Necessary quotes
Anthropocene context
the
proposed new geologic era ‘Anthropocene’ – introduced in 2000 by chemist and
Nobel Prize winner Paul Jozef Crutzen, to represent a formal recognition and
acknowledgement of the “human signature” on the planet. Experts argue that the
end of the current epoch has been marked by striking acceleration since the
mid-20th century of carbon dioxide emissions and rising sea levels, the mass
extinction of global species, and the transformation of land by deforestation and
development.
We
are living in a period of intolerable extraction, unequal human deprivation,
multispecies extinctions, and blasted ecosystems (MASKED UNDER AN ANTHROPOCENE)
A new geological epoch dominated
by humans
Paradigm shift in approach to
environmental management
Coined by ecologist Eugene
Stoermer and the Nobel-Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000
to refer to the influence of human behaviours on the earths atmosphere,
lithosphere, and hydrosphere
“In a single lifetime we have grown
into a phenomenal global force. We move more sediment and rock annually than
all natural processes such as erosion and rivers. We manage three quarters of
all land outside the ice sheets. Greenhouse gas levels this high have not been
seen for over one million years. Temperatures are increasing. We have made a
hole in the ozone layer. We are losing biodiversity. Many of the world’s deltas
are sinking due to damming, mining and other causes. Sea level is rising. Ocean
acidification is a real threat. We are altering Earth’s natural cycles.”
Expanding discourse amongst
academics, artists, humanists, politicians, scientists and the popular press,
and taken up in cultural practices, exhibitions and publications
Need for a word to highlight
urgency
We have left our imprint – ‘The
hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, everythingsphere, the multiple worldings
of the earth will show the effect of the activities of industrial human beings
– we are evidenced for thousands of years to come
Sense of events before human
domination to exemplify our minute existence and presence in the earths actual
timeline,
God Species; Lynas argues ‘that
the earth is far out of balance and human as ‘intelligent designers’ must help
it regain stability, advocating for the controversial existing technological
solutions of genetic engineering and nuclear power. Lynas further explores the
ideas of the planetary boundaries group, identifying the interconnectedness of
the planetary systems through 9 earth boundaries.
Today human activity affects
almost every aspect of the Earth system; we have ‘catapulted our species – and
the planet – into an entirely new geological era, the Anthropocene’ (2011, p.
29)
The question is, are we prepared
to use our technological mastery to save the planet from ourselves? FIRE WITH
FIRE
Capitalism
New aspects of the technosphere -
metal mining structures, wooden beams, steam engines, long guns – humans who
owned machines mastery over geological matter, industrial owners acquired the
potential to cute any other material – giving rise to hierarchy – best
exemplified in diamonds, the hardest known substance on earth, could be
extracted and sold after 91 million years, feeding the formation of cities,
corporations and institutions
Thus was established a legal
infrastructure that favoured mining and a social infrastructure that
established race-based disenfranchisement, ‘creating a class of black labourers
who would serve the emerging white-owned mining houses’
Homogenocene: industrially
induced monocultures, race and sex structures
Crimes of war are invented,
concentration camps for women and children, economic plunder,
Fossil-fuel burning humanity,
where energy autonomy is the highest form of power
Coal-fired power stations are
still being built in South Afrca, despite being one of the highest per capita
carbon emitters in the world, presenting the exploitation of poorer areas to
feed the wests development
We have created structures to
claim things that aren’t ones to claim, natural elements, productions we assert
dominance over to gain power through resource gathering; as such we see more
fragile economies turn to multinational corporations, following the ‘if you
can’t beat them join them’ rationale, as the African National Congress hopes
for an economic revolution strong enough to starve off rumblings of political
revolution, choosing as its allies the oil companies Shell, Chevron, Falcon and
Bundu. The effects of colonialism still
in place
Western European colonialism
which exploited indigenous people and natural resources enriching the
colonising countries, contributing to the current environmental and demographic
stresses, an apt example of the consequences of pathology of dominator
hierarchies (Ken Wilber SES)
Industrial humanities
Global state socialisms
Multinational corporations hardly
embody pluralistic, compassionate vision logic – rather they are examples of
dominator hierarchies that flatten the economic landscape by destroying smaller
holons with significant political, social cultural, ecological and economic
consequences. (Desser, 2007)
Exchange networks, financial
networks, extraction practices, wealth creations, maldistributions – our unconsented
exploitation of other animals
The resourcing of everything on
earth for commodity production
Perspective:
three-hundred-million-year-old subterra, now the subject of parliamentary
debate, whether or not to fracture the shale from Carboniferous, numbers beyond
our comprehension
Necropolitics, coined by
philosopher Achille Mbembe; the replacement of reciprocity with commodification
between humans, and in human relations with the geosphere, arguing ‘the
geological effect of a necropolitical technosphere, on a planetary scale, is
the Anthropocene’ (Green, Lesley 2015)
Homogenocene, referring to the massive,
global scale homogenisation of biological and cultural diversity that we
otherwise call modernity’ – Keiran Suckling, Centre for Biological Diversity
Lynas ‘could not find any
convincing evidence that genetically engineered crops of foods ever harmed a
single human being or animal’ (2011, p. 103) Transgenic disease-resistant
bananas and yam banks show the success of new technology across Africa, the
continent which missed out on the Green revolution
The increasing globalisation of
the planet, embodied by GATT and NAFTA (“modern forms of ecological ignorance”
i.e. “the free market will save us”) and the homogenisation that globalisation
entails, will diminish biodiversity and cultural diversity and this loss of
complexity will be ecologically (and therefore evolutionarily) devastating.
