Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene

Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene

Author: Katherine Gibson

Publisher: punctum books

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 0988234068

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"The recent 10,000 year history of climatic stability on Earth that enabled the rise of agriculture and domestication, the growth of cities, numerous technological revolutions, and the emergence of modernity is now over. We accept that in the latest phase of this era, modernity is unmaking the stability that enabled its emergence. Over the 21st century severe and numerous weather disasters, scarcity of key resources, major changes in environments, enormous rates of extinction, and other forces that threaten life are set to increase. But we are deeply worried that current responses to these challenges are focused on market-driven solutions and thus have the potential to further endanger our collective commons. Today public debate is polarized. On one hand we are confronted with the immobilizing effects of knowing "the facts" about climate change. On the other we see a powerful will to ignorance and the effects of a pernicious collaboration between climate change skeptics and industry stakeholders. Clearly, to us, the current crisis calls for new ways of thinking and producing knowledge. Our collective inclination has been to go on in an experimental and exploratory mode, in which we refuse to foreclose on options or jump too quickly to "solutions." In this spirit we feel the need to acknowledge the tragedy of anthropogenic climate change. It is important to tap into the emotional richness of grief about extinction and loss without getting stuck on the "blame game." Our research must allow for the expression of grief and mourning for what has been and is daily being lost. But it is important to adopt a reparative rather than a purely critical stance toward knowing. Might it be possible to welcome the pain of "knowing" if it led to different ways of working with non-human others, recognizing a confluence of desire across the human/non-human divide and the vital rhythms that animate the world? Our discussions have focused on new types of ecological economic thinking and ethical practices of living. We are interested in: Resituating humans within ecological systems Resituating non-humans in ethical terms Systems of survival that are resilient in the face of change Diversity and dynamism in ecologies and economies Ethical responsibility across space and time, between places and in the future Creating new ecological economic narratives. Starting from the recognition that there is no "one size fits all" response to climate change, we are concerned to develop an ethics of place that appreciates the specificity and richness of loss and potentiality. While connection to earth others might be an overarching goal, it will be to certain ecologies, species, atmospheres and materialities that we actually connect. We could see ourselves as part of country, accepting the responsibility not forgotten by Indigenous people all over the world, of "singing" country into health. This might mean cultivating the capacity for deep listening to each other, to the land, to other species and thereby learning to be affected and transformed by the body-world we are part of; seeing the body as a center of animation but not the ground of a separate self; renouncing the narcissistic defense of omnipotence and an equally narcissistic descent into despair. We think that we can work against singular and global representations of "the problem" in the face of which any small, multiple, place-based action is rendered hopeless. We can choose to read for difference rather than dominance; think connectivity rather than hyper-separation; look for multiplicity - multiple climate changes, multiple ways of living with earth others. We can find ways forward in what is already being done in the here and now; attend to the performative effects of any analysis; tell stories in a hopeful and open way - allowing for the possibility that life is dormant rather than dead. We can use our critical capacities to recover our rich traditions of counter-culture and theorize them outside the mainstream/alternative binary. All these ways of thinking and researching give rise to new strategies for going forward. Think of the chapters of this book as tentative hoverings, as the fluttering of butterfly wings, scattering germs of ideas that can take root and grow."--Publisher's website.


Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life

Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life

Author: Edward O. Wilson

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2016-03-07

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1631490834

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"An audacious and concrete proposal…Half-Earth completes the 86-year-old Wilson’s valedictory trilogy on the human animal and our place on the planet." —Jedediah Purdy, New Republic In his most urgent book to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and world-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson states that in order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. In this "visionary blueprint for saving the planet" (Stephen Greenblatt), Half-Earth argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. Identifying actual regions of the planet that can still be reclaimed—such as the California redwood forest, the Amazon River basin, and grasslands of the Serengeti, among others—Wilson puts aside the prevailing pessimism of our times and "speaks with a humane eloquence which calls to us all" (Oliver Sacks).


