Perspectives on the Anthropocene (original) (raw)
The Question Concerning the Anthropocene (2016)
Public lecture delivered to a general audience at Yachay Tech, 3 March 2016. A second part is intended, and will hopefully follow in the next few days. It really represents the starting point of an argument that will be developed further in another, forthcoming text.
Introduction: The Growing Anthropocene Consensus
Altered Earth: Getting the Anthropocene Right, 2022
This book aims to get the Anthropocene right in three senses. First, it conveys the scientific evidence of our altered Earth, showcasing how the concept of the Anthropocene captures the magnitude and complexity of the planet's dangerous transformation. Second, we try to get the Anthropocene right in human terms, exploring the kaleidoscope of experiences, contingencies, and decisions that led to the Anthropocene, from the deep history of our relationship with infectious diseases to recent nuclear disasters. These histories are echoed and expanded through fiction with two short stories bringing the vast scales of geology and Earth System science "to earth" in emotional and ethical terms, especially around the issues of colonialism and inequality. Finally, we talk about what hope might look like in this pretty hopeless situation, proposing mutualistic cities, greater equity, and new political forms. "Right" in this book means being as accurate as possible in describing
Unpacking the Anthropocene: The Good, the Evil and the Critical Reading
Graz Law Working Paper Series, 2023
Regular heat waves and draughts in the Mediterranean, hurricanes near coasts, frequent floods worldwide, drastic temperature increases in the Arctic, melting ice on the polar caps, dwindling glaciers, dying coral reefs, mass extinction of animal and plant species, acidified oceans, polluted groundwater and, in the end, the threat of the annihilation of the human species – all these catastrophic events and scenarios are related to the concept of the Anthropocene: the age of humans has begun with their extinction on the horizon. This paper gives a brief systematic overview of the very diverse and lively discourse surrounding the emphatic term Anthropocene and seeks to outline its roots and understanding in some detail. In doing so, this text presents three possible readings of Anthropocene: Good, Evil, and Critical Anthropocene.
Book Review of The Shock of the Anthropocene // Reseña de The Shock of the Anthropocene
Ecozon@, 2016
By now, anyone in their right mind knows what it takes to avert environmental apocalypse: all we need to do is pollute less, emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, consume less, produce less, procreate less, and so on. However, as the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann pointedly noted in his book Ecological Communication (first published in 1985, translated into English in 1989), "whoever puts the problem this way does not reckon with society, or else interprets society like an actor who needs instruction and exhortation" (Luhmann, 133). In other words, to avoid getting bogged down in misdirected criticism, utopian or fatalistic scenarios about the end of the world, our solutions to the environmental problems of the twenty-first century should somehow be commensurate with the dynamics of an increasingly complex and interconnected world society. While this realization led Luhmann to construct a highly abstract and, according to some critics, rather unwieldly theory of modernity apparently immune to falsification, recent scholarship in the environmental humanities has adduced a lot of fascinating empirical data to show why humans continue to destroy their own life world, apparently much against everyone's advice. The Shock of the Anthropocene by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, two historians currently working at the Centre Alexandre-Koiré at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris, is a highly incisive contribution to this rapidly growing body of environmental research. The original title of the book, somewhat hastily translated from the French by David Fernbach, reads L'Evénement Anthropocène (the Anthropocene event), which hints at the authors' intellectual indebtedness to the work of, among others, Michel Serres and Bruno Latour (and via Latour, Gilles Deleuze whose philosophy of the event has been very influential in French philosophy). This conceptual framework, combined with a commitment to thorough quantitative research, gives The Shock of the Anthropocene an edge in relation to some of the conceptually and empirically less grounded debates in the Anglo-American environmental humanities. But what makes it a most stimulating book, in the present reader's view, is the authors' willingness to point out the tenacity of what they call the "grand narrative" of the Anthropocene even in the work of their intellectual mentors and allies, including Latour and such leading scholars as Dipesh Chakrabarty. What is that grand narrative of the Anthropocene? This can be stated rather simply: Overnight, as it were, we have entered a new geological era as a consequence of our tinkering with the environment. Only now, thanks to advances in climate science, we are coming to realize the implications of this potentially disastrous development,
Interrogating the Anthropocene: Truth and Fallacy
Great Transition Initiative , 2021
The Anthropocene proposition has rippled far from its scientific discourse to jolt the larger cultural zeitgeist. The idea that human activity has catapulted Earth into a new geological epoch has sparked reconsideration of who we are, where we are going, and how we must act. If we care about building a decent future, how should we think about the Anthropocene? What are the resonances and dissonances with the cultural and political project of a “great transition” to a viable civilization?
This paper looks at why many people are not hearing or listening to the experts, "us," when we argue for more efforts to protect the environment, slow the extirpation of other species, slow the extinction events of other species, slow the carbonization and acidification of the oceans, loss of polar ice, and the many other environmental concerns important to the continuation of life as we know it on our earth. It suggests that scientists, "again us," might share some culpability for the mitigated strength of our voices as we warn others of the dangers ahead.
, backed up by an impressive amount of data, trace the history of our entry into the Anthropocene, an era characterised by the impact of human activities on the earth's physical and biological systems. These historians of science make a stand against the deliberately mystifying narrative that suggests that the major changes at play were practically unknown until recent decades. In doing so, they highlight the conflicts between asymmetric forces and interests and call for a repoliticisation of the history of this era.
The Anthropocene - The Earth in Our Hands
Refubium Freie Universität Berlin, 2020
An outstanding characteristic of the human species is its ability to think ahead into the future. However, such foresight is a major challenge if it is to go beyond one’s own personal environment. The future is therefore difficult to grasp – also depending on which temporal and spatial scales are adopted. ... Can a new scientific concept derived from the Earth system and geosciences, the Anthropocene, help here? Does it have the right name? Doesn’t it promote an apocalyptic, fatalistic attitude or, quite contrary isn’t it a gateway for positivistic, technocratic delusions? And how is a concept that has grown out of the "deep past", i.e. the history of the Earth, supposed to have any relevance for the future? Once again we seem to be trapped in our simplifying, dualistic "either-or" ideas, into which we want to categorize new concepts as fast as possible. The purpose of this article is to present the concept of the Anthropocene also with regard to its potential for a systemic sustainability analysis and the resulting responsibilities, commitments and design options. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the Anthropocene concept is the challenge of abandoning dualisms in favor of a diverse spectrum of graduations, new approaches and new solution pathways. However, the different levels of the Anthropocene approach should be distinguished, so that it is always clear what we are exactly talking and debating about.
The Ideology of the Anthropocene
Final version available in Environmental Values 24 (2015): 9–29. The Anthropocene is a radical reconceptualisation of the relationship between humanity and nature. It posits that we have entered a new geological epoch in which the human species is now the dominant Earth-shaping force, and it is rapidly gaining traction in both the natural and social sciences. This article critically explores the scientific representation of the concept and argues that the Anthropocene is less a scientific concept than the ideational underpinning for a particular worldview. It is paradigm dressed as epoch. In particular, it normalises a certain portion of humanity as the ‘human’ of the Anthropocene, reinserting ‘man’ into nature only to re-elevate ‘him’ above it. This move promotes instrumental reason. It implies that humanity and its planet are in an exceptional state, explicitly invoking the idea of planetary management and legitimising major interventions into the workings of the earth, such as geoengineering. I conclude that the scientific origins of the term have diminished its radical potential, and ask whether the concept’s radical core can be retrieved.