(Desser, 2007)
Colonialization = thingification; philosopher Amie Cesaire
Alexandra Pirici and Raluca Voinea exclaim the feminist
environmentalism needed to assert change, protesting that ‘rather than continue
to contemplate our annihilation, contributing to it or declaring hopelessness
in front of it’ we must ‘exclude patriarchy in all its expressions and
institutionalised forms of violence: domination, exploitation, slavery,
colonialism, rofil, exclusion, monarchy, oligarchy, mafia, religious wars.’
If there is to be multi-species ecojustice, which can also embrace
diverse human people, it is high time that feminist exercise leadership in
imagination, theory, and action to unravel the ties of bth genealogy and kin
and kin and species.
Petrocapitalism
Nacogdoches Texas, Wen Stephenson;
“we live alongside drilling, pipelines, fracking, compressor stations and
chemical storage tanks. Because my family doesn’t own our mineral rights, Exxon
has been able to do pretty much whatever they want on our land…my father was
diagnosed with leukaemia, a cancer with known links to petroleum production”
Here we see a Marxist capitalist
structure, they are killing the local small-scale communities that have lived
amongst this previously untouched expanse of natural landscape for generations.
Eriel Deranger, activist and
spokesperson for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Tar Sands Exposed Tour –
organised by the climate group 350 Maine, fighting to prevent tar sands oil
flow, who has documented the…biblically-proportioned devastation and dire human
cost of industrial tar-sands oil extraction – a form of strip-mining considered
the most ecologically destructive resource extraction project on the planet
The massive tar sands extraction
projects in Alberta are not only ecologically devastating and life-threatening
but culturally devastating, threatening indigenous communities to maintain
their way of life and their traditional, sacred connection to the land and
water – even as that land and water is poisoned, posing legal threats to their
health – raises questions of cultural sustainability questions, dominance of
white male government, sacred land heritage, smaller communities most in danger
/ localised threat, collateral damage
Deranger speaking in Boston;
“projects can no longer continue to expand…the causalities being our people,
our livelihoods, and who we are…we will fight to the highest levels of law.”
“this is my homeland, these are my people…my family. I know people with cancer
I know people who are dying” affects of a centralised government concerned with
petrocapitalist motives “All we need is
the political will to change the course of where we’re going, and respect those
who are so impacted by out-of-control, psychotic, bottom-of-the-barrel resource
development…indigenous people have become the canary in the coal mine. I don’t
want my children to have to be the sacrifice for humanity to wake up.”
This issue becomes one of race
when considering “
No one should have their land
taken, no communities should be cut through with tar sands exportation, no more
tar sands should be extracted at the cost of indigenous life and land, no more
oil should be refines in the gulf at the expanse of human health in what are
mostly communities of colour
The ongoing, daily work of my
community’s resistance to tar sands is completely left our of conversations
that centre only around the concept of the “national Keystone fight” – the way
that new media ecologies generalise bottom-up issues, whitewashing the extent
to which thousands of livelihoods are being threatened. The scale of news that
media outlets now cater for in this globalised system fail to present accurate
narratives as they must both simplify and embellish for a broad spectrum of
audience, as well as being controlled by those whose interests are not with
local communities.
