Pursuant to scientific evidence, we are ubiquitously accepting the embarrassing predicament that we are now within a geologic epoch where Earth has been fundamentally transformed by a single species – us (Crutzen 2002; Zalasiewicz et al. 2021). It is dominantly framed as a problem, and our impact on the Earth is seen as not just detrimental to its functioning but also irreversible. This implies that human actions are transforming the environment in ways that are driving it to ‘novel’ conditions, and this is seen as a problem because we are unprepared to deal with it (Robbins and Moore 2013). This ‘anthrophobia’ is accompanied by a growing sense of urgency, anxiety, and a crisis mindset, which tends to result in either nihilism, dysfunction, and paralysis or an action bias overdrive (Robbins and Moore 2013). However, both these responses are problematic and can potentially create more risks, without first understanding how we reached here, what we hope for the future to be, and with that, what we can fix.
In this essay, I will first delve into what is wrong with the Anthropocene as we know it by drawing on what we do not talk about in its formulations. I will then reflect on how we landed here by exploring our relationship with the Earth in general, and nature in particular, and how that matters in our journey forward. I will end with some approaches for reimaging our role and ways to take “modest actions”, that can potentially put us on a track where we can learn to live within the dynamic system.
What remains unseen in the Anthropocene [1]?
Indeed, humans have been no more than a blip in the life of Earth, in terms of time spans of being around (often referred to as ‘deep time’ [2]), the amount of space we occupy [3], and the amount of biotic life we represent [4]. Yet, we have not been insignificant in its course of evolution. Driven by our social, economic, political, and even aesthetic aspirations (see discussions on landscape in Olwig 2005; Axiom 5 on power in Mitchell 2008), we have driven several technological revolutions across space, time and cultures, that have resulted in unforeseen conflicts with the environment (Turner II 2022). These technologies, while addressing some aspirations of the few in power, have had long-term implications for the other humans, non-humans, and overall planetary boundaries.
For instance, atmospheric changes driven by carbon emissions from the industrial revolution are seen as the root cause for the ‘Great Acceleration’ (Steffen et al. 2015). This period and process, in turn, was fundamentally tied with the histories of extraction and colonialism, each inseparable from capitalism, racism, and myriad forms of injustices including those against indigenous communities (Yusoff 2020; De la Cadena 2015). Apart from degrading the environment, we as a human society did not shy away from subjugating horrors to our own kind. In some ways then, the Anthropocene, a geologic epoch, stems from human society’s ego embodied in aspirations, and values materialized through actions. This also goes to show that the Anthropocene is not an apolitical outcome, but one that is driven by the power vested in the hands of a few.
Anthropocentric world-view
Human ego is a vital issue for discussion in our relationship with nature and how we value it. I will discuss here a few different perspectives on nature, and how these have implications on how we [ab]use it.
On one extreme, nature is seen as a “naive reality”, “God-given”, an “Eden”, and untouched by humans (Cronon 1995, 34–36; Johnston 1981). Placing nature on a pedestal, it is understood as being stable, pure, self-sufficient, and capable of preserving its own balance – values that human societies aspire to achieve themselves. This position creates a moral imperative of what nature, and therefore our surroundings, ought to be. These ideological imaginations of nature, propagated through multiple media including landscape paintings, poetry, and literature, have inspired many to recreate such “Edens” by emulating these imaginations. Examples of these recreations are many across different cultures and societies, including the “New Edens” described in Cronon (1995) where a legal protection of an endangered bird is overturned to enable building these “havens” for the elite, or the “rewilding” experiments conducted in Europe as described in Lorimer and Driesseny (2016). In each, it is an aspiration of the few that trumps the cost to (human and non-human) others. This raises unaddressed questions of environmental ethics on who decides what nature needs to be protected and how.
Other views of nature are far more entangled with human well-being and history. In its demonic form, climatic extremes such as floods and hurricanes are seen as the “return of the repressed’ (Cronon 1995, 48). Considering, disasters tend to affect the most marginalized (Maskrey, Lavell, and Jain 2022), this view is likely also from their perspective. Despite enough evidence about the anthropogenic nature of many of these disasters, we have learnt to avert accountability by calling them “natural” (Few et al. 2021; Cronon 1995).
Another nature/culture view emerges from the Marxist accounts of production of nature, where everything is seen as a product of human labor and capital. There is an underlying [almost boastful] belief here on the social capacity to produce “second nature” (Thrift 2012). Postmodern theories suggest that our ways of seeing nature is mediated by representational practices and devices, such as cartography or wildlife photography. In a similar set up, nature is merely seen as a medium for cultural landscapes: culture is the agent, and nature the medium (Johnston 1981). Apart from justifying one’s own ideals, these approaches see nature as no more than “an edifice or self-conscious cultural construct” (Cronon 1995, 39).
Another, and possibly the most self-centered perspective thus far, objectifies nature as a commodity. Apart from widespread practices of “greenwashing”, such as real estate to be sold as “New Edens” to aspiring buyers in an earlier example, nature is also defined (mainly by economists extending from the Marxist ideas) through the concept of Natural Capital and ecosystem services (Guerry et al. 2015). These views present nature to have an “objective value” for the functions it provides (i.e. provisioning, supporting, regulating, and cultural) for human well-being. These concepts have gained currency in different fora, ranging from international climate change debates to corporate boardrooms. Their advocates argue that these concepts help assigning a ‘value’ to the natural systems making their ‘protection’ more justifiable. However, this approach also tends to position one ecosystem against another as long as it can provide the same services, and is therefore potentially replaceable from the human society’s point of view. This also limits the value of nature (and other non-human elements) to the known and currently relevant functions, and ignores the value of what we do not yet have information or imaginations for.
