This constellation of texts addresses the conditions of the Anthropocene, that new era in which “we can no longer separate the biological agency of humans from their geological agency, an era in which humans have become a “force of nature”. (Dipesh Chakrabarty) As Chakrabarti puts it, “For first time ever, we consciously connect events that happen on vast, geological scales…with what we might do in everyday life.” (p.6) The Anthropocene requires us to think on these two vastly different scales of time, but the difference is not simply a matter of scale. The debates between various versions and critiques of the term entail a constant conceptual traffic between World history and Earth history — between human-centered and planet-centered thinking, between historical time and geological time.
Extinctions past, present, and future are an increasingly important aspect of that story.
The Earth is currently estimated to be 4.54 billion years old, plus or minus about 50 million years, and its history is to be read in the rocks and their stratigraphic formations. Geohistory extends back into “deep time”, the earliest period the discipline of Geology can document. The history of geology is an account of competing narratives. Geological time itself is defined by significant events in the history of the Earth and resembles Aristotle's version of time as the “measure of change with respect to before and after." The units of geological time vary in length and range from the largest unit, the aeon, to the smallest ones, the epoch and age. The most recent epoch was the Holocene, which began approximately 11,650 years before present, after the Last Glacial Period. While the Holocene was punctuated by a series of ice ages, it was nevertheless relatively mild and dependable, and most of human culture flourished in it. At this point, it is widely agreed that the Holocene is over, and the current geological era, the Anthropocene is the first to be defined by anthropogenic impacts. (see climate change)
Sir Ernest Shakleton’s expedition on the Endurance of was an epic battle with the forces of nature. The sea ice crushed and sank the ship in the Antarctic winter of 1915. Led by Shakleton, the crew managed to survive. In 2021, the wreck was located, preserved by the icy sea. While the expedition itself did not contribute to anthropogenicclimate change, it symbolizes the determination of humans to master the forces of nature and leave no place on earth unexplored.
This inquiry into the cluster of terms around the Anthropocene was researched and written in 2021 - 2022 in connection with my teaching at the Pratt Institute. It addresses critques of the Anthropocene through alternative geopolitical concepts such as the Plantationocene, and Capitalocene, and Gaia. It includes component segments of Earth Systems Science, including the Biosphere, the Technosphere (and its technofossils), the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere as well as the cryosphere. These bio-geophysical systems are defining elements of global ecology today.
The meanings and contradictions inherent within those terms are the topic of rhetorical and political discussions of We, Us,and Them, in the issues around group identity, the proliferation of compound expressions such as Post- and -cene, and new twists on existing concepts, (like subject) into hyperobjects and hyposubjects
Running through these concepts and narratives are the likelihood of great extinctions of species, the loss of biodiversity, climate change, and the obstacles to achieving any form of climate justice. Proposed measures to combat these anthropogenic developments include Geoengineering, possible futures of cities in the Anthropocene and their ruins.
Other political issues raised around the Anthropocene are the forms of Globalization, the influences of neo-liberalism, and nationality (see Capitalocene and Plantationocene above)