Topic: Explain the relationship between the Earth system and the world-system – in your own words and with historical examples.
Earth systems are systems that are related to globalization, Earth, and climate. However, for decades we have seen how these earth systems are being exploited. Severe climate change has caused severe disasters. But what is the reason behind this? Aldo Leopoldo said, “The characters of land determined the facts quite as potently as the characteristics of men who lived on it.” Thus, the earth system is connected with the world system with the ties of human actions. The way we preserve natural resources and natural life directly determines our Earth system. However, for the sake of capital and economic stability, modernization has exploited the natural resources for their luxuries that exploited our Earth systems. Hence, we are the world-systems; our economic inequality and political strategies are world systems. Even now, when we are threatened by our Earth systems, First world countries start blaming the under-developing countries. However, the first responsible for this destruction should fall on the hegemonic powers who industrialize, capitalize their states on the cost of wars and natural destructions. This paper will deal with the relationship of the earth system with the world system that has devastated the Earth’s environment through capitalization, trade, wars, and blame over poorer countries.
Earth is the most beautiful planet in the solar system. It has three-fourth of water, breath-taking views, greenery, and climates. Modernization and capital accumulation have taken us towards an alarming situation. From the 16th century, humans progressed and started industrializing their place. Import-export increased consumption and all of this started shaping the capitalist society. This capitalism has made humans least concerned about earth systems. Engines, chemicals, and machinery badly affected the ecological cycle. Rich countries started running to make the world economy better, monopolized over benefits of the earth at the cost of ecological damage. These hegemonic powers hold the blame for this deterioration. Back in the 16th century when a mercantile capitalist society was created. The time when industrialization became possible that cause human exploitation which yields ecological exploitation. Back in 1600 when East India Company was founded with the only purpose of trading. The Seven Days war, Austrian Succession all Britain wars were financed by the ‘capitalist society’ for the sake of Atlantic trading. London’s import-export activity generated the unseen revenue from shipping. Thus, transatlantic trade brought the industrial revolution when the ‘gentlemen society’ started exporting their capital. Capitalism prevailed based on the trade of fossil oils, mining, and other world resources. London became the turntable of World trade with re-export activity. The economy started rising, and the Entire world was slammed in trading to be financially strong. This financial stability was at the cost of environmental and ecological destruction.
There was a load of things that created at the cost of World and natural resources by the hegemonic countries which we found everywhere in the World. Production started first which is used for trading. "In 1800, millions of slaves were imported from Africa to make rapid mechanization and development in industrialization. In 1810, Great Britain imported the alkaline ash from wood burning which was needed for soap and glass industries. The ash which was used was about 25 million cubic meters of wood per year. The revenue and profit started increasing which increased the consumption rate as well. In the early 19th century, British slaves produced 177,000 tons of sugar per year. The consumption rate of British increased with proportion from a one-pound person in a year to 25 pounds per person a year. In late 18th century Britain, the forest cover was down between 5-10 percent of the country’s total area. For the availability of coal, the land English mines were easy to exploit. 1n 1820, 8 million hectares of woodland were consumed for coal in British which is 10 times more than the country’s forest cover. Move on to 1830 when the sugar from West Indies equal to 600,000 hectares of good land was put to cereals, cotton from 9.3 million hectares from sheep pastures, and wood from 400,000 hectares from the woodland. In total, around 10 million ‘ghost hectares’ were used to fuel British workers and machines. Moreover, the vast areas were sea and land that made possible the capture of carbon dioxide." (Bonneuil & Fressoz, 2016)
But how these statistics are concerned with Earth systems? Capitalism and industrialization have made humans exploited for the sake of revenue. The whole world started generating their economy and finance through an exchange of resources. This exchange assures their availability to everyone which let the increase of consumption rate. This consumption rate has made humans reluctant for the preservation of natural resources and they destroyed them to fulfill their luxuries. However, this consumption and exploitation have caused not only animal and plant life to suffer but also climatic changes and dangerous diseases.