Extraction industries hold ultimate power in many communities, and
incidences of cancer and petroleum industry related illnesses leaver their mark
on families – As a unites movement we must work to improve these conditions and
circumstances or risk condemning millions of people right now to living a life
impacted by climate change and runaway industry development
Cyberspace
‘I declare the global social
space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to
impose on us’ such a statement juxtaposes this manmade entity with organic
freedoms
The naivety of the manifesto
exemplifies the tehno-utopian desires of the unregulated tyranny-free
technosphere; ‘cyberspace does not lie within your borders…it is an act of
nature and it grows itself through our collective actions…our world is
different…[it] is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies
live’. Here we see how the importance of understanding design implication –
that which comes after – consequentialism
The manifesto presents an
interesting contextual retrospective of Cyberspace; ‘We must declare our
virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to
your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that
no one can arrest our thoughts.’ They essentially threaten this space to be
their safe-haven however just ignorantly give motive to the opposition to
pursue its counter revolt
Contest the pathology of
domination hierarchies with smaller, globally linked, bioregionally based
institutions operating out of rational vision logic. Decentralisation, when
combined with effective communication, readily accessible information and a
democratic sensibility (precisely what computer technology and the internet
offer) seems preferable (Desser 2007)
Mass Extinction
The mass extinction events are
related to the resourcing of the earth for commodity production, the resourcing
of everything on the earth, most certainly including people, and everything
that lives and crawls and dies and everything that is in the rocks and under
the rocks. We live in the third great age of carbon, in which we are witnessing
the extraction of the last possible calorie of carbon out of the deep earth by
the most destructive technologies imaginable, of which fracking is only the tip
of the (melting) iceberg. Watch what’s going on in the Arctic as the sea ice
melts and the nations line up their war and mining ships for the extraction of
the last calorie of carbon-based fuels from under the northern oceans. To call
it the Anthropocene misses all of that; it treats it as if it’s a species act.
Well, it isn’t a species act. So, if I had to have a single word I would call
it the Capitalocene.
God Species; ‘The Earth’s living
biosphere depends fundamentally on the maintenance of a broad level of species
diversity’ (2011, p.45)
‘In order to sustain today’s seven
billion inhabitants and a future of nine billion people will require a radical
rethinking of traditional environmental opinions.’ Emma Rawlings Smith, Geography
2012 vol 97 part 2
Living in a time of excess mass
death, much of it human-induced
Donna Haraway – ‘has inspired
generations of readers to think critically and creatively about how to live and
work inside the difficult legacies of settler colonialism, industrial
capitalism, and militarised technoscience’ (Martha Kenney)
Any geologist of the future will find
the synthetic chemistry of DuPont in the composition of the rocks, will find in
the hydrosphere the synthetic chemistry of multinational pharmaceutical and
petrochemical corporations
Sym-poiesis
Multi-species worlds where suffering
and flourishing are unevenly distributed and always at stake
Humans and other earth-bound critters
Human beings within manufactured
scarcity apparatuses
We are living in a period of
intolerable extraction, unequal human deprivation, multispecies extinctions,
and blasted ecosystems (MASKED UNDER AN ANTHROPOCENE)
Decolonising lands, animals and
peoples in the US Southwest, or the vulnerable multicritter webs of coral reefs
Complex, biodiverse assemblages like
coral reefs can undergo rapid and irreversible changes of state
Rich worlds crucial to human and
nonhuman flourishing can and do disappear. Things can be very gradual and then
boom _ systems changes mutate life and death radically and suddenly
We need to be committed to radically
reducing this obscene weight of reproduction, consumption, and production
Reducing human numbers must involve
more social justice, more wealth (EVENLY DISPERSED SYSTEMS)
This commitment must be intrinsic to
reducing human demands on the earth
Response-ability – the cultivation of
the capacity of response in the context of living and dying in worlds for which
one is for, with others – you and me
live here together so we both protect our house
Donnah Harraway is interested in “how
figures help us avoid the deadly fantasy of the literal”
Biologit Scott Gilbert and colleagues
have started using “holobiont” and “holobiome” rather than “organism” and
“environment” to signal the webbed multiplicities that make up any “one” in
time and space. This goes beyond textbook, where over-simplification ends up
being innacurrate of our multi-faceted existence and constructions
Chthonic figures / gaia
We must consider the mythologies that
came before us and set the foundations of our imbedded cultures. Where the
death of Medusa gave way to hordes of othercritter existence, her head of which
sprang the coral reefs and her decapitated body of which Pegasus derives, the
winged horse.
