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Humans have become so powerful that we have disrupted the functioning of the Earth System as a whole, bringing on a new geological epoch - the Anthropocene - one in which the serene and clement conditions that allowed civilisation to flourish are disappearing and we quail before 'the wakened giant'. The emergence of a conscious creature capable of using technology to bring about a rupture in the Earth's geochronology is an event of monumental significance, on a par with the arrival of civilisation itself. What does it mean to have arrived at this point, where human history and Earth history collide? Some interpret the Anthropocene as no more than a development of what they already know, obscuring and deflating its profound significance. But the Anthropocene demands that we rethink everything. The modern belief in the free, reflexive being making its own future by taking control of its environment - even to the point of geoengineering - is now impossible because we have rendered the Earth more unpredictable and less controllable, a disobedient planet. At the same time, all attempts by progressives to cut humans down to size by attacking anthropocentrism come up against the insurmountable fact that human beings now possess enough power to change the Earth's course. It's too late to turn back the geological clock, and there is no going back to premodern ways of thinking. We must face the fact that humans are at the centre of the world, even if we must give the idea that we can control the planet. These truths call for a new kind of anthropocentrism, a philosophy by which we might use our power responsibly and find a way to live on a defiant Earth.… (more)
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In the Preface to Defiant Earth, Clive Hamilton asks a hard question: if science says the climate is changing cataclysmically, why are we still making plans as if it weren’t? Why do we study the century of China, the future need for a 15 hour workweek, or life under the
The Anthropocene began in 1945, when the chart began to look like a hockey stick. For a couple of hundred years before, HS polluted, but its numbers were so small and technology so minimal, it made no measurable difference to the Earth System. Hamilton’s argument is that the Anthropocene is a full rupture, not a continuation. It is too late to go back to the Holocene. That’s over, and spraying shrapnel into the atmosphere will not bring it back. From now on, everything HS does will result in an angry response. While HS tinkers with the balance of nature, the Earth System, which includes everything, responds with far more power.
Hamilton says HS deserves “credit” for its “agency” in the Anthropocene, because not only has it has caused this rupture, but HS could decide not to continue if it so desired. This is of course absurd and nothing in the book backs it up. HS had no idea what it was doing when it loused up the environment, and is and has always been out of control. HS could in no way stop this, and has never been able to even alter the course. Had HS had the simple decent courtesy to control its own numbers, then it could have remained inside the Earth System, and the system could have dealt with its effluent. But HS was too ignorant to do even that little.
Doubling down, two thirds through Defiant Earth, the real arrogance comes out, as Hamilton claims HS gives Earth meaning, and without HS Earth is nothing.
From what I see, Earth is like a wet dog, about to shake the annoying water out of its fur. When it has rid itself of the irritant, the violent storm will calm. It doesn’t matter to Earth or Earth System science that Homo Sapiens is the smartest thing it ever produced. It is an irritant, breaking the rules and operating outside the system. Credit is not a concept I would associate with these random, irresponsible and uncoordinated acts.
Hamilton argues thoroughly and I disagree with him totally.
David Wineberg