The Human Planet

The Human Planet

Author: Simon L. Lewis

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2022-04-12

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 0300243030

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An exploration of the Anthropocene and “a relentless reckoning of how we, as a species, got ourselves into the mess we’re in today” (The Wall Street Journal). Meteorites, mega-volcanoes, and plate tectonics—the old forces of nature—have transformed Earth for millions of years. They are now joined by a new geological force—humans. Our actions have driven Earth into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. For the first time in our home planet's 4.5-billion-year history a single species is increasingly dictating Earth’s future. To some the Anthropocene symbolizes a future of superlative control of our environment. To others it is the height of hubris, the illusion of our mastery over nature. Whatever your view, just below the surface of this odd-sounding scientific word—the Anthropocene—is a heady mix of science, philosophy, history, and politics linked to our deepest fears and utopian visions. Tracing our environmental impacts through time, scientists Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin reveal a new view of human history and a new outlook for the future of humanity in the unstable world we have created.


Call Your "Mutha'"

Call Your

Author: Jane Caputi

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0190902701

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Introduction: In the name of the "mutha'" -- What's going on? -- The dirty/earthy mother -- The gods we worship -- The Anthropocene is a motherfucker -- Color Mother Nature gone -- "Feed the green" -- "Word is born" -- Call (on) your "mutha'" -- Coda: "Gather and vote."


The Ahuman Manifesto

The Ahuman Manifesto

Author: Patricia MacCormack

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1350081116

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We are in the midst of a growing ecological crisis. Developing technologies and cultural interventions are throwing the status of “human” into question. It is against this context that Patricia McCormack delivers her expert justification for the “ahuman”. An alternative to “posthuman” thought, the term paves the way for thinking that doesn't dissolve into nihilism and despair, but actively embraces issues like human extinction, vegan abolition, atheist occultism, death studies, a refusal of identity politics, deep ecology, and the apocalypse as an optimistic beginning. In order to suggest vitalistic, perhaps even optimistic, ways to negotiate some of the difficulties in thinking and acting in the world, this book explores five key contemporary themes: · Identity · Spirituality · Art · Death · The apocalypse Collapsing activism, artistic practice and affirmative ethics, while introducing some radical contemporary ideas and addressing specifically modern phenomena like death cults, intersectional identity politics and capitalist enslavement of human and nonhuman organisms to the point of 'zombiedom', The Ahuman Manifesto navigates the ways in which we must compose the human differently, specifically beyond nihilism and post- and trans-humanism and outside human privilege. This is so that we can actively think and live viscerally, with connectivity (actual not virtual), and with passion and grace, toward a new world.


Call Your "Mutha'"

Call Your

Author: Jane Caputi

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-06-24

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0190902728

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The ecocide and domination of nature that is the Anthropocene does not represent the actions of all humans, but that of Man, the Western and masculine identified corporate, military, intellectual, and political class that long has masked itself as the civilized and the human. In this book, Jane Caputi looks at two major "myths" of the Earth, one ancient and one contemporary, and uses them to devise a manifesto for the survival of nature--which includes human beings--in our current ecological crisis. These are the myths of Mother Earth and the Anthropocene. The former personifies nature as a figure with the power to give life or death, and one who shares a communal destiny with all other living things. The latter myth sees humans as exceptional for exerting an implicitly sexual domination of Mother Earth through technological achievement, from the plow to synthetic biology and artificial intelligence. Much that we take for granted as inferior or taboo is based in a splitting apart of inherent unities: culture-nature; up-down, male-female; spirit-matter; mind-body; life-death; sacred-profane; reason-madness; human-beast; light-dark. The first is valued and the second reviled. This provides the framework for any number of related injustices--sexual, racial, and ecological. This book resists this pattern, in part, by deliberately putting the dirty back into the mind, the obscene back into the sacred, and vice versa. Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice argue for the significance and reality of the Earth Mother. Caputi engages specifically with the powers of that Mother, ones made taboo and even obscene throughout heteropatriarchal traditions. Jane Caputi rejects misogynist and colonialist stereotypes, and examines the potency of the Earth Mother in order to deepen awareness of how our relationship to the Earth went astray and what might be done to address this. Drawing upon Indigenous and African American, ecofeminism, ecowomanism, green activism, femme, queer and gender non-binary philosophies, literature and arts, Afrofuturism, and popular culture images, Call Your "Mutha" contends that the Anthropocene is not evidence so much of Man's supremacy, but instead a sign that Mother Nature-Earth, faced with disrespect, is turning away, withdrawing the support systems necessary for life and continuance. Caputi looks at contemporary narratives and artwork to consider the ways in which respect for the autonomous and potent Earth Mother and a call for their return has already reasserted itself into our political and popular culture.