We must listen more to all other
worlds and histories that exist within and formed our cultures, all that came
before; what has already panned out; and learn from that.
GAIA – iconography as goddess but
is neither he nor she but it, genderless
These concepts connote the
fantasies of the world we inhabit and the magic of the natural phenomenon’s are
highlighted (coral reefs / mountains / ecologies)
Holobiont (assemblages of
different species that form ecological units) that is Gaia, Terra, Medusa (of
the west) and Incan Pachamama, Navajo Spider Old-Woman – around-the-world
mythologies and other-than / non-human narratives, globally acknowledged beings
of creation
When we tell the parabolic tales,
tales of the Modern and the Traditional, we get off easy. We don’t have to do a
thing. We are not urged to action, we aren’t urged to caring, we aren’t urged
to decomposition and recomposition. I want non-Euclidean ruffled tales, studded
with tentacles for risky tangling. Ongoing caring requires that we work with
figures of re-mediation that are risky and also fun, that we work, play, live,
die, that we are at risk with and as mortal critters, that we don’t give in to the techno-tragic story of self-made final
death of the Anthropocene, but that we do inhabit the realities of excess mass
death so as to learn to repair, and maybe even flourish without denial.
Gaia Hypothesis developed by James
Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, conceiving the earth as a living entity
(ecosexuals, ecosexual bathhouse)
Idea of a world soul, a planetary
Logos is an ancient one found in both Eastern and Western culture; a “formative
force” an active, intelligent, purposeful spiritual presence at work in the
material world to guide an guard the course of planetary evolution – the
GESTALT, the wholeness of all the lives and patterns that manifest upon, and
as, the earth. (Sprangler, 1990)
The sense of living earth enjoyed
and practiced by earlier non-industrial cultures grew out of living experience
and a closeness to nature that our culture has set aside. It was woven into the
fabric of life and culture. The Judeo-Christian tradition arises…from
patriarchal social structures, where sacredness has overtones of authority,
power distance and maleness, that would have been alien to the spirituality of
the ancient Celts of the Native Americas, two cultures that incorporated a
sense of the living earth.
Immanent, accessible sacred
presence pervading all things
Gaia practices these days have
lost the focus, it is no longer a way of life but a shiny ideal, with
contextual folk stories being sugar-coated by the likes of Disney
We are the products of a
materialistic, technological, rational, male-orientated culture, that over 200
years ago set aside the medieval notions of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ in which
each and every life had a purpose, a place, and a meaning. – we will not
survive unless we all exist, the holistic value of a person, a plant, an
animal, or a place – each is as important as the other
We have a sense of incarnation but not of co-incarnation, of the many
ways in which the fabric of our identities are interwoven and interdependent in
ways extending far beyond just the human milieu. Thus our definitions of life
become very reductionist, individualised, and utilitarian. (We must advocate
for the whole through coexistence)
Latour, ‘ecologization’; the
understanding of our interconnected dependence upon the non-human world in
which we are embedded and of which we are composed
‘Because of the Anthropocene, the
destiny of Gaia is connected to ours in a way that’s not predictable’ …
‘futures are multiple and there are many ways in which humans will cope. The question
is what politics anticipate the catastrophe sufficiently so that these futures
stay open’ Bruno Latour
Desser considers lateral
thinking, investigating the potential for preserving biodiversity, cultural
diversity and indigenous spiritual traditions through the mechanism of
organising along migratory routes. Her project seeks to preserve the multiplicity (as opposed to
homogenisation) of global culture, since the geographic span of a particular
migratory route will encompass diverse cultures and traditions.
Her motive is to help people
begin to understand that ‘no place is as important as the place where they live
(wholeness), except…every other place (partness), and that all places are
evidence of Nature.’
