B 6.1 The universal availability of concentrated forms of energy

"We are living a time when landscapes are going through deep and rapid transformations. The first set of changes results from the possibility to mobilize concentrated forms of energy everywhere. It is a consequence of the increasing use of oil and electric power, which can be transported more easily and at a lower cost than wood or coal.
The universal availability of concentrated forms of power was conducive to the mechanization of an increasing part of human labour: agriculture, domestic liife and industry are increasingly efficient thanks to the use of tractors, domestic appliances and an ever more complex set of machines.
To plough with a tractor or harvest with a combine involves fields big enough for the evolution of these machines. As a consequence, land consolidation appeared necessary in many areas of traditional farming, with the destruction of many of the walls, fences or hedges which reduced soil erosion.
In a mechanized agriculture, the energy inputs are high. In order to make production more efficient, farmers rely on greater inputs of fertilizers and pesticides: hence more dissolved nutrients in run-off or infiltrated water, and problems of resilience in local or downstream ecosystems. Cattle-raisers increasingly feed their cows and calves with cereals or soy coming from elsewhere: hence a higher density of cattle heads per square kilometer, and so much manure that it is impossible to recycle it locally – with the same consequences on the cycle of water. This means that externalities – especially negative ones – between the agricultural ecosystems are growing rapidly.
The availability of concentrated forms of energy explains the growing urbanization of populations. Because of the general use of cars, domestic aplliances, better systems of heating or climatization, the quantity of noxious gases, waste water and rubbish produced by head keeps growing. With the rapid increase in urban population, the amount of used water and matter to dispose explodes: local ecosystems are unable to recycle all these elements. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the solution was to export all this waste to the rural or natural ecosystems around the city. They are now saturated. This means that urban negative externalities affect landscapes in a growing radius: acid rains in the leeway of cities or major industrial areas, polluted rivers and coastal seas downstream, etc."

(This is an excerpt from the text by Professor Paul Claval “THE IDEA OF LANDSCAPE”)