Stories of Adaptation

Adaptation is generally seen as a rather passive trait, as a gradual evolution through millions of years. But by exploring the details of the symbiotic relationship of all Earth’s systems it becomes clear that adaption is at least just as much a willful act of decision making and design. Also other live forms have not only occupied territories, but actively shaped the spaces and the environments around them. Architecture, usually seen as a quintessential human activity, is a pertinent act of adaptation. It had and still has the function of providing protection and shelter from the elements. However, over time architecture has mushroomed into a demonstration of power, status and permanence disconnected from needs and inevitably at the expense of other species, and as such actively contributing to the current crisis.

With this installation, consisting of Earth’s temperature timeline with fifteen accompanying stories and a prototype, one heated rock of the project Future Island (Sweden), we challenge architectures static state of permanence. We hope that the fifteen glimpses into Earth’s history will spark some imagination and positive take-away for our future. Each episode shows that there is always a positive outcome, at least for some species, be it dinosaurs, mammals, humans, bacteria or fungi. Each episode demonstrates that challenges and crises are a trigger for an evolutionary leap. Architecture, in building a skin around us to house our families and activities, sits at the interface with the changing world to which adaptation is the key.

Please read the 15 adaptation stories below.

1

1.85-1.75 billion years ago

Birth of the Future Island Rock

COLUMBIA/ NUNA SUPERCONTINENT: The Future Island rock (in this exhibition) was produced by Earth during the Proterozoic eon. The crust of the Earth then consisted of volcanic rocks and bodies of rock formed by cooling of magma below the surface. This particular rock was formed during the Svecofennian orogeny, a process of large structural deformations and crumbling of the earth’s crust, forming what is today Sweden and Finland on the ancient supercontinent of Columbia (also known as Nuna). This supercontinent was assembled along a global time scale of 2.1 to 1.8 billion years ago and contained almost all of Earth’s continental blocks. It is estimated to have been approximately 12,900 km long from North to South. Continental plates moved and still move at the same speed human fingernails grow, amounting to about 25,000 km per billion years. The first supercontinent was growing at this speed, starting to drift apart and breaking up at about 1.2 billion years ago.

Parallel to this geologically slow process, during which Earth was still cold, life on Earth kicked-off. The first primitive bacteria developed 3.5 billion years ago in water: at that point in time the ocean was something like a primordial soup. They evolved into cyanobacteria 1.8 billion years ago. Cyanobacteria were the first living things that produced oxygen while carrying out photosynthesis. Oxygenating Earth’s atmosphere and hydrosphere, they enabled the evolution of complex life based on aerobic respiration, providing a core condition for the habitat that enabled the evolution of plants, animals and eventually humans. The breathable air we enjoy today dates back to these tiny organisms.

This rock is a witness of all processes to come—organic and inorganic. During its travel around the world it became part of the formation and breakup of several super continents that followed, always part of the Baltic plate and always at the interface between land and water amid changing sea levels.

Source: Stefan Bergman and Benno Kathol, Synthesis of the bedrock geology in southern Norrbotten County, northern Sweden, (Uppsala: Geological Survey of Sweden, 2018).

2

730-650 million years ago

Chilly bedroom: How our ancestors had sex in oxygenated habitats

during the planet’s most severe ice ages

RODINIA SUPERCONTINENT: We are all made of eukaryotes (cells that contain a nucleus) as is every living being, animal, plant and fungi on planet Earth. About 1.5 billion years ago eukaryotes evolved in a pivotal evolutionary step from unicellular to multicellular organisms, from bacteria to more complex creatures. This enabled sexual reproduction, a great driver of species specialization.

In the Cryogenian period that followed (about 730 to 635 million years ago), the planet went through its most severe ice ages. The earth was entirely covered in ice several kilometers thick and global temperatures fell so low that the equator was as cold as modern-day Antarctica. Low temperatures were maintained by ice sheets which reflected most of the incoming solar energy back into space. However, the towering glaciers dumped a feast of nutrients into the ocean, notably phosphorus.

