of the first times anyone has monitored a geothermal resource from space, and it demonstrates what can be achieved. Since the satellite data is freely available, it represents an inexpensive and risk-free way of assessing geothermal potential.

With similar volcanoes scattered across countries like Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, the technique could allow us to discover and monitor new untapped geothermal resources in the Rift Valley as well as around the world. When you zoom back and look at the big picture, it is amazing what starts to come into view.
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This blog is written by William Hutchison, Research Fellow, University of St Andrews; Juliet Biggs, Reader in Earth Sciences and Cabot Institute member, University of Bristol, and Tamsin Mather, Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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Juliet Biggs is a member of the University of Bristol Cabot Institute. She studies Continental Tectonics and Volcanic Deformation and has won numerous awards in her field. Find out more about Juliet Biggs research.

Olive oil production in Morocco: so many questions

Posted on October 31, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

No standard salad would be complete without olive oil. Our friends the lettuce, tomato and cucumber now come automatically accompanied by the vinegar and the oil, the oil and the vinegar. Perhaps in a bottle, perhaps in a sachet, perhaps in some kind of over complicated vinaigrette processed by a supermarket near you, along with lots of salt and some corn syrup, a 21st century salad in the Western world would be naked without an olive dressing.

This weekend, after an intensive academic seminar in Morocco[1], we studious seminar attendees were rewarded with a field trip. So I was taken out to visit three agricultural holdings in action. They all grew olives, but apart from that, had little in common. These three: large, medium and small producers in turn gave us a hugely insightful opportunity to witness agricultural change in action. Since the turn of the millennium the large site, on previously colonial, then state-held land had been an apple orchard and had now turned to olive oil. The medium one had been focused on cattle, making use of previous common land, that was now enclosed land, and was now diversifying with oil, watermelons, and more. The small producer produced a full range of things including olives for their own oil and most recently had established a side income in both fish and honey production.

Firstly, we learnt how to make money. Morocco’s heavily financed agricultural development programme, Plan Maroc Vert, which aims to intensify the agricultural system into a new-age competitive beacon of the modern food system, offers attractive incentives to spruce up agriculture in the country with new machines. All you need is to write a proposal (a report), have money to invest (from bank credit perhaps) and an impressive part of your money will be returned to you in state subsidies within two years.

So, for example, all three of the small, medium and large producers we visited, had benefited from a 100% state subsidy for irrigation of their crops. In the case of the ‘super-intensive’ large producer this meant state funding for the irrigation of 65,780[2] olive trees from groundwater on a rapidly declining water table. Some of the more landscape-savvy of the seminar group reminded us that olive trees had been grown in the region for centuries precisely because they did not need this kind of constant watering but could grow deep roots and access scarce water themselves. This, however, is not of interest to the ‘super-intensive’ producer. This producer is simply interested in the logic of economic growth, which in this case says: plant the trees closer, and add the chemical nutrients to the water while you’re at it. And so, these 65,780 trees are watered with the addition of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and ammonium, yet no studies are evident of what all these substances may be doing to the groundwater. By any other logic this would be a big concern, nitrogen pollution, particularly. Nitrogen pollution of water supplies, or more simply, of the nitrogen cycle, is one of the only planetary ecosystem boundaries that we have already crossed as a human race. This was not relevant in the lesson of how to make money.

Yet, I work with people, so where were they in the Moroccan olive grove? Well, it seems they have been replaced by a machine in this super-intensive oil production. The company, with links to power as far up as it goes, has invested in a machine that drives over the trees like a bridge. It shakes their branches and collects their olives. So much for an investment in rural employment.

Some new olive trees defy the machine but are pretty un-reliable as employers too. These trees that the machine can’t manage provide jobs for only a very precarious seasonal and short-term workforce. I was told that 100 people would be employed for a space of around 200 hectares, and these jobs would last 2-3 months. The company assured us though that these workers would get both contracts and, in order to have those contracts, bank accounts. Thank goodness the banks aren’t losing out.

I should be kinder in tone about the small and medium sized farmers that we visited. Not only did their olive oil taste a lot richer, but they invited us to tea, and allowed us to share their experience of oil production more closely. They humoured our partial language skills and our many, many questions. This was the second major thing we learnt on the trip – we were a team. We were a slightly chaotic, and erratic team, but really quite effective. A little like slugs on a cabbage, we chewed up every bit of information every which way.