The over-use of resources has overturned the ecology of an edge. Humans are going through the repercussion and will have to. In the “late Victorian holocausts” of the period 1876 to 1902, when British imperial policies aggravated El Niño famines and contributed to the deaths of as many as sixty million people, mostly in India and China but also other lands as well, by preventing the distribution of relief supplies based on free-trade ideology; the Great Hunger of 1932 to 1933 in the Soviet Union, whose victims may have approached fifteen million when Soviet authorities confiscated crops and sold them abroad, thus creating an artificial famine; and the Great Leap Forward of 1958 to 1963 and the Three Hard Years of 1959 to 1962, when neglect of agriculture and confiscation of crops contributed to the deaths of more than thirty million people in China” (Duquette, 2020 ). Moreover, Tobacco cultivation has deforested the soil so rapidly in Europe. The transformation of the Caribbean into the sugar monoculture led to erosion, exhaustion, and deforestation of the soil. Sugarcane plantation introduced yellow fever in America. As for the fabled silver mines of Mexico and Peru, these were exhausted in few decades leaving a highly populated era. This was the first ecological consequence. The second ecological repercussion was severe as well. Singapore faced the disappearance of the gutta-percha tree in 1856. Massacres of Indians and deforestation were caused as the stampede of rubber took hold of Amazonia in the late 19th century. In the early 20th century, rubber production in different countries where British and American industries have caused immense plantations. This plantation caused deforestation and destroyed millions of hectares which introduces the disease malaria. In the 1920s, rubber plantation and mining exploitation gave rise to the first regional spread of HIV. Moreover, since the last glaciation, 10 million square kilometers of the world’s forest have lost reducing the planet’s capacity of capturing carbon dioxide and increasing the risk of severe climatic disturbance. (Bonneuil & Fressoz, 2016)
Secondly, the destruction caused by world wars is still can’t be recovered. The bombing has severely affected the environment. In 1994 the First Chechen War of independence started, between Russian troops, Chechen guerrilla fighters, and civilians. Chechnya has been a province of Russia for a very long time and now desires independence. The First War ended in 1996, but in 1999 Russia again attacked Chechnya for purposes of oil distribution. The war between the country and its province continues today. It has devastating effects on the region of Chechnya. An estimated 30% of Chechen territory is contaminated, and 40% of the territory does not meet environmental standards for life. Major environmental problems include radioactive waste and radiation, oil leaks into the ground from bombarded plants and refineries, and pollution of soil and surface water. Russia has buried radioactive waste in Chechnya. Radiation at some sites is ten times its normal level. Radiation risks increase as Russia bombs the locations, particularly because after 1999 the severeness of weaponry increased. A major part of agricultural land is polluted to the extent that it can no longer meet food supplies. This was mainly caused by unprofessional mini-refineries of oil poachers in their backyards, not meeting official standards, and causing over 50% of the product to be lost as waste. In a second world war, when the U.S threw an atomic bomb on japan. Dry flammable materials caught fire, and all men and animals within half a mile from the explosion sites died instantly. Many structures collapsed, in Nagasaki even the structures designed to survive earthquakes were blasted away. Many water lines broke. Fires could not be extinguished because of the water shortage, and six weeks after the blast the city still suffered from a lack of water. In Hiroshima several small fires combined with wind formed a firestorm, killing those who did not die before but were left immobile for some reason. Within days after the blasts, radiation sickness started rearing its ugly head, and many more people would die from it within the next 5 years (Enzler, 2006). However, Russia and America stand strongly today based on their economic conditions and strategies.
However, the ecological modernity took a turn when whole responsibility was put on the shoulders of Third world countries. The West after causing the whole destruction made their image clearer by balancing their environment. That means the time they knew about these ecological turns, they started foresting again to revive. However, third-world countries failed to that. Thus, the exploitation first world countries created made the poor suffer, and then they backed off. That is why today the only blame to put on is poorer countries. Europe managed to strengthen them financially stable, powerful economy, advanced and capitalist while putting all the waste and remains on the third world countries. Famines, deforestation, depletion of the Ozone layer, diseases, viruses, floods, and much environmental deterioration that is being paid by poorer countries. Hence, the responsibility is on both rich countries and poor countries. Rich countries – which are historically responsible for the vast majority of emissions – panic that admitting liability could lead to a hefty bill as they are made to pay for the damage they have caused. And poor countries – which are suffering the worst impacts of climate change. Hence, the last factor which is elongating this exploitation is the blame game that first world countries are putting on Third world countries.
Admittedly, the earth system and world system are connected this way. Since humans are given the utmost power, they own the responsibility to preserve Earth as well. However, they failed to do so. Capitalism, industrialization, and wars which maybe benefitted superpowers to build a stable state but failed to sustain a healthy environment. Moreover, after ruining a healthy environment, these powers blame those who are just paying off the mess by superpowers. Amid this politics, we being lost in our World-systems neglected our Earth systems, and are going through the repercussions of it. Climatic change, depletion of the ozone layer, extreme weather, extinction, and every environmental upheaval is caused by us and we ought to take responsibility for it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bonneuil & Fressoz, Christophe & Baptiste, “The Shock of the Anthropocene; The Earth, History and Us”, Translated by David Fernbach, New York publication, (2016)
Crumley & Hornbog,”The World System and the Earth System: Global Socioenvironmental Change and Sustainability since the Neolithic”, Article, January 2007
Duquette, Kelly, “Environmental Colonialism”, Article, January 2020
Enzler, S.M, “Environmental effects of Warfare”, Article, (2006)
Yeo, Sophie, “Who’s to blame for climate change?” ,Climate Home News article, 2014
