The Weekly Anthropocene, August 23, 2023
An epic new national monument in Arizona, rapid renewables progress in India, a disaster avoided off the coast of Yemen, and more!
Arizona
On August 8, 2023, President Biden created the new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, protecting 917,618 acres of public land (over 3,700 km2, larger than Luxembourg) in three parcels to the south, northeast, and northwest of the preexisting Grand Canyon National Park. The newly protected land is home to classic American West wildlife like bighorn sheep, mule deer, pronghorn, elk, bison, mountain lions, and California condors, as well as many endangered plant and insect species and a multitude of Native American cultural heritage sites.
“[These lands]…are the home of 3,000 cultural sites: cliff houses, cave paintings, ancient spots that help us understand the history of these civilizations…By creating this monument, we’re setting aside new spaces for families to hike, bike, hunt, fish, and camp…It’s good for the economy. It’s good for the soul of the nation. And I believe with my core that it’s the right thing to do.”
-President Joe Biden
India
Based on talks with Indian officials preparing their national climate report to the UN, international news organization Reuters has reported that India’s rate of emissions intensity fell by an impressive 33% from 2005 to 2019, as renewable energy grew and forest cover increased.
It’s important to clarify what “rate of emissions intensity” means: it’s the amount of net greenhouse gas emissions per unit increase of gross domestic product (GDP). (Or in more colloquial and less precise terms, “how much stuff we burned per amount of money we made”). A rapid decrease in the emissions rate doesn’t mean that India’s overall emissions are decreasing (yet): they still burn a lot of coal. But it does mean that India is making great strides on the well-worn path of economic development becoming less and less dependent on fossil fuels! For comparison, between 2005 and 2019, 32 countries (including the United States and much of Europe) had successfully achieved “absolute decoupling”: their greenhouse gas emissions dropping in absolute terms at the same time as their economies continue to grow.
And India has generally been making a lot of amazing progress recently. That same 2005 to 2019 period saw incredible leaps in Indians’ quality of life.
Extreme poverty has been reduced immensely, with the number of Indians living on (inflation-adjusted) $2.15 a day or less falling from over 420 million people in 1983 to under 140 million in 2019, even while the overall Indian population grew from under 750 million to over 1.3 billion in the same period!
In 1994, about 50% of Indians had access to at least basic electricity (i.e. a lightbulb and basic phone charger, but no appliances), rising to 99% in 2020.
43% of Indians used the Internet in 2020, up from 7.5% in 2010.
And famously, in 2000 over 79% of Indians lacked access to improved sanitation facilities (i.e. they had no latrines or toilets), falling to under 17% in 2020.
And as India’s middle class grows, their lives are increasingly supported by the country’s epic clean energy boom. India is in the middle of accelerating, exponential renewables growth: their total installed solar capacity rose from 6 gigawatts in 2015 to 63 gigawatts in 2022. And in India as across the world, renewable energy is dominating the future of the grid: as this writer never tires of repeating, an amazing 92% of new electricity-generating capacity added in India in 2022 was solar and wind! India rapidly lifting its billion-plus population up from poverty is a great victory for humanity, and continuing that progress by adding primarily renewable new energy will be a gift to all of Earth’s biosphere. Excellent news!
Ecuador
On August 20th, 2023, Ecuador held unusual snap presidential and legislative elections. In a concurrent referendum, a strong majority of Ecuadorean voters chose to ban oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, a question put on the ballot after years of legal action by the park’s indigenous inhabitants. Yasuní is a contender for the single most biologically diverse place on Earth, an over 9,990 km2 swathe of Amazon rainforest (that’s an area larger than Delaware) home to over 200 species of mammals, 596 species of birds, 120 reptile species, almost 500 fish species, 1,130 known species of trees, and at least 100,000 insect species. It’s also home to the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, two indigenous nations living in “voluntary isolation” from modern society, as well as many other non-isolated indigenous communities. The referendum result will shut down the 230 oil wells currently operating on the eastern edge of the park (they have one year to withdraw), and block any further expansion.
This newsletter often urges environmentalists to support resource extraction projects when needed to stop climate change (e.g. lithium mining) and embrace building new things more generally, but this case is a perfect example of the ongoing need for traditional “oppositional” environmentalism where appropriate. Drilling for climate change-worsening oil in a planetary jewel like Yasuní is a clear-cut Bad Idea. Stopping it is great news! Bravo to the people of Ecuador.
“A day we will remember as the day the planet started to win, and corrupt politicians and oil companies lost.”
-Nemonte Nenquimo of the Waorani people
Yemen
A landmark UN-led mission to prevent an ecological catastrophe in the Red Sea has been completed safely, with 1.1 million barrels of oil successfully transferred from the decaying FSO Safer oil tanker safer to the Yemen. Yemen’s warring factions will now begin (likely quite lengthy) negotiations on selling the oil and splitting the revenue. But the key point is: catastrophe has been avoided! As longtime readers of this newsletter will know, the FSO is an oil tanker abandoned in 2015 due to the Yemeni Civil War, and decaying since then in dangerous rebel-held waters. Containing four times as much oil as was spilled in the infamous Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989, it was essentially a “ticking time bomb” threatening global commerce, local drinking water and food security, and rare heat-resistant coral reefs in the area. Avoided disasters don’t tend to be remembered, but this one should be-it’s a win for all of humanity!
"Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, two indigenous nations living in “voluntary isolation” from modern society...". That passage really struck me. Love to hear their reasons! What a WA interview that would be!