Releasing a group of 13 researchers at a family farm, was a bit like inviting children to a playground, or providing clowns with an audience. Each of us found something to play with, interact with, reflect upon and smile. Some of us looked at the trees or identified the plant specimens. Others wrote notes, or took pictures, or carried out semi-formal interviews with whichever family member we felt most comfortable with. Others played with material toys, climbing ladders, smelling fruit or knocking on enormous oil containers to discover them empty. As we found the olive branches, force-fed powder food through irrigated pipes, or in the smaller farm providing shade for some resident chickens, this seminar group grew together, discovering the knowledge of the peasant farmer. This experience was far richer and engaging than any power point presentation or report.

More images can be found on the original blog.

References

[1] “Workshop on Agricultural Labour and Rural Landscapes in the Arab World” Organised by the Thimar collective and supported by the École Nationale d’Agriculture de Meknès, the Leverhulme Trust and the London School of Economics.

[2] Calculated based on 286 plants/hectare in a cultivated area of 230 hectares, this was the details of the holding advertised by the company.

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This blog is written by Lydia Medland, a PhD student at the University of Bristol’s School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies who is looking at the role of seasonal workers in global food production, specifically in Morocco and Spain. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from her Eating Research blog. View the original blog post.

Lydia Medland

Read Lydia’s other blog: Watermelon work

Green Capital: Student Capital – mobilising Bristol’s students for city sustainability

Posted on October 25, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

In 2015, Bristol was the UK’s first European Green Capital. During the year, HEFCE’s Catalyst Fund backed an initiative between the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England Bristol to promote student involvement in green activities.

In cities and communities across the world, students form a significant, but often neglected part of the population. Seen as transient, they are easy for cities to ignore. Yet in Bristol they form nearly 10% of the population, offering vision and energy to the city. In a unique collaboration between the two universities in Bristol, student unions, the Bristol City Council and a network of over 800 local organisations, Green Capital: Student Capital was designed to unleash the power of Bristol’s students.

Green Capital: Student Capital initiated, promoted and celebrated student engagement with sustainability across the city region. Much of the work comprised novel initiatives co-created by students with community groups and SMEs such as:

addressing the urgent problem of homelessness in the city
working with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to help write new business plans, based on which some have secured future funding
helping produce new apps to widen awareness of parks and open spaces
creating business analyses based on which firms have relocated to Bristol.

Green Capital: Student Capital linked students with wildlife conservation groups, local businesses, local community groups, local schools and colleges, student societies, charities and NGOs, healthcare providers and many more local organisations. By creating a vibrant network with community groups, public bodies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the first year of the project saw students giving over 125,000 hours of their time to sustainability volunteering, placements, internships, and projects. That amounts to over 72 years’ worth of work and over £1.2 million of economic contribution to the city.

Over 7,000 students took part in the first year and hundreds of students have been awarded the Green Capital Change Maker award for their work. This award was specially created for the project and recognises students’ passion and commitment to making a difference in their city.

To ensure that work can continue, both universities have established a joint SkillsBridge platform, which links the community and students. This enables students to find ways to help in the community, and enables the community to find students who are keen to help.

Students themselves have been very positive about the impact upon them. They have learnt skills, gained practical experience and made new connections. It has enhanced the employability of participants and, through the application of their energy and knowledge to resolve sustainability challenges, it has created a community of student Change Makers who will carry forward the positive experiences into their future professional and private lives. It has contributed to change in Bristol and fostered new connections between residents and the universities. Equally importantly, the project has increased students’ sense of belonging, which contributes directly to their wellbeing. This has been particularly important to international students, who took part in disproportionately large numbers (41% of participants) and reported feeling that they belonged and had a much fuller understanding of Britain as they volunteered in communities across the city.

In November 2016, the project was awarded the UK and Ireland Green Gown for Student Engagement. In March 2017, the project won an International Green Gown award against competition from across the globe. The awards recognise exceptional sustainability initiatives in higher and further education institutions. The judges described the winning entry as a dynamic city-wide project with a direct impact on graduate employability.

Top 3 learnings

Working together is essential

The two universities and two unions worked closely together, but in a much broader sense all partners were involved in the process of student engagement, from the external organisations and local authorities to the students themselves.

Ongoing engagement is crucial to a successful legacy.