The survival of eukaryotes in the oceans during these “Snowball Earth” events would have required the persistence of oxygenated habitats. Most probably oxygen rich meltwater underneath the glaciers mixed with water poor in oxygen and thus created cosy, protected and energized habitats for microbial eukaryote communities. This ‘meltwater oxygen pump’ could have been essential for the survival and continued evolution of aerobic eukaryotes and therefore paving the way for all species that were going to follow.

Source:

Tim Wallace, “How snowball Earth gave rise to complex life”, Cosmos (August 16, 2017).

Maxwell A Lechte et al, “Subglacial meltwater supported aerobic marine habitats during Snowball Earth”, PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) 116, no. 51 (December 17, 2019), 25478-25483.

3

541 million years ago

Well played: Eyes evolve as the masterpiece of innovation during an unprecedented global heatwave

PANNOTIA SUPERCONTINENT: The most significant event in Earth’s evolution, the Cambrian explosion, took place 541-530 million ago during an unprecedented global heatwave. Earth was likely heating due to receding glaciers after the previous ice age. CO2 and methane emitted by volcanoes and microbes accumulated, causing enough of a greenhouse effect to eventually melt all ice from land and water. This created a positive feedback loop as ice-free surfaces absorbed more sun energy. The melting water from glaciers supplied the ocean with an abundance of nutrients, which would trigger another cyanobacteria population explosion and subsequent rapid reoxygenation of the atmosphere. The Cambrian explosion featured higher atmospheric oxygen concentration similar to current levels of 21%, allowing for large multicellular lifeforms to develop.

This evolutionary burst filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals: with compound eyes and legs that enabled hunting behaviour, while previously there were no predators. The rise of carnivores set off an evolutionary arms race that led to the burst of complex body types and behaviours that fill the oceans today. The presence of oxygen played a vital role. It enabled a much more efficient process of digesting food and hence organisms had more energy at their hands to climb the evolutionary ladder. Animals rely on this potent, controlled combustion to drive such energy-hungry innovations as muscles, nervous systems and the tools of defence and hunting—mineralized shells, exoskeletons and teeth. Already comparatively low oxygen levels of somewhere between 3% and 10% (compared with present-day levels of 21%) enabled predators to emerge and consume other animals, even during average global temperatures that were up to 11°C hotter than today.

Source:

Raymon T. Pierrehumbert, “High levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide necessary for the termination of global glaciation”, Nature 429 (2004), 646-649.

Douglas Fox, “What sparked the Cambrian explosion?”, Nature 530 (February 18, 2016), 268-270.

4

467 million years ago

Bio-Booster: How distant Asteroid collision created climatic regions

FROM PANNOTIA TO PANGEA SUPERCONTINENT: About 467 million years ago two asteroids (rocky objects that orbit the sun) collided between Mars and Jupiter. They collided, creating a shower of extra-terrestrial dust that fell to Earth over a timeframe of at least two million years. This phenomenon, called the Ordovician Meteor Event, blocked sunlight and caused the climate to change dramatically. Before, it was the same climate from pole to pole. Following the event, the sea froze at the poles and the regions close to the equator became much warmer habitats than the polar regions. In this massive glaciation a huge amount of water was locked in the ice caps that covered parts of a large south polar landmass.

The rise of North America’s Appalachian Mountains, caused by continental drift, might have further contributed to the cooling of the planet as weathering of fresh rocks could have sucked out huge amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, algae began to migrate to land, evolving into moss and liverwort, which is another factor that is thought to have accounted for the cooling by drawing out CO2.

