Issue #17: Everything Is Connected
Links between your toaster and Life on Earth
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The CCR Resource associated with this issue of the newsletter is linked below:
Vulture Conservation in India
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Indian subcontinent witnessed a sudden and catastrophic decline in populations of various species of vultures, the long-billed vulture, the slender-billed vulture and the white-rumped vulture. This decline (from an estimated 40 million to less than 20,000 individuals of all the species combined) was attributed to an anti-inflammatory drug called diclofenac, a cheap anti-inflammatory drug which was regularly prescribed by veterinarians to cattle farmers to treat domestic cattle. The cattle carcasses retained a high dose of diclofenac in their systems, even after death. Vultures scavenging on carcasses with this chemical in them suffered renal failure, and eventually death.
By the time the combined efforts of various organizations and scientists led to the ban of the drug diclofenac (through the Vulture Action Plan of 2006), vulture populations were already unsustainably low. A natural bounce-back of several species was not possible without human intervention.
Scientists Dr. Nikita and Dr. Vibhu Prakash (the latter one of the scientists who sounded the alarm bells on the vulture-die-off) have been working on restoring critically endangered populations of vultures by running one of the longest breeding programs for vultures, known as the Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre, in partnership with the Bombay Natural History Society. At this facility, they run a captive breeding, treatment and re-introduction program for the three most affected species of vultures, along with the Himalayan Griffon. Successful re-introduction programs often last more than a decade, and even then, it isn’t clear whether the vultures that are re-introduced would thrive in the wild. Despite this, multiple captive-bred vultures have been released into the wild since 2017, with more 750 fledging vultures of all the affected species being birthed as part of this program.
However, the reduction of toxic drugs like the one that was banned in 2004 have resulted in safer sources of food for the vultures, as a consequence of which the decline in populations was slowed down, and some species are even recording a gradual rise in numbers. Efforts by citizens and communities include eco-tourism models such as “Vulture Cafes” where safe carrion is set out for local species of birds, paid for by tourists who may want to witness the creatures scavenge.
Vultures (like crows, hyenas, jackals and other scavengers) are an important part of the ecosystem, removing decaying matter from a system before it begins to fester and potentially lead to the spread of diseases. While in some cases, detritivores such as beetles and earthworms may directly consume dead organic tissues, scavengers are an important part of the ecosystem where detritivores might not be as active (in more arid ecosystems, for example), ferrying flesh into macronutrients that can be taken up by plants. Although their behaviors associated with seeking out food (sometimes seen waiting for weak animals to die) has earned them a reputation as harbingers of death, vultures make their way into various myths of ancient civilizations, often depicting rebirth or renewal. The “powers” ascribed to them in these myths are not dissimilar to their role as ecosystem engineers, consuming death and bringing life.
You can read more about the Jatayu Conservation and Breeding Centre by clicking on the link below:
Jatayu Vulture Conservation and Breeding Centre
BNHS Overview of Vultures in India
Declining Vulture Populations Can Cause A Health Crisis on Mongabay India
Couple Uses Unique Breeding Technique to Birth 780 Endangered Vultures
For research on vultures and more links, please see
Climate Catalogue Resource 2 - Vultures
In Issue #1, introducing this newsletter, we learned about the vast physical and time scales associated with natural systems, development and global ecological degradation - processes that mature in geological time. These processes and systems are far too large to be directly perceived by us. It is only through data collected over several human lifetimes that we are able to “witness” changing conditions on our planet - made apparent through statistics and increasingly through computer models. In “Hyperobjects”, the author Timothy Morton describes phenomena or systems that surpass human abilities of perception because of the scale of their geographical and physical effects; effects that wax and wane over several hundred or even thousand human lifetimes; an effect which individuals may only perceive partially (for example, heatwaves in rural Maharashtra are only truly experienced by those residing in affected areas - the majority of the world understands this as filtered, and often biased information from news or other media). A hyperobject phenomenon such as “global warming” is also veiled and only perceptible through secondary markers, such as increased storms and droughts, stressed ecosystems, and the melting of arctic sea ice in the summer. While, by themselves, each of these may only cause local alarm, and most resilient systems can bounce back from sudden shocks and changes, when these effects are taken in conjunction with other global effects, we can connect these dots and unveil the larger phenomenon.
The fragmentation and compartmentalization of our world into neat boxes (it’s easier to focus on and study individual components rather than the unfathomable immense and interconnected systems) has played a large part in limiting our perception of hyperobjects - a hyperobject blindness. It was only in the 1970s that James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis formulated and popularized the “Gaia hypothesis”, an understanding of the planetary systems as an interconnected whole. In the twenty-first century, with the proliferation of global trade, financial systems and economics, anthropogenic phenomena have taken center-stage. However, although not directly evident to us as consumers, anthropogenic networks and systems still rely heavily on natural networks and systems for resources and production processes. After all, everything we use originates from elements on the earth (we’re currently avoiding pedantism between organic and inorganic matter).