Ken Wilber SES “how to get people
to internally transform…to a worldcentric
consciousness…that can grasp the global dimensions of the
problem…and eagerly embrace global solutions” (p.518)
Comprehensive ramifications of
ones actions and how it fits into a global context
Chris Desser 2007 believes the
evolution of consciousness depends on ecological sustainability which can only
be achieved if people come to understand the interrelationship and
interconnectedness of life on this planet and modify their behaviour
accordingly
‘mall-proliferating times’ Humans
may have more depth and complexity than trees, carrots and dirt, but the things
that humans fabricate generally do not. And those things are reducing the
complexity of our biosphere (rendering species extinct and diminishing
biodiversity)
Desser developed a project that
linked communities based on the migratory species that pass through them, to
achieve an ‘integrated mode of awareness’ as the seasonal migrations of many
species simply and effectively illustrates the interconnectedness and interdependence
of life on this planet and the whole/part nature of things. WITH THE HOPE of
developing an awareness of the need for an environmental ethics that is based
on rights and relationships, as all places along the route contribute to the
entire systems survival. She further notes the cultural, artistic and social
manifestations of species in various communities along the way (the presence of
a species in the art and music of a people and a place)
Hopes for ‘an understanding of
commonality along a shared migratory corridor will emerge and give rise to the
“healing impulse…that comes from championing…mutual understanding and interior
qualitative distinctions”
What impact can the media have in
bringing about a centauric epoch (consciousness above the ego-self) – stating
that the electronic media is a primary agent in the homogenizing of culture.
Christina Desser proposes a centauric epoch that focuses on the
consciousness above the ego-self, calling for Wilber’s vision of the “bodymind
integration of the centaur anchored in woldcentric vision-logic” in the hope of
providing a different way of thinking about activism and politics.
Conclusion: perspective
‘I don’t think it’s a concept
that’s going to last, but while it’s here we should use it because it is a connector,
and it brings together artists, scientists and philosophers.’ Interesting alternative view on the
Anthropocene’s potential to unify our minds, cover perspective, and as a
result, draw well informed decisions.
It asks in this time of urgency, to
think slowly about what we have done
‘global perspective and universal
pluralism’
Despite condemning the misfocus on the
terminology of a proposed Anthropocene, he notes its important contribution ‘as
a public and scholarly dialogue that has put artists, cultural critics,
political economists, historians, geographers, biologists and many others into
conversation.’ as we begin to address and define our effects on the
planet.
This dialogue suggests something of the zeitgeist: the intuition
that Nature/Society dualism cannot serve us in an era of accelerating climate
change and mass extinction. At the same time, the responsibility of the radical
is to name the system and identify how the Anthropocene is implicated in
capitalist power, symbolically and materially. That the Anthropocene, at its
core, is a fundamentally bourgeois concept should surprise no one.
‘it remains urgent to bring these
critical humanities-based resources to bear on scientific discourse in order to
disrupt specialist divisions, democratise debate, and pose critical questions
of political significance to discussions regarding environmental developments
that in one way or another are having major impacts on the lives of all’
explains the necessity of checks and balances, as seen within political systems
The aim of the project is to
‘illustrate in detail the unfolding of the thesis of the Anthropocene in its
many streams of influence’ – Anthropocene observatory
The Anthropocene discussion is
really just important to draw the conclusion that climate change is imminent
and we must act now and change all our capitalist ridged petrocapitalist
structures and necro-politics to call for immediate offset of our climate
impact
Fossil fuel burning plastic use
as well as our mentality on how we see our home and that nature and humans are
not two separate entities
This shift in perspective and
socio-economic structures with the hope of affecting climate change is the only
way to secure our future INTERCONNCTIED STRUCTURES OF FLOWS RATHER THAN RIDIGID
LINEAR STUCTURES – ECOSYSTEMS ALL AFFECT EACH OTHER,
Capitalist society means few
companies at the top overselling their singular product – this causes the
overuse and extracting of one single resource that disrupts the harmony of our
entire natural ecosystems and processes (e.g. fossil fuels / oil / crops)
over-extraction that will not end until our global structures are drastically
changed to more sustainable ones that are less far-reaching and singularly
dominating
And this cross the board discussion
from all highbrow industries? Is what is needed to begin the imminent
rebellion…as seen with extinction protests – people have lost all shame as this
is so much bigger than us – it is life or death and our home and our future and
our children future
CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE - OUR HOUSE
SITS ON OUR HOME, WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT ROADS, STRUCTURES EVERYTHING WE
KNOW CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT OUR HOME, SURFACES
AND RESOURCE