This mid-Ordovician Ice Age led to dramatic changes for life on Earth. On the one hand, it was the first of five mass extinctions. Sea levels plummeted more than 50 meters. In its wake 85% of all species on earth died, including marine invertebrates with hard shells, corals and eel like creatures with teeth. On the other hand, the newly established climatic regions encouraged a greater evolution of species adapting to these habitats, bringing about an enormous boost in biodiversity on ancient Earth. As the change happened gradually along a timescale of millions of years it was not catastrophic after all. It gave species a chance to adapt and brought about a boom in new lifeforms.

Source:

Birger Schmitz et al, “An extraterrestrial trigger for the mid-Ordovician ice age: Dust from the breakup of the L-chondrite parent body”, Science Advances, 2019.

Michael Greshko, “What are mass extinctions, and what causes them?”, National Geographic (September 26, 2019).

Timothy M. Lenton, “First plants cooled the Ordovician”, Nature Geoccience 5, (February 1, 2012), 86-89.

5

251 million years ago

Game Over: Scavenger Feast on the Leftovers

PANGEA SUPERCONTINENT: At the end of the Permian Period 251 million years ago, Earth heated up to a global average temperature of 27.9°C, a staggering 13°C hotter than today. This extremely rapid heating led to the worst recorded mass extinction so far. 96% of species lost their lives. The “Great Dying” was mainly due to massive volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia. Greenhouse gas levels were dramatically pushed up, causing global warming.

The risk of death was greater in places that were cold. Oceans heated by 10°C which reduced oxygen, asphyxiating the species living there. Huge swaths of ocean became uninhabitable, only some species survived. Animals in oxygen rich cold water could not handle the sudden drop nor find refuge elsewhere, while those in tropical waters were already adapted to poor oxygen. Marine ecosystems took four to eight million years to recover. Drought and extreme heat also reduced the habitable land area. Whereas some species can adapt, most plants and animals suffer major physiological damage at temperatures of 35–40°C. Of the five mass extinctions, the Permian-Triassic is the only one that wiped out large numbers of insect species.

Acid rain followed the massive release of noxious volcanic gases, finishing off almost all trees on Earth. They did not return for 10 million years. However, another organism quickly adapted and was thriving on their leftovers. Reduviasporonites, a type of of microfossil or fungi, is found to have exploded in population numbers at that time, feasting on an epic meal.

Current climatic warming follows the same pattern as the Permian extinction. Oxygen levels have already declined by 2% in the last 50 years. If we proceed to use up all fossil fuel that remains, oceans could heat up 10°C by 2300. Just how much warmer the planet will become is up to us.

Source:

Phil Berardelli, “The fungus that ate the world”. Science (October 1, 2009).

Michael M. Joachimski et al, “Climate warming in the latest Permian and the Permian-Triassic mass extinction”, Geology 40, no:3 (February 2012), 195-198.

Justin L. Penn et al, “Temperature-dependent hypoxia explains biogeography and severity of end-Permian marine mass extinction”, Science 362, no. 6419 (December 7, 2018)

Michael J. Benton, “Hyperthermal-driven mass extinctions: killing models during the Permian–Triassic mass extinction”, Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society 376 no. 2130 (October 13, 2018).

Michael Greshko, “What are mass extinctions, and what causes them?”, National Geographic (September 19, 2019).

6

199-145 million years ago

Wir schaffen das*: Global Dino mass migration

LAURASIA AND GONDWANA SUPERCONTINENTS: By the mid-Jurassic period the supercontinents Laurasia and Gondwana began to split up and slowly drift apart to form the continents we know today. New oceans flooded the spaces in between. Mountains came up from the seafloor, rising sea levels and flooding the continents. All this water transformed the previously hot and dry climate into a humid and tropical one. Dry deserts slowly became green. Palm tree-like plants proliferated, along with ginkgoes, conifers, pines and tree ferns. In the Mesozoic climate, free-floating plankton proliferated in the oceans and decomposed to form 70% of Earth’s existing oil deposits. The energy in this oil initially comes from the sun, trapped in chemical form by the dead plankton.