Bristol’s Green Capital 2015 year provided a fantastic opportunity to showcase the city’s sustainability credentials and to act as a catalyst for sustainability action. But we needed to create lasting change. Right from the outset, the project was designed with its legacy in mind – for Bristol and other cities.

Change is possible.

Green Capital: Student Capital is testament to the success of the European Green Capital 2015 year, to the merit of the HEFCE Catalyst Fund and to the value of the student higher education community as a real force for practical change in our cities.

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This blog has been reproduced with kind permission from HEFCE. You can view the original blog on the HEFCE site.

This blog has been written by Professor Chris Willmore, Professor of Sustainability and Law, University of Bristol; Professor Jim Longhurst, Assistant Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Environmental Science, University of the West of England, Bristol; and Dr William Clayton,
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Professor Chris Willmore

Professor Jim Longhurst

Dr William Clayton

A celebration of the research and achievements of Professor Willy Aspinall

Posted on September 11, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

‘A celebration of the research and achievements of Professor Willy Aspinall’ was a one-day celebration organised by the Cabot Institute to commend the career of a valued UK scientist and Bristol Professor.

Professor Willy Aspinall CMG is retiring after a 60-year career that has seen him travel the world, advise governments and receive some of the highest accolades a scientist can receive. Over 50 people attended the one-day event, which comprised a light-hearted mix of history, science and personal reminiscence.

Frank Savage, ex-governor of Montserrat

Willy is possibly best known for his use of the ‘expert elicitation’ technique. The method involves synthesising the opinion of experts, which can then be used as a mechanism to help predict the occurrence of a typically-rare event. The technique has been used in policy making for a range of natural hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and has been an integral part of decision making in numerous crises around the globe.

Many of these crises will be familiar to the reader, with some having vast social and economic impacts. Perhaps the most well known in Europe was the Eyjafjallajokull ash crisis, which grounded air traffic across the continent. During the eight-day air space closure, Willy was one of a handful of experts who advised the UK government’s response.

Yet Willy’s role as a valued risk advisor was preceded by decades of influential work that represents astonishing variability and versatility. Willy began his working life as a physicist, receiving a PhD from Durham University in the 60’s. His physics background led him to take a job in 1970 in the Seismic Research Centre (SRC) in Trinidad and Tobago in which he remained for over a decade.

‘Aspi’, as he was sometimes known amongst his team, set up and maintained the seismic network on the island and surrounding areas throughout the busy decade. His colleague Dr Joan Latchman, who travelled from Trinidad to the event in Bristol, described the time; ‘for the entire decade it was excitement, non-stop’. During this period, Willy and his team of researchers advised the government on numerous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions while also breaking down the post-colonial culture that had lingered on in aspects of life at the SRC.

Willy’s time in Trinidad and Tobago wasn’t his only dance with Caribbean volcanism. One of the defining moments in Willy’s career, and one for which he was as appointed a companion to the Order of St Michael and St George by the Queen in 2016, was his work in Montserrat.

In August 1995 Willy was sent to Montserrat as adviser to the Governor shortly after the 11,000-person island’s volcano began to show signs of activity. When he arrived he was faced with a challenging situation. The scientists monitoring the volcano had developed a difference of opinion as to the volcano’s likely course of action. Part of his job, was to disseminate the jargon-heavy arguments to both the decision makers, and the general public. The then-governor of Montserrat, Frank Savage, spoke at Willy’s celebration and gave a personal account of the huge positive impact Willy had on the crisis management: ‘Willy understood Caribbean culture and traditions which made a significant and favourable impact with the local community’.

Frank wasn’t the only one grateful to Willy for his efforts. In fact several volcanologists working on Montserrat thanked Willy for saving their lives after he ordered them out of the exclusion zone where they had been working. Dr Amanda Clarke was one of these volcanologists. Unable to make it from Arizona to the event, she recorded a message to be screened during the day. In it, she thanks Willy for saving not only her life, but the lives of numerous people who he encouraged to evacuate at the last minute despite considerable personal risk.

Among others who paid a digital tribute to Willy’s inspirational career included the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Keith Rowley. Indeed, the sheer number of people from different backgrounds demonstrated the truly phenomenal cross-disciplinary geographical-reach of Willy’s work; from nuclear energy in Japan to melting Antarctic ice sheets to Italian earthquakes.

