The term “Anthropocene,” which has recently been the subject of much discussion, encapsulates the realization that humans are profoundly altering the planet’s ecosystem on a global scale. Human industrialization, transportation, consumption, and waste are altering the planet’s overall structure with the same force as global geological forces throughout Earth’s history, such as cyanobacteria, meteorite impacts, or volcanic eruptions. Consequently, geologists have proposed no longer referring to the present geological epoch as the Holocene, but rather as the Anthropocene. This ecological upheaval is multifaceted and of global scope: it ranges from global warming and changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation systems, through the disruption of water cycles, the consumption of non-renewable resources and the overexploitation of renewable ones, and the rapid loss of biodiversity, changes in weather patterns and landscapes, to the accumulation of non-biodegradable waste and overpopulation.
[av_heading heading='Why not just stick with the good old term "sustainability"?' tag='h3' style=" size=" subheading_active=" subheading_size='15' padding='10' color=" custom_font=" admin_preview_bg="][/av_heading]
For two reasons: Sustainability implies that we can “keep going this way forever.” Sustainable management means continually regenerating our resources so that they will still be available two or three generations from now. But simply carrying on as we have been in the long term—according to the diagnosis of the Anthropocene—is no longer an option today. Furthermore, traditional environmental policy aimed at sustainability has often been limited to local measures. The ecological problems of the present , however , are not local but global in nature. In times of climate change, there is no such thing as “untouched nature” anymore. Talk of the Anthropocene, however, is not so much aimed at abandoning traditional environmental agendas as at radicalizing them. Aware that existential ecological thresholds have been crossed here and now, it is not sustainability but radical change that is the order of the day.
[av_heading heading='What might this change entail, and what would be its foundations?' tag='h3' style=" size=" subheading_active=" subheading_size='15' padding='10' color=" custom_font=" admin_preview_bg="][/av_heading]
The term “Anthropocene” refers to nothing less than a different way of being in the world. This means redefining humanity—namely, as beings who must coexist with other non-human life forms without objectifying or harming them. It means understanding the social as something that is not limited exclusively to humans (but also includes animals, plants, landscapes, the atmosphere, etc.). But it also implies other forms of human coexistence. Some early critics of the term took issue with the fact that it posited a single humanity as a whole as the namesake. However, the lively and highly productive debate surrounding the Anthropocene has long since shown that the term by no means erases the differences between rich and poor, between high-tech and low-tech ways of life, or between large and small ecological footprints. Rather, the Anthropocene specifically addresses the global ecological costs of the wealth of industrialized nations and the conditions for global environmental justice.
Living in the Anthropocene means, not least, seeking out ways of life and forms of society that offer an alternative to the prevailing neoliberal market system. These can include subsistence-based agricultural practices, as well as new forms of community-based economic activity and non-monetary cooperation, such as neighborhood networks and citizens’ initiatives.
The realization that we are living in the Anthropocene calls for a rethinking of the foundations of human life on this planet. What kind of relationship with nature do we need—one that no longer views nature merely as a “resource” or a “commodity”?
What kind of ethics do we need if not only humans, but also other living beings and natural entities are to have rights? What would rules of fairness between rich and poor societies look like? What would it mean to protect global commons such as the air, the oceans, landscapes, and coastlines on a global scale?
The fact that humans have become a geological force with global impact is not a cause for despair. Rather, it is a call to assume an unprecedented level of responsibility, both collectively and individually.
[av_promobox button='no' label='About the Author' link=" link_target='_blank' color='theme-color' custom_bg='#444444' custom_font='#ffffff’ size=’snmall’ icon_select=’no’ icon=’ue800’ font=’entypo-fontello’ box_color=“ box_custom_font=’#ffffff’ box_custom_bg=’#444444’ box_custom_border=’#333333’ admin_preview_bg=“]
About the Author
Eva Horn has been a professor of modern German literature at the University of Vienna since 2009. She has conducted research and taught at universities in Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and France, most recently as a Distinguished Max Kade Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York. Her study *Zukunft als Katastrophe* (The Future as Catastrophe), which explores modernist fantasies of catastrophe and prevention, was published by Fischer Verlag in 2014. Her research focuses on disaster fiction since the 18th century and the relationship between literature, political theory, and knowledge. She is currently working on an introduction to the concept of the Anthropocene and a cultural history of climate.
[/av_promobox]