Newly formed habitats in shallow seas were especially teeming with diverse and abundant life. Giant marine crocodiles, sharks, rays, squid-like creatures, coil-shelled ammonites, sponges, snails and molluscs were abundant. New ecological niches on land also gave rise to novel creatures, including the very first very small mammals—and of course, the dinosaurs. On land, large dinosaurs grew up to 27m long, some of them carnivores, others strictly vegan.

The largest vertebrate to ever walk the Earth was a mega-herbivore. The Jurassic Sauropod, long necked with a tiny head and a massive body, migrated from flood planes to upland settings several hundred kilometres in the search for food as their diet was dependent on an abundance of plants. During a dip of CO2 levels, they migrated as far North as Greenland. It is understood that migration played a fundamental role in the ecology and the evolution of gigantism in these and other dinosaurs.

Source:

Jennifer Welsh, “Dinosaurs Migrated, Tooth Fossils Confirm”, Livescience, (2012)

Elisabeth Gamillo, “Climate Change May Have Aided Dinosaurs’ Journey From South America to Greenland”, Smithsonian Magazine (March 1, 2021).

Henry C. Fricke et al, “Lowland–upland migration of sauropod dinosaurs during the Late Jurassic epoch”. Nature 480 (2011) 513-515

* “Wir schaffen das” (“We can make it”): German chancellor Angela Merkel’s pledge to let refugees into Germany, 2015.

7

66 million years ago

Rocky Horror: Goodbye Dinosaurs - Hello Mammals

MEXICO, YUCATAN PENINSULA: It happened again. This time an asteroid struck down on the coast of Mexico, creating the Chicxulub crater, which is now a 190km-wide by 19km-deep hole hidden under water. This event, also called the K/T or Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction was the worst day for Earth in its entire history. The collision would have released energy of more than a billion times the energy of the atomic bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It ended the life of all Dinosaurs and about 75% of all species. It triggered a meltdown of rock in its immediate surrounding, wildfires and burning forests everywhere, tsunamis and massive waves, debris of charred wood washed into the sea, all within the first 24 hours.

The heat impact was felt 1500km away. Sulphur was ejected from the rocks that were hit, mixed with water vapour leading to an atmospheric disruption on a planetary scale. Together with soot this blocked sunlight, causing global darkness, the suspension of photosynthesis, droughts and global near freezing conditions that devastated the food chain. 57% of plants, the main food source for the Dinosaurs, became unavailable. As with every mass extinction, fungi, who do not need photosynthesis but thrive on organic matter, dominated in the years after the event.

However, this extinction event had again a profound effect on the diversification of species once the atmosphere had cleared and photosynthetic processes could come back to their full potential. Dinosaurs were replaced by mammals who evolved rapidly and filled the niches. While they also existed before as tiny rat-like creatures, they now grew larger. In contrast with cold-blooded reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals are warm-blooded. As such they could more easily adapt to and survive in the colder habitats that were available in the time that followed.

Source:

Sean P.S. Gulick et al, “The first day of the Cenoic”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019.

Kunio Kaiho et al, “Global climate change driven by soot at the K-Pg boundary as the cause of the mass extinction”, Nature, 2016

8

20-15 million years ago

Planet of the Great Apes

AFRICA/ MEDITAREAN/ ASIA: India was colliding with Eurasia at a speed of 20 cm per year to eventually form the Himalayas. Monsoon patterns in Africa, Asia and even the Northern Hemisphere were affected. Grasslands were replacing deserts and woodlands in many areas as a kind of fire-proof flora, their higher organic content was burying more carbon. A slow global cooling and change of rain patterns set-in and led to average temperatures that were about 1-3 °C warmer than today: not too hot, not too cold, what was called the Mid Eocene Climatic Optimum. However, this climate was not exactly stable. It strongly fluctuated between years and decades.

