In the first history of the oceanic Anthropocene, Stefan Huebner explores the twentieth-century extension of human habitats into oceanic spaces. He shows how the effects of this amphibious transformation have followed a very different trajectory from human-driven change on land, in terms of both socioeconomic development and environmental degradation. The extension of the human habitat through artificial islands such as seabed-fixed and floating structures has granted vertical access to Earth's different spatial layers, from the fossil fuels beneath the seabed to outer space. Huebner asks why this transformation occurred; how it has been shaped by political, economic, and environmental factors; and how it has altered marine environments. A deeper understanding of Earth's amphibious transformation compels us to reconsider the history and future of climate change, sea level rise, energy transitions, humanmarine species interactions, globalization, and even urbanization, including floating cities. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Arvustused
'Prepare to be disoriented: this innovative, ambitious book takes us below the waves to understand the world's oceans in their full vertical complexity. Revealing the startling range and environmental impact of 'artificial islands' from offshore oil rigs to futuristic floating homes Stefan Huebner fundamentally shifts our perspective on the accelerating human transformation of marine space.' William M. Tsutsui, Chancellor and Professor of History, Ottawa University 'How do we think through the Anthropocene via a world ocean? We can all conjure, if not solve, the great problems of oceanic plastics and sea-level rise. Yet Huebner explains a recent history, and perhaps a near future, defined by momentous amphibious transformation. Via Southeast and East Asian waterscapes and landscapes, this compelling book sets out an earthly history in which terra and aqua become one.' Alison Bashford, Scientia Professor of History, University of New South Wales
Muu info
This first history of the oceanic Anthropocene explores the reshaping of our world as human habitats extend into oceanic spaces.
1. Earth's amphibious transformation;
2. Asia's oceanic Anthropocene:
how political elites and global offshore oil exploitation moved Asian marine
regions into the new epoch;
3. Oceans and orbits: verticality at sea from
seadromes to rocket launches and light islands;
4. Terrestrial mindsets and
the origins of sea surface urbanization in Tokyo Bay;
5. Ocean-to-land
globalization: communication, navigation, and Earth's production centers;
6.
Environmentalisms clashing: Buckminster Fuller, floating structures, and US
urban waterfronts since the late 1960s;
7. Economies and ecologies of energy
generation on islands: Hawaiian metabolism's alternatives to fossil fuels;
8.
Dual habitats above and below the surface: Japanese mariculture research,
plastics, and the global concentration of marine biomass and nutrients;
9.
The invasive threat of slowly traveling ecosystems: artificial islands and
biosphere integrity in the oceanic Anthropocene;
10. A paradigm shift:
Earth's amphibious transformation and the oceanic Anthropocene.
Stefan Huebner is Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore, President of the Society of Floating Solutions (Singapore) and Deputy Chair of the International Scientific Committee of the World Conference on Floating Solutions.
