(The following is a short response to the ideas presented in the hyperlinked essays within the text)
The methods (presented in the essay, “Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700-2000” by Ellis, Goldewijk, Sieber, Lightman and Ramankutty) of identifying and classifying the “natural” biomes’ transformation to what we may “presently” perceive as the “synthetic” anthromes relies on formal qualities through the intensification of population, density and land-use in the process of “urbanization,” rather than the ephemeral unquantifiable variables which are unique to each micro region; such as socio-political issues which produces the site-specific forms of transformation. The study seems to generalize and categorize ecological transformation and grouped regardless of their planetary existence in their respective micro ecologies and only considers the “ecological measurements and social surveys of human practice at the relatively fine spatial scales…”[1] as new systemic methods are to be placed towards the end after a global generalized understanding. As no site is similar, especially at a micro scale, an understanding, which solely intensely evaluates classification at a macro scale, presents a danger in terms of understanding the process of “urbanization,” as the minute variables are just as important.
As posited by David Harvey (in his essay, “Neo-liberalism as Creative Destruction”), this method of system placement or reorganization of infrastructure, whether materialized or social, could potentially cause a creative destruction, as a macro perspective may fail to see the unique specific individual needs of a specific micro site. However, as the implementation is used over time through “urbanization,” it would naturalize, localize and contribute to the further evolution and hybrid production of the anthromes as it would be in dialectic with social processes. Through the creative destruction’s naturalization onto the process of “urbanization,” the classifications of the biomes’ transformation to anthromes to generate standardized methods are irrelevant if these systems would be naturalized on the new environments they are placed.
[1] Erle Ellis, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Stefan Siebert, Deborah Lightman and Navin Ramankutty; “Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000;” P 604.
Leif Estrada 