This habitat instability within moderate limits proved to be the fortunate environmental conditions for the evolution of the Great Apes: the Hominidae, our genetic ancestors. It turned out that wild primates were better protected from environmental change than many other animals because of their high cognitive abilities, extensive social networks and dietary flexibility. Primates could better share information within complex social groups than any other vertebrae which enabled social learning within the same generation. They were also open to many different food sources. Both traits ensured their survival and a stable population. It is assumed that the growth of their brains and with it their skill sets were adaptive responses to the heightened habitat instability during this period.

Source:

William F. Morris et al, “Low Demographic Variability in Wild Primate Populations: Fitness Impacts of Variation, Covariation, and Serial Correlation in Vital Rates”, The American Naturalist, 2010.

Blythe A. Williams, “Effects of Climate Change on Primate Evolution in the Cenozoic”, Nature, 2016.

9

2.5 million years ago

Lucky: Thank Climate Change for the Rise of Humans

AFRICA – EURASIA: By now temperatures had reached exactly the same level as we enjoy today, 15°C global average. However, rapid fluctuations became even more intense in the period between 2 and 3 million years ago. It was a period of diverse and heterogenous environments. Glaciation had spread to the Northern Hemisphere: during glacial periods large areas of North America and Northern Eurasia were covered by ice sheets.

The adaptive capabilities of species were even more in demand than before. It is understood that climate change might even have helped forge our species and led to the Golden Age of human evolution between two and three million years ago. Primates had survived some periods of hardship, had developed enamel-covered teeth to chew very hard and dry food such as nuts and seeds and had started to walk on two feet to get an overview in environments like the savanna. By two million years ago Homo became a fast runner and efficient hunter who was able to exploit the grasslands of Africa. Soon they migrated out of the tropics to Asia, where temperatures and rainfall fluctuated dramatically. Hominins with larger and larger brains developed flexible coping strategies, more complex social networks and tools sets made from stone dating back as far as 2.5 million years.

Small and frequent climatic ups and downs presented a constant challenge and therefore healthy stimulation. Natural selection was not always down to the fittest but also to the most adaptable to changing surroundings.

Source:

Matt Grove, “Change and variability in Plio-Pleistocene climates: modelling the hominin response”, Journal of Archaeological Science, 2011.

Andy Coghlan, “Thank climate change for the rise of humans”, New Scientist, 2011.

10

200.000 Years ago

Let it burn: Homo Sapiens uses Fire on a Daily Basis

AFRICA: Average global temperatures cooled even further and environmental changes such as drying and wider climate fluctuations were common. Temperatures had varied, fluctuating for the last 400,000 years between 6 °C colder and 2 °C warmer than our average temperature. Serious ice ages presented very strong challenges for survival. Homo Heidelbergensis is thought to have developed the ability to hibernate in order to survive very cold winters. It is in these conditions that Homo Sapiens evolved 300,000 to 200,000 years ago.

Homo Sapiens used fire on a daily basis and thus created a dependable source of light, warmth and a weapon against lions. His/her brain size had tripled compared to the earlier genus of the apes called Austraopithecus and doubled compared to homo rudolfensis. Cooking reduced energy spend for digesting and freed energy for thinking and further brain growth which was useful for development of language and the Cognitive Revolution. By domesticating fire, humans jumped so quickly to the top of the food chain that the ecosystem had no time to adjust. The power of fire was an extension of and not limited to the human body. Its control was a sheer limitless force and its domestication was a sign of things to come.

Homo Sapiens was adapting far quicker to the environments than the environments to Homo Sapiens.

Source:

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens – a Brief History of Humankind (New York: Harper, 2014)

11

45.000 Years ago

Go Global: Sapiens settle in Australia

AUSTRALIA: At probably the coldest period in Earth’s history—and surely for humankind—Sapiens migrated from the African-Asian ecological ecosystem towards the Middle East, Europe and even as far as Australia about 45.000 years ago. It was until then a continent untouched by humans. This journey was the first time large terrestrial mammals crossed oceans. In order colonize new territories, humans displayed some innovative adaptations and behaviours and became incredibly creative and sophisticated. They invented needles to sew warm clothes, oil lamps, bows and arrows as well as boats.

