Abstract
The Anthropocene is the result of anthropogenic alteration of the Earth system, and is particularly widely studied in the Earth System Sciences. However, many authors call for an understanding of the concept of the Anthropocene to be developed in Humanities and Social Sciences (Reid et al., 2010; Malm and Hornborg, 2014; Lövbrand et al., 2014; Federau, 2017), in the wake of the Amsterdam Declaration of 2001, which reinforced interdisciplinary cooperation on environmental issues in international programmes, integrating the Humanities and Social Sciences. Such is the goal of this next chapter, which looks at the concept of Anthropocene from a political perspective.
At the Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change in July 2001, the four chairs of international programmes spoke of the worsening impact of human activities on planet Earth: the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the International Programme of Biodiversity Science, DIVERSITAS.
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Notes
- 1.
In his essay, L’Anthropocène contre l’histoire – Le réchauffement climatique à l’ère du capital (original version: Fossil capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming), Andreas Malm identifies the divisions between humans (rich capitalists and lowly working peasants) as one of the root causes of the entry into the Anthropocene.
- 2.
There are other accounts of the Anthropocene, highlighted by Bonneuil. These include the idea of the Anthropocene as collapse, marked by the politics of degrowth, or the eco-Marxist idea of the Anthropocene as unequal ecological exchange (Bonneuil, 2014, pp. 3–4). This reading denounces Britain’s unequal ecological exchange with a range of other countries. Britain benefited from more than ten million hectares of exploited land in addition to its territory, which facilitated the entry into the Industrial Age. Christophe Bonneuil shows that from this eco-Marxist standpoint, the Industrial Revolution was not only the result of techno-scientific progress but also of a global geopolitical configuration (including wars, imperialism and slavery). Moreover, the eco-Marxist interpretation also views the history of capitalism in light of its unsustainable environmental component – an intrinsic characteristic of capitalism. Its advantages is that it allows us ‘to inscribe the reality of material and energy flows and ecological processes in a critical history of capitalism’ (Bonneuil, 2014, p. 6). It allows us to show the way in which the capitalist system appropriates hours of work as limited bio-geo-physical resources.
- 3.
After the Enlightenment severed humanity from God and conferred ontological autonomy on humans, industrial modernity completed the process of empowerment by placing humanity a step apart from nature (Papaux, 2015). This disengagement appears to be an anthropological error. It refers to the refusal to acknowledge the limits of the biosphere, and our own finitude (Bourg, 2012; Bourg & Papaux, 2015). The decision is loaded with consequences and is not sustainable in the long term. The narrative generated by the Anthropocene gives the lie to a certain type of glorious discourse on the Industrial Revolution and the emancipation it facilitated.
- 4.
This is a particularly original dating proposed by Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin. It corresponds to the stratigraphically perceptible impact of the collision between the old and new worlds. This event marks the beginning of a global reorganisation of humanity on Earth, with common foodstuffs, and a reorganisation of animal and plant life. Most striking, though, is the fact that the arrival of Europeans in America in 1492 was accompanied by a significant decline in the world population, which can be seen in the sediment record. Indeed, America’s population declined considerably, from between 54 and 61 million in 1492 to 6 million in 1650 – this collapse can be attributed to wars, slavery, diseases brought by the Europeans, and famines. This decrease in population led to a decrease in agricultural land and an increase in the area of forests, estimated at 50 million hectares. This resulted in a decrease in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere by between 7 and 10 ppm, which shows in the Antarctic ice between 1570 and 1620.
- 5.
The term ‘technoscience’, used by the philosopher of science Gilbert Hottois for several decades, refers to a technical operationality, as opposed to the symbolic dimension of language. Hence, technoscience refers to the lack of distinction between science and its applications, and thus to the departure from the axiological neutrality usually conferred on science. It seems important to regain the separation between science, technology and politics (Jacq & Guespin-Michel, 2015, p. 112). It is also important, in thinking about the contemporary period, to bear in mind that the considerable acceleration of production of all kinds of objects – especially technological ones – hinders our capacity to think, as identified by Gunther Anders (1956/2002).
- 6.
Strictly based on stratigraphic data.
- 7.
Haraway views the Anthropocene as a frontier rather than as a geological epoch; as she says, what comes after will not be like what came before (the Holocene). From this standpoint, ‘our job is to make the Anthropocene as short/thin as possible and ‘to cultivate with each other in every way imaginable epochs to come that can replenish refuge’ (Haraway, 2015, p. 160). She believes that a new name is needed –one which reflects the convergence and collaboration of all possible forces to allow for the human adventure’s continued survival. This is what she calls the Chthulucene, which refers at once to the past, the present and the future, and to the convergence of human and non-human forces. Haraway’s Chthulucene is a form of Earth metaphor similar to the Gaia hypothesis, with emphasis being placed on the powers of the Earth and of all its inhabitants, human and non-human alike.
- 8.
Moreover, the notion of civilisation has the important advantage of being a non-ideologically-based descriptor – unlike the capitalist homo oeconomicus.
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Wallenhorst, N. (2023). The Political Ambiguities Surrounding the Anthropocene. In: A Critical Theory for the Anthropocene. Anthropocene – Humanities and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37738-9_4
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