The faces in the audience represented industry professionals, academic colleagues as well as new scientists working in the field he has helped to carve out. Consequently, the day was replete with gratitude and genuine praise for a man whose cricket-loving, quick-witted personality will undoubtedly be missed as he enters his well-deserved retirement.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Keri McNamara, a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.

Reframing ecological thinking; Felix Guattari, subjectivity and film

Posted on August 25, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

This short article introduces the ecological thought of Felix Guattari. I suggest that Guattari’s holistic delineation of three interconnected ecologies is a productive place to begin in thinking about contemporary ecological issues. Following on from this, and away from traditional environmental discourse and politics, I argue that aesthetic encounters with film hold the potential for a re-invigoration of ecological thought. I explore this briefly in relation to ‘Melancholia’ by Lars Von Trier.

The 21st Century is increasingly defined by ecological crisis. With global biodiversity losses, the rapid melting of ice-caps and glaciers, rising ocean temperatures and desertification (all complemented by humanity’s continued, unshakeable appetite for fossil fuels), the contemporary environmental moment is an urgent dilemma.

In response, academia has converged on a neologism – ‘the Anthropocene’ – as a suitable expression of contemporary ecological crisis. This is not just a geological transition; it is also an existential one. As leading geologist Jan Zalasiewicz suggests: “The significance of the Anthropocene is that is sets a different trajectory for the Earth system, of which we of course are part”[1].

The destination of this “trajectory”, with humanity in the driving seat, is currently an indeterminate futurity. Such uncertainty (which unfortunately encourages, at best, a passivity, and worse, active climate change denial), should not detract from the new reality that the Anthropocene delineates, a reality that is making itself felt in collective consciousness. Anthropocenic anxiety is spreading across all domains, not least the cultural sphere.

Screenshot from Melancholia (Von Trier 2011)

Experimental cinema, for instance, reflects and explores the particularities of the contemporary moment, almost a bellwether medium for the Anthropocene. The event of apocalypse is a prominent theme (The Day after Tomorrow (2004), Melancholia (2011)), as is what the future holds post-apocalypse (Children of Men (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), Avatar (2009), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)). Other films engage ecological issues without the end-game of apocalypse (The Tree of Life (2011), Okja (2017), Uncertain (2017), Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives (2010)).

Importantly, many of these films challenge narratives of human exceptionalism, breaking-down nature-culture, subject-object binaries in the process. They problematise our dominant ways of seeing and being in the world, exposing us to a more entangled human-nonhuman milieu.

My dissertation looks to use film as the springboard for an exploration of Felix Guattari’s ecological thought. Guattari is more widely known for his collaborations with Gilles Deleuze, notably Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. Towards the end of his career, however, Guattari wrote two ecological texts (The Three Ecologies and Chaosmosis), reflecting a holistic concern for global environmental issues alongside molecular issues of subjectivity. In The Three Ecologies, Guattari presents a tangled ecological vision, emphasising that ecology must be rethought of in terms of three interconnected networks (mental ecology, social ecology and environmental ecology). This is Guattari’s central ecological intervention, placing environmental problems (climate change, global warming etc.) on the same plane as subjective issues and social relations. As JD Dewsbury suggests:

“Thinking with Guattari requires that we affirm and reinvigorate our experimental care for mental and social ecologies, as much as we assume a care for the state of the physical ecology of our natural environment.”[2]

Whilst climatic interventions remain important, they must be one single strand of a larger restructuring process that simultaneously includes interventions into the domain of mental ecology, a domain that, counter-intuitively perhaps, is the central focus for Guattari’s ecosophy. It might seem like a waste of time, in light of pressing environmental issues, to suddenly care so much about human subjectivity. However, as Guattari argued, it is unlikely, given our current ways of thinking and feeling about the world, that widespread economic, political or social restructuring is going to: a) be sufficient enough, or b) happen at all. Indeed, this sentiment resonates all the more strongly considering the recent failure of the Paris climate agreement.

The underlying reality, one that Guattari himself was acutely aware of, is that ecological action will remain impotent whilst it continues to be located within the far-reaching logics of capitalism and consumerism. The seeds of change, away from capitalist logics, must be planted at the molecular scale for there to be hope of molar transformation. Ecosophy has molecular transformation as its central problematic.