Staying with the Trouble

Staying with the Trouble

Author: Donna J. Haraway

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2016-08-25

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0822373785

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In the midst of spiraling ecological devastation, multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants. She eschews referring to our current epoch as the Anthropocene, preferring to conceptualize it as what she calls the Chthulucene, as it more aptly and fully describes our epoch as one in which the human and nonhuman are inextricably linked in tentacular practices. The Chthulucene, Haraway explains, requires sym-poiesis, or making-with, rather than auto-poiesis, or self-making. Learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged earth will prove more conducive to the kind of thinking that would provide the means to building more livable futures. Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier SF—string figures, science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, so far—Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway's reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time.


The Children of the Anthropocene

The Children of the Anthropocene

Author: Bella Lack

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2022-06-30

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0241501091

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'An inspirational manifesto for change' Caroline Lucas, former leader of The Green Party 'A remarkable and important book' Steve Backshall, Naturalist, Broadcaster, and Author 'Astute, erudite and crystalline, Bella writes with visionary clarity and passion [...] It's a wonderful book' Dara McAnulty, award-winning author of Diary of a Young Naturalist ____________________________ Across the planet, the futures of young people hang in the balance as they face the harsh realities of the environmental crisis. Isn't it time we made their voices heard? The Children of the Anthropocene, by conservationist and activist Bella Lack, chronicles the lives of the diverse young people on the frontlines of the environmental crisis around the world, amplifying the voices of those living at the heart of the crisis. Advocating for the protection of both people and the planet, Bella restores the beating heart to global environmental issues, from air pollution to deforestation and overconsumption, by telling the stories of those most directly affected. Transporting us from the humming bounty of Ecuador's Choco Rainforest and the graceful arcs of the Himalayan Mountains, to the windswept plains and vibrant vistas of life in Altiplano, Bella speaks to young activists from around the world including Dara McAnulty, Afroz Shah and Artemisa Xakriabá, and brings the crisis vividly to life. It's time we passed the mic and listened to different perspectives. Bella's manifestos for change will inspire and mobilize you to rediscover the wonders and wilds of nature and, ultimately, change the way you think about our planet in crisis. This is your chance to hear the urgent stories of an endangered species too often overlooked: the children of the Anthropocene. ____________________________ 'Extraordinarily moving, wild and engaging - the book of the moment' Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland and author of Climate Justice 'A visionary statement for the future [...] Pragmatic, positive & beautifully written' Ben Macdonald, Award-Winning Conservation Writer, Wildlife TV Producer and Naturalist


Living in the Anthropocene

Living in the Anthropocene

Author: W. John Kress

Publisher: Smithsonian Institution

Published: 2017-09-26

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1588346021

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Explores the causes and implications of the Anthropocene, or Age of Humans, from multiple points of view including anthropological, scientific, social, artistic, and economic. Although we arrived only recently in Earth's timeline, humans are driving major changes to the planet's ecosystems. Even now, the basic requirements for human life--air, water, shelter, food, nature, and culture--are rapidly transforming the planet as billions of people compete for resources. These changes have become so noticeable on a global scale that scientists believe we are living in a new chapter in Earth's story: the Anthropocene, or Age of Humans. Living in the Anthropocene: Earth in the Age of Humans is a vital look at this era. The book contextualizes the Anthropocene by presenting paleontological, historical, and contemporary views of various human effects on Earth. It discusses environmental and biological systems that have been changed and affected; the causes of the Anthropocene, such as agricultural spread, pollution, and urbanization; how societies are responding and adapting to these changes; how these changes have been represented in art, film, television, and literature; and finally, offers a look toward the future of our environment and our own lives.