Embracing the Anthropocene: Managing Human Impact - A Conversation with Mark Maslin

Howard Burton

• Publisher: Ideas Roadshow
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN:
  9781771701334
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology

This book is based on an in-depth conversation between Howard Burton and Mark Maslin, Professor of Geography at University College London. The conversation explores Prof. Maslin's research on the Anthropocene which according to his definition began when human impacts on the planet irrevocably started to change the course of the Earth's biological and geographical trajectory, leading to climate change, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, and more.This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, On Being A Superpower, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Becoming A Geographer - A serendipitous journeyII. The Anthropocene - Exploring three starting datesIII. What We Know - Ice ages, snowballs and hockey sticksIV. Unchecked Opinion - Examining beliefsV. Planetary Perspectives - Which type of Anthropocene do we want?VI. Becoming Social - Investigating a watershed momentAbout Ideas Roadshow Conversations: This book is part of a series of 100 Ideas Roadshow Conversations. Presented in an accessible, conversational format, Ideas Roadshow books not only explore frontline academic research featuring world-leading researchers but also reveal the inspirations and personal journeys behind the research.

The Conversation

I. Becoming A Geographer

A serendipitous journey

HB: I’d like to start with your background. Have you always been interested in science from a young age, or was that something that came later?

MM: I’m of a certain generation whereby we only had three channels on TV. Of course one of them was BBC One; and in the mid ‘70s, the first Life On Earth series by David Attenborough came out. So at the age of about 8 years old, I was taking this on board, this incredible flagship program showing science at its highest level.

We also had a science program called Horizon, which still runs today. But in the ‘70s, it was pitched at above university level; and so as an eight-year old, I would devour these hour-long impenetrable science programs and not understand them.

I also have a brother, and my parents had a problem: what do you do with two boys who are fractious, who fight, on a wet Sunday afternoon in London? So they used to get in their clapped-out Cortina and drive us down to the Science Museum, or the Natural History Museum, and literally throw us in there.

So my whole youth was based on the idea of understanding science through these beautiful and amazing museums, as well as Life On Earth and Horizon. And I think it was quite early on—it was definitely before I left junior school at about the age of 11—I had decided I was going to be a scientist. I wasn’t quite sure which one, though.

HB: What about your brother? Was he influenced by them the same way?

MM: No, interestingly enough, my brother went down a slightly different route and has become an accountant. So the same influences clearly don’t push people in the same direction.

HB: It’s not a one-to-one map.

MM: No. Otherwise, we’d all be scientists after having watched David Attenborough.

HB: Or we’d all be accountants, God forbid.

MM: Yes.

HB: And you said you weren’t entirely certain which type of scientist you wanted to be at the time. Did they all hold equal allure for you? I know you went into physical geography later, which I hope to get to later. Were you particularly fascinated by the evolution of the earth? Rocks and volcanoes? How the solar system formed? Big Bang cosmology?

MM: I had two areas that I was interested in. The first was of course, space because in the mid-to-late ‘70s, we were all still filled with this buoyant idea of the Space Race: we were going to go and live on Mars and the moon in only a couple of decades. The idea was that I would be having space trips as an adult—this was in the psyche of my generation.

And then, there was a general fascination with how everything fitted together, because I’m a systems person: I love trying to work out how things fit together. So from school, I was starting to get this idea that the atmosphere is attached to the land, which is attached to the oceans and so forth—and it was that sort of system that started to really engage me.

That’s where my studies started to go and why I went off to university to do both geography and geology at the same time. But at the back of my mind, there was always this sense of, Well, hang on, we’re all going to be in space. That was my default: If we can all be astronauts, then I’m going to be an astronaut. Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out like that.

HB: Was there ever a moment when you finally recognized that you weren’t going to be an astronaut, or was it more simply a gradual deepening of interest in geography and geology?

MM: I think it was when the space shuttle program closed down that suddenly you could almost hear the door slamming shut. And even though I’d gone in a completely different direction, there was a collective sigh around the science world, with people saying, “Oh. Does that mean we’re not...?”

Because again, science and NASA and all of that had been pushing the frontiers of science in one direction, so we felt quite right to push it in other directions at the same time. And I think that was quite a shock to people. I don’t think they necessarily saw it at the time, but again, we still hanker after that excitement of the space race, to actually get out there, to push those frontiers. Whether it happens to be into space or it happens to be into the deep ocean, wherever we haven’t been, we really want to go. That’s what makes us humans.

HB: You mentioned your parents dragging their fractious children to science museums.

MM: Yes.

HB: Now, however effective such a strategy might have been, I’m guessing that there’s probably more to it than that, given that there are all sorts of other things one could be doing to calm one’s children down. Was there a clear endorsement of scientific activity in itself? Did you talk about science around the dinner table? Was there any of that sort of thing?

MM: I think the key thing that my parents did was just open up the way. They were always very supportive, but they had no concept of what I was doing. I was the first person in my family to go to university, so I was plowing a new field, completely against the grain of the whole of my previous family.

They wouldn’t stop me, but they always said, “Well, look, if you don’t want to do that, there’s always other options.” So they were always very supportive and ready to catch me. And they’d keep looking at me at each stage of the academic ladder, watching me as I navigated each stage.

In my family it didn’t actually matter what the children do, my parents just wanted to be as supportive as they could be. They don’t have any expectations.

HB: Clearly: your brother’s an accountant, after all.

MM: Well, yes. So it’s an interesting thing because my parents didn’t set any expectations, but it also means that I can’t achieve anything because there’s no expectations to compare myself with.

HB: Did they also enjoy these television shows that you were talking about? Were they also avid followers of the Space Race, or of the latest, greatest thing that was happening in science? Or was there not so much of that type of enthusiasm?

MM: Well, when you only have three channels and your parents are in control of the TV, the viewing was obviously controlled. So I remember watching Horizon, the science program, with my father, because he was always into understanding science. On a Sunday night, we used to watch The Money Programme because my father was really interested in how to actually manage our limited finances.

My family is more BBC Two than BBC One, which meant that soap operas and things like that just didn’t really come into my family’s psyche.

And they were also very good about trying to give my brother and I tasters. So when they could afford it, we went to classical concerts or would go to the theatre. They’d give us little tasters of things out there, which was as much as they could do with their limited finances, but it was just enough to give my brother and I a different view of the world and allow us to see that there were things beyond what we were doing in order to help us make our own way in the world.

HB: Did you have a particularly influential teacher when you were in high school, that influenced you?

MM: There were a number of teachers that have inspired me—interestingly, not always in science. One of my best teachers was in history. His way of teaching 20th-century history was just absolutely phenomenal, and has always allowed me to keep that interest in human history and human development.

HB: What did he do in particular? What was so remarkable about the way he taught the subject?

MM: Again, it’s sometimes about the structure of how you tell a story, but it’s also about narrative. This is something that I try to bring int...

Table of contents

• A Note on the Text
• Introduction
• The Conversation
• Continuing the Conversation