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The modern era

Chapter · January 1998

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Atkins, P.J., Simmons, I.G. and Roberts, B.K. (1998) People, Land and Time London:
Hodder Arnold ISBN: 0340677147 and 0470236590
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780340677148/

PART 3. THE MODERN ERA

The massive changes in the economy and ecology of the world which are labelled as
industrialisation came to dominance in the nineteenth century, since when they have often
been regarded as the norm, against which all else is measured: less developed is a
comparative term of that kind. The nineteenth century was not, of course, the beginning of
the processes of industrialism for its major characteristics of steam power, the substitution of
machines for human labour and the spatial aggregation of production into the factory can all
be seen in earlier centuries.

As we saw in the Introduction to Part 1, the human use of energy hitherto had been confined
to solar power in one of its indirect forms, as in photosynthesis or meteorological elements
like wind and water. The great change comes with the discovery of the efficient use of fossil
fuels to power machines. This started with the use of coal to drive a water pump which made
possible mining at greater depths. Steam power was then applied to railways and to shipping
and was joined by the more concentrated and often more portable fuels like oil and natural
gas. All share one vital characteristic: unlike the products of solar energy, they are not
renewable. Once the complex hydrocarbon molecules are oxidised by burning, then they are
gone for ever in that form. It is theoretically possible though economically unlikely therefore
that all the coal, oil and natural gas in the earth's crust could be used up by human activity.

Table P3.1 Growth in population and energy use 1870-1986

Year Industrial energy use Per capita Cumulative use World

(TW) (Watts) since 1850 population
(millions)
1870 0.2 153 3 1300
1910 1.1 647 25 1700
1950 2.9 1160 100 2500
1970 7.1 1972 200 3600
1986 8.6 1720 328 5000

Note: 1 TW (Terawatt) = 1 x 1012 watts. The Table only refers to industrial energy use: not
therefore to biofuels like wood and dung.

One response to the finite nature of these fossil fuels has been the development of
alternatives such as nuclear power and the hi-tech use of solar energy in modern wind-farms
and via photoelectric cells, for example. Nuclear power is in theory non-renewable but the
concentration of energy in the nuclei of heavy elements like uranium is so great that this is
not a practical worry. In areas of plentiful falling water (natural or dammed), then large-
scale hydropower is a popular addition to the repertoire.

In spite of all these developments, a large proportion of the world's population only has
access to solar power, usually as biomass. Statistics for energy use usually omit these
materials (wood, leaves, and dung are the commonest forms) and give only the data for the
production and consumption of fossil fuels, nuclear, hydropower and new technologies for
harnessing natural phenomena: commercial energy is the term used. In spite of all the
technological developments associated with industries the world over, humans are still
dependent upon the products of photosynthesis for their food and upon the solar-powered
hydrological cycle for water. The extent to which control over fossil fuels has allowed the
manipulation of the world's ecology is given in Table P3.2 where it can be seen that some 40
per cent of the world's terrestrial fixation of solar energy as plant tissue has been appropriated
by human activity.

Table P3.2 Human appropriation of net primary productivity (NPP), 1980s

%
World NPP Terrestrial 132.1
Fresh water 0.8
Marine 91.6
Total 224.5
NPP directly used by humans Plants eaten directly 0.8
Plants fed to domestic animals 2.2
Fish eaten by both 1.2
Wood use for paper & timber 1.2
Fuel wood 1.0
Total 7.2
NPP used or diverted by humans Cropland 15.0
Converted pastures 9.8
Others (cities, deforestation) 17.8
Total 42.6
NPP used, diverted or reduced NPP used or diverted 42.6
Reduced by conversion 17.5
Total 60.1

Source: Diamond, J.M. (1987) Human use of world resources, Nature 328, 479-80

Compared with the explosion of cultural diversity made possible by agriculture, industry
produces relatively little of it. Factories tend not to be tuned to climate like farms and all TV
sets are more or less the same. The power of steam applied to railway and ship, followed by
the internal combustion engine and electric telecommunications tended to spread dominant
ideas quickly and they could be followed up where necessary by armies and colonial officials
whose jobs it was to make them stick. So the modernism of industrialisation has in general
reduced the diversity of culture in the world and with it the variety of cultural landscapes:
modernised cities are much the same everywhere. The expression of non-material values
continued, but the cathedrals of the 19th century were in praise of empire and commerce;
sheer size also entered music with grandiose conceptions like Gustav Mahler's Symphony of a
Thousand.

The cultural landscapes of industrialism, then, include those of energy getting, the power-
houses of the world; those of industrial production themselves; the cities whose increased
size is only made possible by the new fuels, the communications web that binds them all
 together, and many other new landscapes of pleasure such as the jet-packaged holiday in the
sun.

But the fruits of industrialism are spread unevenly, and one way of seeing the world in about
1950 was of a core of industrial nations (all consuming high per capita quantities of energy
and having high levels of per capita income) with a periphery of developing countries whose
industrialization was less complete but who nevertheless saw the core regions as desirable
places to emulate. In due course we will have to question whether that is any more a useful
model.

Table P3.3 Population and longevity: proportion of years lived

Date Pop x longevity Period covered

10,000 B.C. 8.6 from evolution of species
A.D. 1 34.2 10,000 B.C. - A.D. 1
A.D. 1750 28.2 A.D. 1 - A.D. 1750
A.D. 1950 16.8 A.D. 1750 - 1950
A.D. 1990 12.2 A.D. 1950 - 1990

Note: The second column is a percentage of all the people who have ever lived, not an
absolute number.
Source: Livi-Bacci 1992

Table P3.4 Environmental impact as a function of longevity and energy use

Date Pop x longevity Per cap E use (W) Index of impact

10,000 BC 8.6 50 430
A.D. 1 34.2 100 3420
A.D. 1750 28.2 300 8460
A.D. 1950 16.8 1972 33130
A.D. 1990 12.2 1720 20984

Note: The Index is obtained by multiplying the two previous columns and is obviously
crude; it nevertheless puts into perspective the data in Table P3.1.

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