Climate Crisis Lecture 2 Flashcards
The Anthropocene represents
Human kind has become a geological agent
How emissions in atmosphere are changing
Not what effects but how are human activities registering in terrestrial sphere
Human activity has;
-pushed extinction rates of animals and plants
-increased levels of climactic- warming CO2
-put so much plastic in our oceans and water ways
-doubled nitrogen and phosphorous in our soils
-left permanent layer of airborne particles in atmosphere
entered a no analogue state
(can’t make a distinction between nature and culture)
Earth systems have been dominated by human influence, equilibrium has been thrown out of balance, to such an extent that the ‘steady state disequilibrium’
Humankind is a geographical force and agent
Paul Crutzen
first to propose a new geological epoch; The Anthropocene
-mankind will remain a major geological for many millennia, maybe millions of years
earth understood as one system
exchanges between human and nature, feedback loops
Small changes caused by humans and other forms of climate forcing can have big impact on interconnected systems of global commons- we can’t control our nature, effects on earth, are actions cannot be changed
Geological strata around the world would have to be the same to make an impact.
Factors; fossil fuels, urbanisation, population growth, plastics and technology
Cities need concrete, we cover the earth
30-50% of ice-free land surface
has been converted or modified by human kind
When is the start date for the Anthropocene?
proposed an industrial revolution date, moment when carbon emission began to be put in atmosphere
Criticisms of early Anthropocene
- James Hansen, explosive growth of fossil fuels, hyper-Anthropocene, if it did begin years ago were in a new phase now
- Clive Hamilton, it gradualizes the new epoch so that it is no longer a rupture
Recent contenders for Anthropocene
- industrial revolution, extracting and emissions
- one can place golden spike at detonation of atom bomb, registered on a global scale, geochemical make up was changed on a global scale
- other ideas are regional, smaller scale, atom bomb was global, all our bodies there is a trace of the nuclear detonation
why does IR humans as a geological factor not considered the Anthropocene
Reforestation, native Americans, communities died off areas were reforested, back to deforestation, rise in CO2
Anthropocene is a new paradigm, because we can say distinctive where nature ends and human activity begins
Human activity acting on nature, nuclear technology isn’t of this earth- human activity has impacted the Earth
Electricity- implemented humans no longer acted upon nature but into nature
Anthropocene as intellectual Zeitgeist
- label about state and future of earth after the end of nature
- as a pure place untouched by human hands central to modern environmentalism
- conjoins deep time with dramatic futures
- creative dimension; the arts, literature, geopoetics etc
- problem, if understood this way with widespread recognition, of ‘end of nature’ then the finds of international commission may be irrelevant
Ideology who is to blame
Capitalocene- social iniquities
Feminist critique- gendered figure of the ‘Anthropos’, masculine logics, who is in charge
Postcolonial critique- ‘Anglocene’ problem caused by northern anglophone world, testing atomic bombs of pacific islands, using the earth as a chemical testing’s ground, effects of plantations
Political problem- Anthropocene is a crisis for democratic politics; technocratic temptation for Earth System Governance, democracies tend to be localised, if it effects globe, how does one address these issues critically and effectively
Anthropocene and new ontologies
ontology- concerned with structure of being, how do we say something is this, how do we know? epistemology- way of knowing, knowledge practices, what’s that thing and how does it appear, methodology, create methods for knowing
