The question of the human in the Anthropocene debate

Abstract

1 The question of the human in the Anthropocene debate (forthcoming in European Journal of Social Theory) Daniel Chernilo * Abstract The Anthropocene debate is among the ambitious scientific programmes of the past 15 or 20 years. Its main arguments is that, from a geological point of view, humans are to be seen as a major force of nature so that our current geological epoch is depicted as dominated by human activity. The Anthropocene has slowly become a contemporary meta--narrative that seeks to make sense of the 'earth--system' as a whole, and one whose vision of the future is dystopian rather than progressive: as the exploitation of the planet's natural resources has reached tipping point, the very prospects of the continuity of human life are being questioned. My goal in this article is to explore the implicit notions of the human - indeed of the anthropos - that are being mobilised in the Anthropocene debate. I will proceed in two steps: first, I shall spell out the main the main arguments of the Anthropocene debate with a particular focus on trying to unpack its implicit ideas of the human. Secondly, I use of my approach to philosophical sociology to highlight some of the limitations and contradictions of the ideas of agency, reflexivity and responsibility that underpin the Anthropocene debate.

Earth System Law for the Anthropocene

“…The foregoing discussion clearly points to the dystopian nature of the Anthropocene trope, urging as it does, a critical reflection on the human-driven causes of its socio-ecological crisis and of innovative ways (regulatory, technological and otherwise) to confront this crisis. To be sure, "[A] futurology of crises is central to the cry for political action of most modern meta-narratives: in this case, the direct connection to the politics of global warming, and environmental issues more broadly, allows the scientific findings of the Anthropocene to be readily used in wider public debates" [6] (p. 45). While an important part of these debates will focus on and encourage the development of utopian innovations such as geo-engineering to cope with a decaying Earth system, society will also have to re-interrogate, and ultimately re-imagine, its many social regulatory institutions, including law, that have been created over thousands of years to promote and sustain the human enterprise.…”

“…This is so because these elements are deeply intertwined: the stability of the ecological element is required for the human-social element to flourish, while the human-social element impacts the overall stability of the Earth system, including its ecological element. In this view, "humans and nature have become 'definitively' joined together" [6] (p. 47); a realization which prompts us to rethink how Earth system law could foster a greater degree of harmonious co-existence and the possibility for humans not to dominate and exploit the Earth system, but to live with other Earth system elements in a harmonious and symbiotic way [61].…”

“…The steady emergence of the idea of transnational environmental law and governance is an example of the type of juridical innovations that could drive such transformations [69]. Temporally, Earth system law will have to better realign short term benefits with long-term impacts [6] (p. 48). Social institutions such as law are unapologetically designed to address the "here and the now" as a result of their dependence on short-termist political and economic needs that legitimize their existence, and that must be immediately satisfied without much regard for the needs and concerns of future (human and non-human) generations.…”

“…It is effectively an all-encompassing framework that seeks to make sense of the 'earth-system' as a whole: it delineates the planet's natural history and turns it into a new geological period, it specifies the particular influence of human action on the emergence of that epoch, and it accounts for the relationships between the 'scientific' and the 'political' implications of these transformations. [6] (p. 45) By linking the "scientific" and "political" implications of Earth system transformations, and to the extent that it symbolizes a "domain of urgency" [7] that demands a drastic and urgent change in the way humans interact with other Earth system elements, the Anthropocene trope essentially upends many traditional assumptions about the purpose, functions, design, and effectiveness of our human (or social) regulatory systems, including laws "that are a past cause, present consequence, and future adaptation of our ecosystem changes" [8] (p. 5).…”

Storytelling: From the early Anthropocene to the good or the bad Anthropocene

“…It challenges conventional understandings of culture, society and nature as self-contained ontological domains (Chernilo, 2016). As Colebrook (2016: 82) states: "The Anthropocene is not only a geological declaration, but a series of diagnoses that generate imperatives."…”