By Jim Clifford
UASC Container Ship (created by Roel Hemkes. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)
I recently visited the special Willkommen im Anthropozän exhibition at the science and technology Deutsches Museum in Munich and was very impressed by the museum’s efforts to convey the history and science of the anthropocene in a complex but accessible manner. The anthropocene thesis, introduced about fifteen years ago, argues that humans are transforming the global environment at an unprecedented scale. The Deutsches Museum exhibition is the first major effort to explore the anthropocene in a museum. The English digital companion website hosted by the Rachel Carson Center introduces the concept broadly:
Crumbling skyscrapers, crushed soda cans, and worn-out car tires: concrete, aluminum, and plastic are the physical traces of our time. It is a time in which humans intervene in nature, and thus change and shape it. A world has developed in which humans and their needs play a dominant role in the ecological system. The human influence is so great that man-made changes are becoming visible in the geological record and there is talk that a new geological era has arrived: welcome to the Anthropocene. [About the exhibition]
Proponents, such as Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen, argue we’ve left the Holocene, which began 11,700 years ago, and started a new geological epoch. There is no scientific consensus in the field of geology and the anthropocene is not yet formally recognized as an epoch, but their is little doubt humans are changing the world in which we live. The global environment has significantly altered during the past few centuries, from climate change and mass deforestation to artificial fertilizers, global supply networks and rapid urbanization. These transformations are not universally negative or apocalyptic, but even the more benign result in a new dynamic between humans and the other lifeforms with which we share the planet. For this reason, the anthropocene is developing into a major field of study and is starting to gain some traction in the media (see this radio documentary produced for The Current on CBC Radio and a cover story from The Economist, both from 2011). These media stories along with the success of the first month the Deutsches exhibition suggests the anthropocene is transitioning from an academic to a public discussion.
In its first month the “Welcome to the #Anthropocene” exhibition saw some 14,000 visitors. News stories here: http://t.co/nWmW8eDStI
— Rachel Carson Center (@CarsonCenter) January 26, 2015
There has been a renewed interest in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century story of the female match workers at the former E.B. Eddy Match Factory in Hull, Quebec. For me, this is another good example of recent efforts to regionally situate the big themes of social history in Canada. It also illustrates the challenges of trying to recognize voices of labour history which for the most part do not appear in public commemoration.
In 1964, fifty years following the start of the First World War, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) aired the seventeen-part radio series In Flanders’ Fields. Now, at the centenary of the Great War, the CBC has again leaned upon this series as one of its programming highlights to commemorate the anniversary. In Flanders’ Fields recently re-aired as The Bugle and the Passing Bell. The series was re-edited into ten, half-hour radio programs. While each episode had a brief introduction by host Beza Seife, essentially the programs relied upon the same information and oral histories presented in 1964.