Environmental Impacts of Industrial and Postindustrial Societies

Work, Life, and Value: Economic Anthropology ANTH 2301 Environmental Impacts of Industrial and Postindustrial Societies In the places where it has become the main means of livelihood, industrialism has had a detrimental effect on the environment. Fossil fuel combustion, which powers industries, contributes to air pollution, especially when it accumulates carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The result has been a shift in the worldwide climate. Local water resources may get tainted with hazardous chemicals when industries are constructed close to water sources. Lead is one toxic toxin that may seep into soil and contaminate crops. The loss of habitat brought on by land clearance for forestry, mining, ranching, and cash crops drastically lowers the biodiversity of plants and animals. Poorer nations and the impoverished areas of postindustrialized nations account for a large portion of this environmental deterioration. Anthropologists in all four of the disciplines are interested in how humans interact with their environments to create systems of production and trade, as this chapter has covered. As humans observe, categorise, and engage in experiments with the flora, fauna, soils, and climatic characteristics of their environment, anthropologists also investigate how these systems generate forms of meaning and value. Because of its enduring fascination in the relationship between people and the natural world, anthropology has been fast to address environmental concerns brought about by unsustainable ways of subsistence like industrialism fueled by fossil fuels and postindustrial hyperconsumption. Many cultural anthropologists who engage in "climate ethnography" have shown how climate change has rendered formerly viable means of survival unfeasible, especially in "climate sensitive" regions of the planet such deserts and places at or near sea level (Crate 2011). The book Anthropology and Climate Change (Crate and Nuttall 2016) includes contributions that describe the enormous sociocultural implications of climate change in several locations, including Siberia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, the Amazon, Peru, Australia, and Alaska. Droughts, floods, and frosts brought on by significant climatic changes are threatening native subsistence techniques in Papua New Guinea, according to anthropologist Jerry Jacka (2016). Horticulture is almost impossible in severely impacted regions, and people are compelled to migrate—sometimes leaving the old and sick behind to perish. In places where farming is still practiced, invading insects and weeds have taken over and are destroying crops and firewood. When crops fail, unpredictable rainfall and flooding lead to recurrent food shortages. Although locals have developed a number of countermeasures, such as changing crop species, horticulture is still a vulnerable way of life in New Guinea. Similar to this, anthropologist Susan Crate's (2016) research in Siberia demonstrates how variable climate conditions like flooded rangelands and unexpected rainfall are making it harder and harder to raise cattle. A growing number of young Siberian people are leaving behind their parents' way of life and relocating to cities in pursuit of wage employment. We have reviewed the four primary means of subsistence that humans have employed throughout human history in this chapter. These four subsistence strategies did not arise in a tidy evolutionary order, with each new strategy outpacing and displacing the previous one. Instead, some cultures accepted new tactics as their main means of livelihood, while others used them as supplemental techniques. Over time, several communities have experimented with diverse forms of sustenance, integrating them in different ways. Population pressures, forced migrations, the introduction of new technology, trade possibilities, and, most recently, global climate change all cause people to adapt their subsistence practices. The very final strategy in this chapter differs significantly from the other three that were covered. Both industrialism and postindustrialism are global tactics that entangle all other forms of sustenance in the opportunities and demands of the world's capitalist market. The means of sustenance that depend on natural resources are under danger as governments and companies fight for control over land and them. Many are compelled to give up their livelihoods in plant cultivation, pastoralism, hunting, and gathering; these livelihoods also include entire lifestyles. Between the industrial/postindustrialist way of subsistence and all other forms, there is one additional significant distinction. Pastoralism, plant cultivation, and gathering-hunting are frequently— though not always—practiced in ways that preserve and safeguard the environment. Industrialism and postindustrialism continue to be environmentally harmful and depleting despite attempts at environmental reform. Maybe those who make a career in environmentally responsible ways have something to teach others who don't. It would be both an environmental and a cultural tragedy to lose these clever means of subsistence.