Almost all these perspectives on nature described above tend to be from the human-gaze where nature is merely an object of human interest. Further, “whether their emphasis has been on nature’s material transformation or on its changing meaning, these are geographies whose only subject or active inhabitants are people, while everything else is consigned to nature and becomes putty in our hands” (Johnston 1981, 493). Feminists have also critiqued how women tend to be equated with nature, while men are seen separate from nature, and this has led to women being similarly objectified in the hands of men (Rose 2006; in Cresswell 2013).
These debates within ecofeminism have further highlighted this constant duality between nature/culture, in which everything is cast in a way that things either belong to nature or culture, feminine or masculine, emotion or reason, slave or master – all in which one is weaker than the other. In all these dualities, the latter tends to have more power over the former, an idea so deeply imbibed within us that it has driven us to believe that we have not just affected an irreversible change in the Earth’s system, but that we have the power to reverse it.
How do these ‘positions of power’ inform our actions and priorities?
Our actions to overcome the impacts of the Anthropocene are wide and varied, but, in many ways, are fundamentally flawed.
Most actions towards environmental protection, are dominantly and ultimately aimed at the self-preservation of the human race. Approaches centered on ‘protection’ also give rise to questions such as protection of what and to what state? How far back in time can and should we go to define the ‘origins’ of this ‘ideal natural state’? Rewilding projects have been critiqued on these grounds of the irrational reliance on a specific (often mythical) imagination of the past “to govern the present and to anticipate a particular future” (Lorimer and Driesseny 2016, 623). Besides, in the conditions of global environmental change, the ‘rightful’ natural condition may not even be viable (Robbins and Moore 2013). In such a scenario, how do we assume we have the ability to revert back to what was?
In some climate change scientific and advocacy fronts, such as those by the Inter-governmental Panel for Climate Change, there is a strong push towards transformative adaptation, one that promotes “the idea of major, fundamental changes in society or natural systems as opposed to changes that are minor, marginal or incremental” (Ara Begum et al. 2022, 125). However, the report also recognizes our lack of current knowledge on adaptation outcomes and potential maladaptation at play. In such a scenario, this is akin to a crisis mindset causing an action bias overdrive. A call for large-scale transformative adaptations can indeed create greater future risks, irreversible environmental outcomes, and especially be detrimental for the least represented and most marginalized communities.
In other recent developments, however, such as in Earth System Science (ESS), the “Earth is [finally] understood as a single system, comprising of ‘coupled spheres’ characterized by boundaries, tipping points, feedback loops and other forms of non-linear dynamics” (Lorimer 2017, 119). ESS has inspired other disciplines to also embrace the systems thinking. Despite the calls for a ‘second Copernican revolution’ in how the world is understood, several global actions pursuing this framework are still falling short. For instance, the most recent United Nations Human Development Report 2020 – The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene, while there is a recognition that planetary and societal imbalances are intertwined in a vicious circle such that one affects the other, the aim is still towards achieving nature-based human development, i.e. primarily using nature as a vehicle for human well-being (UNDP 2020).
Time for recognizing “Nature Agency”
It is time to recognize nature having its own agency and extending the discourse of rights to non-human nature as well as those who have remained unseen this far (Gandy 2019). This would imply viewing and valuing nature for its own sake, and positioning ourselves with greater modesty than our current demeanors rely on. This would, potentially, still be the ‘most humanist’ action we could take (Lorimer 2017). Human moral force is strong, and we know it. So far, we have put it into practice against those with less power and voice. By convening, what Robbins and Moore propose “a liberal ‘parliament of things’ in a more democratic fashion… would allow us to outline the division of powers that could govern how humans and non-humans are represented” (2013, 15).
Recognizing that nature and culture are integral part of the same system is a good first step. But we also need to avoid falling back on the past in an attempt to recreate what is lost, rather, prepare ourselves to adapt to novel realities. We need to accept that our knowledge is limited, and hurried actions for big wins might only create more unseen challenges. Rather, we need to commit to taking many “modest actions”, modest both in terms of scale and moral compass, such that there is time to reflect and change the course if required.
Ultimately, our signatures of the past cannot be erased, and our impressions going forward cannot be avoided. The Anthropocene will continue; however, it can take a different and potentially more positive trajectory in which both nature and humans can flourish.
“The future of the biosphere… depends partly on economics, partly on politics, but also partly on vision. It depends on what people’s values are.”
~ Erle EllisEnvironmental Scientist, in Bloomberg [5]
Footnotes
[1] Taking inspiration from the “anthropo-not-seen” by De la Cadena (2015).
[2] See an interesting infographic illustrating our presence within the history of the Earth – https://deeptime.info/
[3] Humans inhabit less than 1% of the land and have transformed about 14.6% of the total land on earth (Theobald et al. 2020).
[4] Humans are less than 0.01% of the species on earth – https://ourworldindata.org/life-on-earth
[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-09/climate-change-will-reshape-earth-as-human-land-use-did. Accessed on 06 Nov 2022.
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In-spyral Café 