Before this journey, the impact of humans on their environment was negligible. They adapted to various habitats without profoundly changing them. The early colonizers of Australia were going to transform the local ecosystem on a path of no return. Australia, however, was entirely unprepared for the arrival of humans. Giant slow-breeding marsupials, mammals who carried their babies in pouches, such as the two-and-a-half-ton wombat and the giant diprotodon roamed the forests next to giant kangaroos and earth-bound birds twice the size of ostriches. All of them became extinct within a few thousand years. They had not learned to fear humankind and were taken totally by surprise. Through hunting and fire-supported agriculture—possibly assisted by changing climates as well—humans developed into ecological serial killers, a pattern that was bound to repeat on other continents as well.

Source:

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens – a Brief History of Humankind (New York: Harper, 2014)

12

8,000 – 4,500 Years ago

Goats and Cows Make the Sahara Desert

NORTH AFRICA - The area currently known as the Sahara was once a green landscape of tropical forests and grassy woodlands, but the introduction of husbandry transformed it into a desert. The Neolithic revolution, which started 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, transformed environments with the spread of farming. Early agricultural societies in North Africa used controlled fires and kept domesticated animals, which gradually replaced forests with grasslands.

However, the increasing productivity of the landscape came with an increase in light reflection, which weakened monsoon flows. This led to a vegetation feedback as arid species survived where temperate ones could not.

The region was always prone to natural wet and dry cycles. The last “African Humid Period” ended some 8,000 years ago, but coincided with this new anthropocene activity. The decreasing biomass and moisture in North Africa eventually reached a tipping point and became a desert.

This regime shift not only affected the flora and fauna of the region, but also transformed human practices in the Sahara. Nubian agricultural societies, which predated desertification, lived settled lifestyles in areas that are today largely uninhabitable.

Source:

David K. Wright, “Humans as Agents in the Termination of the African Humid Period”, Frontiers in Earth Science 5, (January 2017).

13

535 A.D.

Mysterious atmosphere turns world upside down

WORLDWIDE - A dust veil of unknown origin enveloped much of the globe, disrupting crop production and political orders worldwide in a literal atmosphere of gloom. Believed to be the product of volcanic activity, the atmosphere eclipsed the sun for a few years. Witnesses across the world took note of unseasonably low temperatures and darkness. In China, “yellow dust rained down like snow”, while in the Middle East “the sun became dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months”.

In the Eastern Roman Empire, a plague was onset by fleas which became ravenous under the cooler temperatures. Constantinople, the centre of a global network of trade, lost 20% of its population.

In Mongolia, ruling Avar tribes suffered because their warring horses starved in the period of drought. Their Turkic vassals, who had a more diverse economy of livestock that could survive this sudden climate change. Turks overtook the Avars in Central Asia, forcing them westward into Europe where they disrupted the already struggling Roman Empire.

In the Arabian Peninsula, floods and plagues destroyed the prominent Yemen, and its power base and population shifted north to Medina and Mecca. While these cities also suffered from drought and famine, a hero named Amr imported food to save Meccans. His great grandson, Muhammad, benefitted from this social standing, built upon the apocalyptic atmosphere of a collapsing world order and challenged corrupt rulers amid suffering.

And in Mexico, Teotihuacan - the largest city in the Americas and the centre of a vast empire - collapsed within a few years. Droughts led to famines and epidemics, but it also raised doubts towards theocratic rulers’ ability to appease the gods and produce rain.

Source:

David Patrick Keys. Catastrophe: an investigation into the origins of the modern world. (New York: Ballantine, 2000).

14

1315 A.D.

Rains Bring Black Death to the Stubborn

EUROPE - An unusual amount of rainfall from May to August 1315 disrupted agricultural production throughout Europe, to the extent that it catalysed a famine and pandemic.

