Threshold 8: The Modern Revolution
About this video
Threshold eight, the modern revolution, began about 200 years ago and created the world we live in today, sometimes called the Anthropocene. Two ingredients made humans so powerful: human societies linking up globally after 1500, which sped up collective learning, and the discovery of new energy sources like fossil fuels and nuclear power. This brought huge benefits but also consequences for Earth's resources and the biosphere.
You'll be able to
- explain what the modern revolution is and why it is called threshold eight.
- describe the two main ingredients of the modern revolution: globalization and new energy sources.
- explain why fossil fuels are a store of ancient sunlight.
- describe some consequences of modern human power for the biosphere.
Key words
- Modern revolution
- Threshold eight, beginning about 200 years ago, which created today's world.
- Anthropocene
- A name some geologists use for the modern era, when Earth is dominated by one species: humans.
- Fossil fuels
- Coal, oil and natural gas, formed from ancient plants and organisms that stored energy from sunlight.
- Exchange network
- A web of connections through which ideas, goods, technologies and beliefs are shared.
- Biosphere
- All the living things on Earth and the places they live.
Transcript
NARRATOR: Threshold eight began about 200 years ago and we're living in the middle of it. We call it the modern revolution because it created the world we live in today. Some geologists call the modern era the anthropocene. That's the era in which the Earth came to be dominated by a single species, us.
How did we suddenly get to be so powerful? First, we became a global species. After the year 1500, human societies began to link up across the world. This created huge exchange networks in which ideas, technologies, goods and belief systems could be shared. Because collective learning worked on a larger scale than ever before, innovation speeded up.
A second ingredient played a crucial role-- our discovery of new sources of energy. The fossil fuels-- coal, oil and natural gas-- came from fossilized plants and organisms that had stored the energy from sunlight over hundreds of millions of years. Humans learned how to use that energy to power engines of all kinds.
Eventually, we learned how to extract energy from nuclear reactions like those that drive the sun. Globalization, increased innovation and new energy sources allowed us to build the largest and most complex societies that had ever existed. Today, billions of people around the world can instantly communicate with each other.
With abundant energy, a vast range of new materials from plastics to semiconductors, and an astonishing number of new machines, many humans live better than ever before. However, all of this new complexity has consequences. The energy and the food we produce has to support nearly seven billion people.
That requires a huge portion of the Earth's resources. Human technology and activity is literally transforming the biosphere. We may be powerful, but are we really in charge of our power? What lies ahead for our own species and for the biosphere as a whole?
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