The book presented in this issue aims to give us a better understanding of all of the planetary processes we rely on to make our world the way it is.
[A Book]
Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History
a book by Lewis Dartnell, published by Vintage (Penguin-Random House), 2020
This book is a 10 HOUR read.
Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist, a field that could potentially bring us closer to an answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything (it is not 42). In the past, he has published books and papers relating to planetary processes and the large-scale indicators for extra-terrestrial cellular activity (based on records of prehistoric Earth and comparing them to those of Mars). Although this book can be read independently, a previous book of his, “The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch” was where the idea of “Origins” began. Origins brings everything we may take for granted in our life today to the fore - outlining how events such as asteroid impacts on a young Earth made the use of a very rare element in electronic circuits today. This book is chock-full of such associations and chains of causality - a few of which I’m highlighting below.
The Correlation Between Tectonic Plates and Human Evolution & Settlement
Plate tectonics is responsible for the existence of continents and nearly all geographical features in the world today. The subduction and obduction of plates meeting at continental and oceanic boundaries form the landscapes that allowed early life to colonize the landmasses. Mountain ranges formed by land being pushed upwards at an orogenic belt (continental plates meeting continental plates) created elevations which affected global weather systems (such as the Himalayas). Rifts, shifts and other transformations created valleys and landforms that limited the movements of predators, making safe havens for the uninterrupted evolution of primates.
Modern-day settlements, especially those in rain-poor regions of Central Asia coincide with fault lines in the tectonic plate. This is not merely happenstance; tectonic activity creates landscapes that bring mineral-rich material from deep within the earth to the surface of the crust. Volcanic activity in Ages past creates lava flows which weather into topsoil (such as the black soil of the Deccan Plateau), supporting a diverse ecosystem. These tectonic and volcanic processes also create subterranean pockets into which water seeps over tens of thousands years, creating massive aquifers on which several settlements the world over depend on as a source of water. Settlements thus forms around springs originating from such aquifers, in areas with mineral-rich soil and an amenable climate - all by-products of tectonic shifts in geological time.
Physical properties of the Earth and Solar System made the planet ideal for Life as we know it
The earths iron-heavy core, spinning in space forms an electromagnet with a field that deflects harmful charged particles that emanate from the nearest star, and acts as a shield against cosmic radiation - the radiation that would possibly have put an end to DNA in the primordial soup of 4 billion years ago, or cooked any organism that made it onto dry land. Unchecked solar winds would have blown the atmosphere off the planet (much like what appears to have happened on Mars, a planet without a magnetic field). The location of Jupiter, Mars and the Moon and their gravitational effects in conjunction with the Earth have pulled several asteroids away from the Earth, where repeated impacts of large asteroids could have slowed or ended the evolutionary processes of life. Denser asteroids or comets with heavier elements and ice might have impacted the surface of the Earth, but the friction from a thick, smoggy atmosphere burned large parts of their mass off, making their impacts considerably less catastrophic - all while bringing water and the elements necessary for life to the planet.
The gravitational force experienced on the Earth’s surface affects the tides and circulations of oceanic currents. However, gravitational effects of the gas giant Jupiter also affect the Earth. Over eons, or even millions of years, the gravitational field of the Sun and Jupiter engage in a nearly balanced tug-of-war on the earth. This dual gravitational influence causes the Earth to “wobble” on it’s slightly tilted axis, exposing a greater or lesser percentage of it’s surface to the sun during summer in the northern hemisphere. This periodic “wobble” occurs as part of the Milankovitch Cycle, which affects the planetary climate - increased solar radiation on the Northern Hemisphere causes an interglacial warming, whereas decreased solar radiation in the Northern Hemisphere precipitates an ice age. The Northern Hemisphere cools more rapidly and to a greater extent because of the concentration of low specific heat capacity landmasses which do not retain summer warmth as efficiently as the oceans in the Southern Hemisphere. Here, too, plate tectonics play a role. If the continental plates were to shift to the Southern Hemisphere, the interglacial/ice age effect of the wobble would be reversed.