This unusual weather event - caused by a periodic “little ice age” and perhaps volcanic activity in New Zealand - affected many regions of the world. But while other agricultural societies could adapt to heavier rainfall and lower temperatures, Europe’s feudal economy depended heavily on grain as a cash crop. Lords, motivated by the business-as-usual accumulation of stored crops, refused to switch to more resilient produce.

This ensured that peasants, who already had extremely low nutritional intake, faced starvation with the poor harvest. For the next few decades, poor diets created the ideal conditions for an epidemic, which finally arrived with the “black death” of 1346, killing off between 30%-60% of Europe’s population.

The black death led to a few important movements. First, the smaller population required less intensive agriculture, so many forests recovered across the continent. This may have caused higher levels of oxygen and further lowered global temperatures.

Secondly, the black death killed feudalism, as lower levels of labour ultimately strengthened peasants’ position and made it difficult for the ruling classes to reimpose business as usual. External colonisation - made possible with new financial innovations - became more attractive than fighting internal class wars.

Thirdly, the trauma of famine was used to justify enclosures, based on the myth that common “wasteland” was less productive than enclosed farms. “Real Estate”, or rather “Royal Estates” were created and given to the ruling classes, eventually creating a surplus proletariat who migrated to cities.

Source:

Jason W. Moore, “Nature and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism”, Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 26, no.2 Ecology of the Modern World System (2003).

15

1730-Present

Forecasting our way out of (and into) uncertainty

WORLDWIDE: The ingredients for capitalism—property ownership, finance, colonial power, double-entry bookkeeping, a conceptual division between nature and society, etc.—were all around for several hundred years before being put into a meal. It has been argued that two decades of exceptionally good weather in England from 1730 to 1750 improved food supply and started a habit of investment in manufacturing, which ultimately created a feedback loop as fossil fuel burning and ecological transformation affected global temperatures.

One key ingredient for surplus growth was the availability of finance: borrowing on the anticipation of future income was a lever to introduce changes to production. It put tremendous weight on predicting future markets. But borrowing demanded payback on interest. The concept of “return on investment” emerged, measuring the performance of capital reinvested into industry. It blended into a colonial paradigm to create the notion of GDP growth as measure of success.

This nearly universal demand for exponential returns put unprecedented strain on ecosystems. Each successive technological innovation made it more efficient to exploit natural resources, while simultaneously increasing the demand for them with each successive improvement in lifestyle. The burning of fossil fuels for energy, which put excessive carbon into the air and increased global temperatures, was one of many practices that had a two-faced relationship with the future. On the one hand, it anticipated short-term profits by making the most use of nature. On the other hand, it chose to ignore the long-term consequences of that use and its waste products. Ironically, enterprises that depended on predictability contributed to creating an environment of radical uncertainty as heat waves, storms, droughts and flooding became prevalent.

Humans have a unique ability to project into the future. As Marx noted, “what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.” The ability to plan projects (as well as the capital to execute them) is what makes architecture possible. It has also made it possible to borrow from the future, while everything else in nature can only adapt to the present.

The project Future Island uses our abilities to project into the future, simulating how anticipated global warming will affect lifeforms on a local scale.

Source:

Karl Marx, Capital: Volume One,1867.

Jonathan Levy, “Accounting for Profit and the History of Capital,” Critical Historical Studies 1, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 171-214.Richard A. Ippolito, “The Effect of the “Agricultural Depression” on Industrial Demand in England: 1730-1750”, Economica 42, No. 167 (Aug. 1975), pp. 298-312.

Gareth Dale, “Economic growth: a short history”, Ecologist (June 18, 2019). https://theecologist.org/2019/jun/18/economic-growth-short-history

Learn morE about Future Island

© OOZE 2021 - All website contents are copyright protected

http://www.ooze.eu.com/