How, then, to change people’s subjectivities? How to encourage greater care and responsibility for all planetary life? How to problematise existing human relations, and then transform them for the better? These are big questions, with no obvious answer. However, Guattari placed great importance in what he called ‘incorporeal species’ (music, the arts, cinema), and their ability to reframe sensual perception, forcing people into encounters with alterity and nonhuman forces, perhaps engendering new modes of being in the world.

Screenshot from The Tree of Life (Malick 2011)

My dissertation looks to explore the aesthetic encounter of film. In watching films, as Guattari suggests, we “suspend the usual modes of communication for a while”.[3] This suspension, rather than being reductive, actually opens us up to processes of transformation. Film, in this way, is an encounter with forces and flows – some of them impacting before conscious recognition – a unique audio-visual assemblage that is more than just a representation of real life. In fact, films have an autonomous potential to do something in the world. I hope to explore this productivity in relation to ecosophy. What does an ecosophic aesthetics, within film, look like?

Whilst multiple films come to mind, Lars Von Trier’s critically-acclaimed Melancholia is a good place to start. The title derives from the film’s pervasion by two encircling melancholias: 1. the melancholic mental-state of central protagonist, Justine, whose struggles with depression ebb and flow throughout, and 2. the impending doom of the approaching blue
planet Melancholia, whose apocalyptic collision with Earth occurs in a prologue before we shift back in time to before the event.

Melancholia is by no means a normal ecological film; certainly, it does not follow conventional ecological film narratives. Whilst apocalypse in other films is either a future to be prevented, or a new reality that needs to be overcome, apocalypse in Melancholia is neither. There are no miraculous attempts to save humanity through science or invention. Neither is there a future after the planetary collision. The end is an end to all life, with the whole Earth dissolving into the vastness of Melancholia.

By bookending the film with apocalypse, Von Trier ensures a melancholic atmosphere throughout. This might seem like a pessimistic experience. If we analyse Melancholia in terms of its narrative, looking for conventional meanings and understandings, then certainly you might come to that conclusion. However, I believe the film can be framed in ecologically productive terms. The brilliance of Melancholia is that it strips away conventional ecological narratives throughout, particularly narratives that suggest that humanity is in any way separate from ‘nature.’

As political theorist William Connolly writes:

“Melancholia tracks beauty and ugliness, intentions and frustrations, glowing surfaces and opaque depths, regular rituals and uncanny events, entanglements and denials.”[4]

Themes of depression, capitalism, passivity and (anti)modernity weave in and out. Alongside these themes are Von Trier’s experimental filmic techniques – including an incredibly striking opening montage of 16 slow-motion tableaux vivant with Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan and Isolde in the background (a piece of music that repeats over and over in the film). Evocative visual tableaux are repeated throughout. However, in contrast, much of the rest of the film follows Von Trier’s Dogme 95 conventions: a fast-moving, continually re-focusing, handheld camera catapulting us into the midst of strained social relations. The effect, I suggest, is a scrambling of perception, with the contrasting styles leaving the audience in a continual state of disorientation. It is this disorientation that becomes a point of bifurcation, a glimmer of potential for subjective transformation.

Screenshot from Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives (Apichatpong 2010)

In our scenes, the film dramatises our often-ignored entanglements with nonhuman beings, our infinite connections and attachments to the world. Encountering the film, I argue, re-immerses us into the uncertainties and vulnerabilities of life in a way that other films fail to do. Maintaining a melancholic aesthetic throughout, this atmosphere soaks into the pores of the audience, forcing a confrontation with the potentially-infinite nothingness of apocalypse. Moreover, we begin to question contemporary subjective positions. If apocalypse is actually going to happen, then what is the most appropriate, or ethical, subjective response?

Space limits answering this question, and further discussion. However, I hope to use my dissertation as a more thorough exposition of these important themes and questions.

Blog by Theo Parker

Reposted from ‘Bristol Society and Space‘ Blog of the University of Bristol’s MSc in Human Geography

[1]
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/29/declare-anthropocene-epoch-experts-urge-geological-congress-human-impact-earth
[2] Dewsbury, JD. (2015). “Guattari’s resingularisation of existence: pooling uncertainties,” Dialogues in Human Geography,Vol. 5(2), pp. 155-161.
[3] Guattari, F. (2009). Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972-1977. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
[4] William Connolly (2014). Melancholia and Us. Ozone.