The recent evolution of Homo sapiens ensured that there was enough biodiversity to form settlements before we arrived
Homo sapiens were largely nomadic for several tens of thousands of years after our initial appearance on the planet; the surface and seas were already teeming with a new diversity of flora and fauna that dominated after the Chicxulub Asteroid Impact 65 Million Years Ago. Primarily, the angiosperms (fruiting plants and grasses which produce seeds through sexual reproduction) on which we rely on for the majority of our food had already spread into nearly every niche on the planet because of their reproductive success. Additionally, birds (which we domesticated for food), ruminants such as cows and buffalo (which we domesticated for food), and ungulates such as horses and goats (which we domesticated for food and as beasts of burden) were also mature species in several ecological niches the world over. So, when the first Homo sapiens decided to abandon the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settle down, grow grasses and rear livestock - all the elements were already in place. Had animals such as goats, buffalo and cows not evolved, we would find ourselves without abundant high-protein foods away from the coast - and had animals such as horses and donkeys not evolved, we would find ourselves unable to travel long distances with haste, affecting historical trade networks.
Geochemical processes drove the development of settled Homo sapiens
The abundance of metallic elements in the Earth’s crust (and their oxides on the surface) made the probability of prehistoric humans picking up rocks containing the ores or even the metal in it’s pure form. Native metals, particularly such as gold and silver, are found in a pure state on the surface of the Earth because of their relative inertness in comparison to other metals. Copper, found in ores that are 99.9% pure, was the first metal to be used by humans over 9000 years ago - although mainstream usage by civilizations such as the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. Once it was discovered that heating of brightly colored rocks (such as blue copper sulfide) could extract metals from ores, humans began to master metallurgy. Metals such as tin and lead were discovered because of their ease of extraction (basically, heating) - and combinations of these elements brought about the “Bronze Age”. Iron was used more than 5000 years ago, with evidence of smelted iron artefacts found in ruins dating back to some 2500 years ago. Iron is currently the most abundant and most used element by mankind; we use it to form steel, which is used in construction and production of various artefacts that we use (cars, appliances, cutlery, crockery), and is synonymous with the notion of strength.
Again, it is not happenstance that lead to our reliance on iron - iron is the element that kills stars. Through the hydrogen fusion process at the heart of a star, heavier, and heavier elements are formed (helium > lithium > beryllium > boron > carbon, etc.) until iron is formed at the heart of the star - iron is too heavy to support the chain reaction. If the star explodes as a supernova, iron dust is spread through the galaxy, and eventually, under the effects of a star’s gravitational field, coalesces into rings of dust that become planets such as the Earth. Tens of billions of stars exploding over 8 billion years left a significant amount of iron dust - enough to form our planet. Iron from the core of the Earth makes it’s way to the surface through volcanic and tectonic processes - making it one of the most readily available metals (in it’s ore form) on the planet.
The ubiquity of waterways and coastlines the world over accelerated the pace of globalization
Faster travel driven by boats and later, ships, across the coastlines and waterways during the Archaic (750 BC) and Middle Ages (500 - 1500 CE) made inter-civilization trade possible - trade along the Mediterranean Coast was so easy that large polises such as Athens got the bulk of their food and supplies from Central Asia - where there was a surplus of supply. In South and South East Asia, too, there was a matured trade network, ferrying spices, grain and metals across the continental civilizations and those of the island nations in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The rise of seafaring trade across various kingdoms and need for control of the supply chains (cotton, spices and valuable artefacts) eventually brought about the colonization of countries - more often than not, landmasses that had specific ecosystems because of their geographical location and geological history.
Intercontinental trade before industrialization was highly dependent on global climate systems - where seafarers interacted with the first hyperobjects. Oceanic and atmospheric currents became areas of study and interest to colonizing nations to ensure that movement of goods from the centers of supply (overwhelmingly, tropical nations) to the centers of consumption could be as efficient as possible.
Early inter-civilization maritime trade saw ships following the coastlines, which is why areas with larger coastlines had more centers of trade, making them wealthier that their landlocked counterparts. The Eurasian land trade routes, which brought massive capital to the civilizations in Central Asia became disused, as “Western” nations sought to bypass the middlemen, going directly to the “Eastern” nations to establish a supply.
The advent of industrialization and our burning of fossil fuels as a form of energy pushed globalization a step further: humans no longer needed to depend on climates and currents to get them where they needed to be. For example, seafarers who had to shut down trade because of the South Asian monsoon system could now just power through the strong monsoon winds and stormy currents on the backs of steam powered ships.
Globalization and contemporary technological development
The ease of trade and the conglomeration of several global supply chains bringing raw materials and resources to production centers allowed certain parts of the world to develop technologically in leaps and bounds. Countries that are geographically and geologically less abundant could bring in necessary raw materials and fuels from their colonies across the world to mass-produce technology such as steam engines, automobiles and eventually, modern appliances, all of which we are extremely dependent on today. The energy-production potential of fossil fuels, beginning with coal, made it possible for things to be produced at a scale never seen before. In searching for more fossil sources of energy, oil was drilled - from which originated petroleum and diesel, and plastics.
