Page 21 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

1 CARBON, CAPITALISM, COMMUNICATION 3

into planetary terra incognita. The Earth is rapidly moving into a less
biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably wetter and
stormier state” (Steffen et al. 2007: 614).
They see these escalating impacts pointing to a step-change in the
relation between human activity and the earth’s system and suggest that we
have now entered a new “interval of time on Earth in which many key
processes are dominated by human influence” (Zalasiewicz et al. 2011:
835). In an earlier paper ‘Geology of Mankind’ published in the
influential scientific journal Nature, Crutzen named this new period the
Anthropocene. Drawing on observations of the increasing concentrations
of the two major ‘greenhouse’ gases contributing to global warming,
carbon dioxide and methane, in the air trapped in samples of polar ice, he
located the start of the new era “in the latter part of eighteenth century” a
date he notes, “happened to coincide with James Watt’s design of a steam
engine in 1784” (Crutzen 2002: 23). The contribution of Watt’s invention
to the development of early industrialisation is currently the focus of dis-
pute among historians (Malm 2016) but by placing it centre stage in his
account of the dynamics propelling the rise of the Anthropocene, Crutzen
raises two key issues.
Firstly, while the mechanisation of industrial production and trans-
portation clearly did accelerate the shift in energy generation from renew-
able sources to finite and exhaustible reserves of fossil fuels, initially coal and
later oil and natural gas, we must take care not to conflate ‘renewable’ with
‘clean’. While water and wind power entail minimal emissions, all forms of
carbon-based energy contribute to the production of the major greenhouse
gas, carbon dioxide, with major impacts on global warming and ocean
acidification. Recent action on climate change has tended to focus on
reducing reliance on fossil fuels. A notable example is The Guardian’s ‘Keep
it in the Ground’ campaign described by Alan Rusbridger in this collection.
In looking for alternatives, there is mounting support for policies that
address future energy needs by increasing the use of biosolids and liquids
derived from trees or recently harvested plants. There are two problems
with this approach. Firstly, when burned in the presence of oxygen, wood,
particularly wood pellets, currently the dominant form of solid biomass
traded internationally, usually emit “more greenhouse gases per unit of
energy produced than fossil fuels”, to which we need to add the
“supply-chain emissions from harvesting, collecting, processing and trans-
port”. As a consequence “the use of woody biomass for energy will release
higher levels of emissions than coal and considerably higher levels than gas”