Industrial Society / Environment / Energy

1. Industrial society

The Industrial Revolution (C2 p. 42)

=> Process of industrialization (>change of the economical and social structure of a country by building up industries), mostly in countries, which were formerly dominated by agricultuere and forstry.

It had its beginning in Britain at the end of the 18th century.

Characteristics of the Industrial Revolution:

- increasing division of labour and specialization
- use of new technologies and mass - production => "Spinning Jenny"
- utilization and consumption of new sources of energy (i.e. coal, oil, electricity, steam)
- development of a financial system, a traffic system
- increasing income per person
==> This process proceeded with far-reaching social crisis and -changes (migration from the land to the towns)

Additional remark:

> The "Second Industrial Revolution": Automatization (i.e. conveyor belt)

> The "Third Industrial Revolution": Phase of technical - economical development, caused by miniaturization (i.e. smaller computers / computerchips with a higher capacity)

1.1. Modern Industrial Society

Society today (C2 p.4/5):

=> Consumer-led society; money is very important, you can buy whatever you want.

Affluence:

- In developed countries, most people are - despite a high unemployment rate - better off than 20 or 30 years ago.

- Rising expenditures on luxury goods (i.e.leisure goods) but falling expenditures on basic essentials (i.e. food, clothing, housing)

Globalization:

- Buyers for industry (= people, who buy for example raw materials for their company) search the world for more, better and cheaper products to sell (in their shops).
- More and more plants move to third world countries, because that means lower production costs.
=>growing wealth in third world economies, with this economical growth, the consumerism of these countries grows, too. Thus the consumer society is becoming global
- Europe has already lost whole industries to the new economies, but it must be competitive, to create new jobs, needed for millions of unemployed in the EU.

Advertising:

=>Made the consumer revolution possible.

- Advertisers: "Advertisements help consumers to make the right choices, when they buy." > Modern advertising: with TV, cinema, newspapers, magazines, posters

> sponsorship advertising: Enterprises pay to leave their brand on, for example, a Formula 1 racing car.

> smaller scale advertising: brochures, leaflets, fliers, neon signs, street banners > ordinary people can set smaller classified ads (Kleinanzeigen) in newspapers.

Consumer protection:

- Laws and rules in every country, so that all ads can be justified.

- Example: British Code of Advertising Practice - all ads should...

...be legal, decent, honest and truthful

...follow business principles of fair competition ...be responsible to consumers and society

=>ads get checked, if they break this code they can be prevented from advertising in any medium.

Work:

=> Effects of increasing process and automatization:

- need for better educated workers

- replacing of workers by machines > unemployment

- higher wages, more leisure time

- more pollution

- many manual ("blue-collar jobs") disappeared

- reduction of manufacturing in western economies - many people are now working in the sevice sector

- common feature of working life today: lifetime training and re-skilling (=>flexibility)

- large-scale automation takes over "white-collar jobs" to reduce wage costs

Telecommunications:

Today we life in a wired-up world. There are many ways for us to communicate with each other.

Computers:

Today nealy everyone of us, especially enterprises, are dependent on computers. In time, computers have changed from large mainframe machines to smaller microcomputers, PCs, available and usable for everyone. This offers, on the one hand a big freedom and fexibility to society but on the other hand many problems and changes.

2. Environment

Environmental Problems:

- increase of the world's population

- higher standard of living (>consumerism is expanding) great pressure on the

- so there must be a higher productivity in agriculture and environment

industry to meet the society's demands

==> EFFECT: POLLUTION

Ozone depletion:

=> The ozone layer:

Task: protection of the earth

+ screens us from most of the sun's harmful radiation

+ created by interaction of ultra violet radiation from the sun with oxygen

- destruction of the ozone by chemicals, especially by CFCs

- this causes big holes in it -> exposition of life on earth to increasingly dangerous levels of radiation

Global warming (overheating of the earth):

=> caused by "geenhouse gases" like carbon dioxide (poured out especially by industry and transport (motor cars) and (15%) by the burning of the rain forests) they trap some of the sun's heat in the atmosphere => global warming, changing climate (rising temperatures) and weather.

Energy and acidity:

- Burning of fossil fuels acidifies the environment.
- Acid rain is harmful to plants (forests) and animals, especially those which live in water.

Air pollution:

- one of the most serious problems of our day and age
- breathing of heavy polluted air causes health problems and it even can lead to an earlier death.

Desertification and soil erosion:

- over-use of already poor land by a rising population creates new deserts
- unprotected soil can then be washed or blown away very quickly

Water shortages and pollution:

- rising water use -> falling of the underground water tables -> water shortages in some regions
- overpopulation increases water pollution - discharge of waste into rivers or coastal waters
- North Sea - one of the most polluted in the world

Chemicals:

- huge quantities of dangerous chemicals are placed in the environment every year

Deforestation:

- lasting destruction of nearly half of the world's rainforests
- this takes away the habitat (Lebensraum) of many animals
- some scientists believe that up to 100 plant and animal species are destroyed every day

2.1. Waste

==> Our consumer led society has developed an use and throw away lifestyle by setting great demands on industry for the production of goods.

Result: vast quantities of waste, both domestic and industrial. This waste consists from:

- naturally dacaying products

- long lasting products (i.e. glass, plastics, metals...)

Waste disposal:

- landfill, incineration, recycling
- special treatment for toxic waste

Disposal of nuclear waste:

- vitrification, storage of these glass blocks in containers in an air-cooled room for at least 50 years
- eventual: remove for final disposal
- Two ways of final disposal:

> underground storage in a very hard rock

>undersea burial in the bedrock

3. Energy

Energy sources

-rising energy demand, because of economic development

Fossil Fuels: coal, oil , gas

-created from the remains of living material millions of years ago
-non-renewable, one day they will run out

Energy production:

-all three fossil fuels are used domestically
-greatest quantities of them are used by power stations for energy production
-heat is transformed into electrical energy and then passed out to the end-users.

Nuclear power:

-developed as a cheap alternative to fossil fuels
-believed as clean and pollution-free
- no atmospheric pollution
- no radioactive waste products to store
-production of electricity from heat
-creation by nuclear fission (splitting atoms) which is no safe reaction and not easy to stop
-heat araises from a controlled chain reaction of the nuclear fuel in the core of the reactor
-heavy dependence on nuclear power of some countries

- dangers:

- reactors can blow up and spread the radioactive fallout across their sourroundings
- these radioactive fallout can cause radiation sickness, cancers and even death

-the decommissioning of an old nuclear power plant is very expensive

-big problems with the disposal of nuclear waste

Alternative power sources

Solar power:

-solar panels on the roofs collect energy from the sun, they even can provide the domestic energy requirement
-commercial solar energy production needs very sunny climates

Wind power:

-easiest way of alternative generation of energy (large groups of windmills = wind farms)
-windmills need areas with strong winds to operate at maximum capacity
-they make noise and they are not very beautiful to look at
=> wind speeds at sea are higher than on land => advantage for wind farms out at sea

Wave power:

-turbines are driven by the movement of air caused by the rise and fall of waves

Tidal power:

-dams with tunnels containing electricity generating turbines which turn as the sea passes in and out

Geothermal power:

-pumping of cold water through one bored hole into a hot rock, where it is heatened up. Then it emerges from a linked second hole as steam which can be used directly for heating or for generating electricity.