Had there been no surplus in raw materials due to global trade and industrial scale production requirements, the necessity to eke massive amounts of energy out of efficient fuel sources would not have arisen, making fossil fuels nothing more than dark, goopy prehistoric carbon remains that burned too hot, to be used by pre-industrial and pre-metallurgical processes.
In the formation of fossil fuels, too, the effects of deep time are felt. Prehistoric deposits of carbon (dead plants and animals) in biodiverse regions of the Carboniferous Period and beyond, compressed and stressed by tectonic forces formed coal and oil over hundreds of millions of years. Without the existence of an unfathomable biomass at that time, there would be no mass-produced toaster in your kitchen today.
The proliferation of electronics and, in particular, smart devices (in addition to our laptops and phones) has created a demand for other elements such as lithium, cobalt and indium, all of which are used in the components of electronic devices. Several of these elements are termed “Rare Earth Minerals” because of their relatively lower abundance on the Earth’s crust, once again, owing to specific geological processes that allowed deposits to form on or near the Earth’s surface. As we transition into a clean energy economy, the demand for lithium as an energy storage medium will skyrocket - necessitating large scale mining and distribution of the element. Once again, there are lithium-rich parts of the Earth’s surface, and Lithium-poor parts - countries located in areas with low lithium deposits will rely on trade relations with countries that do.
Resources we depend on affect politics, capital and power
It isn’t just the minerals that we depend on - water, food and fossil fuels and their distribution in various countries affects the global power paradigm. Tectonic processes that created the Himalayas also created the plateau lands of Tibet, where the elevation allows glacial ice to stay frozen through most of the year. The melting of Himalayan and Tibetan glaciers feeds massive water systems throughout Asia - the Indus, the Ganges-Bramhaputra, the Mekong and the Yangtze Rivers are all fed by glacial meltwater from this region. In a world where water is more valuable than oil, Tibet could have been a seat of power - controlling the water source for large parts of South and East Asia.
Currently, however, the oil-rich Middle-East is in the seat of global power because the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. An economy driven almost entirely by the extraction and trade of fossil fuels is possible only because of the (once again) geo-ecological history of the region and tectonic processes through deep time that allowed massive reserves of fossil fuels to form.
There are several more connections drawn in the book - highlighting the origins of agricultural systems and different aspects of modern technology. Links between paleontology, history, economics, geography and climate are drawn repeatedly and establish a deep understanding of the hyperobjects that governs our daily consumption in the 21st Century. The author has made efforts to connect even the most mundane events that we may take for granted with their origins in deep time, and has done so spectacularly.
Climate Catalogue Resource 2 - Global Phenomena
[A Video]
How to Rebuild The World From Scratch | Lewis Dartnell
a lecture on TED Archive’s Youtube channel, 2015
This is a 20 MINUTE long video.
Following on from author Lewis Dartnell’s previous book, entitled “The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch”, this TED talk poses an interesting “What if” question to display how collective knowledge and global networks have permeated even the simplest aspects of our lives.
Dartnell proposes a thought experiment, beginning with a catastrophic collapse of civilization and global networks, and asks the question, “How much of our daily lives can we recover without a functioning global economy?”. In his book, he examines several facets of modern life such as metals, electronics, printing, etc. - processes and objects that we interact with on a day-to-day basis. However, in this short-form presentation, he focuses on food, fire and knowledge - what would it take for individualized societies to build civilization back to what it was before the collapse.
In this thought experiment, we are immediately faced with an issue of scale. Nearly everything wee rely on today, especially food, reaches through a complex agro-industrial-economic network that would cease to exist in the imaginary post-apocalyptic world. Agrarian communities are the only ones currently engaged in the production of food. Urban and sub-urban communities do not produce food. Rebuilding a dependable food economy would face a similar issue - individuals in a post-apocalyptic community would have to provide for more than themselves and their own families, freeing up other people to develop other things we need - such as homes and mechanisms that allow us to harvest the energy potential of wind, water or fire.
While, as most short-form lectures tend to be, this talk cannot encompass the depth of Dartnell’s study and his understanding of the complexity of his question - but it is a great place to fathom what it means to be a globalized, interconnected planetary civilization in the 21st Century.
If you found this video interesting, you can considering reading his book to learn more.
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch on Amazon India
Climate Catalogue Resource 2 - Lewis Dartnell
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