After the anthropocene: green republicanism in a post-capitalist world anne fremaux - Get the ebook
After the Anthropocene: Green Republicanism in a Post-Capitalist World Anne Fremaux
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/after-the-anthropocene-green-republicanism-in-a-post -capitalist-world-anne-fremaux/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
Post fascist Japan political culture in Kamakura after the Second World War Hein
the Anthropocene Green Republicanism in a Post-Capitalist World
Anne Fremaux
Environmental Politics and Theory
Series Editors
Joel Jay Kassiola
Department of Political Science
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA, USA
John Barry
School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics
Queen’s University Belfast Belfast, UK
The premise of this series is that the current environmental crisis cannot be solved by technological innovation alone and that the environmental challenges we face today are, at their root, political crises involving political values. Therefore, environmental politics and theory are of the utmost social signifcance. Growing public consciousness of the environmental crisis and its human and nonhuman impacts exemplifed by the worldwide urgency and political activity associated with the problem and consequences of climate change make it imperative to design and achieve a sustainable and socially just society. The series collects, extends, and develops ideas from the burgeoning empirical and normative scholarship spanning many disciplines with a global perspective. It addresses the need for social change from the hegemonic consumer capitalist society in order to realize environmental sustainability and social justice.
More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14968
Anne Fremaux After the Anthropocene
Green Republicanism in a Post-Capitalist World
Anne Fremaux School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy
Queen’s University
Belfast, UK
Environmental Politics and Theory
ISBN 978-3-030-11119-9 ISBN 978-3-030-11120-5 (eBook)
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
P
reface : T he ( real ) M eaning of T he ‘ e cological c risis ’
In political and social science, the term ‘crisis’ (from gr./lat.: to discern, to judge) originally referred to the phase in a trial when a decision or a verdict was made prior to closing a case. In medical science, this term describes the turning point of a disease requiring irrevocable decision, after which the patient’s prognosis gets better or worse (eventual death). In both cases, the word ‘crisis’ refers to a short period of time, a stage in a sequence of events, where a critical point has been reached that demands immediate actions and resolutions to remedy or minimize consequences and to reestablish order and stability. To use the expression ‘environmental/ecological crisis’ to defne the current ecological predicament suggests, therefore, that the collapse of ecosystems we are witnessing is sudden, recent, and about to be overcome if good and quick decisions are made. Under this view, the ecological predicament is ‘only’ a transitory state that could reach a new equilibrium after a ‘good treatment’ or a crucial and decisive intervention. Because language infuences—not to say shapes— the way we perceive reality, the use of such a euphemism to encapsulate the environmental collapse is not without implications. Indeed, the myth of nature’s recovery (or quick healing potential of nature) and the prospect of a stabilized state regained after a ‘passing phenomenon,’ all ideas associated with the expression ‘ecological crisis,’ are conducive to relativizing the current ecological catastrophes and promoting reformist policies or other delaying strategies that neither acknowledge the gravity of the situation nor address its deep-rooted causes. However and contrary to what the expression ‘environmental crisis’1 involves, the ecological degradation
is not sudden (even though the acceleration of the collapse seems today to reach a dramatic destabilizing and disruptive pace): It is a phenomenon that fnds its historical origins in the well-documented human’s abuse of nature, especially since the industrial revolution; it is not a ‘passing’ problem, like the ‘mid-life crisis’; and it will not be resolved by ‘quick’ fxes (such as technological fxes). The handling of this ‘crisis’ will never lead to a ‘resolution’ insofar as the previous conditions of life on Earth (or the world as we knew it) will never be restored. In reality, the so-called ‘ecological crisis’ is a complex and intricate set of long-term and irreversible changes that have entailed and will continue to entail signifcant devastating losses and irreparable damages. It is not a recent phenomenon but an enduring process that has already reached the collective consciousness since several decades (at least since Rachel Carson’s essay Silent Spring in 1962). The current state of affairs could be more appropriately defned as a general and complex environmental collapse, whose characteristics are to be simultaneously sudden and slow, globalized and very localized, scientifically substantiated and yet unpredictable in its multiple effects (feedback mechanisms)—although in need, as the terminology of the word ‘crisis’ suggests, of urgent decisions. Despite its partial validity, the catchword ‘crisis,’ whose usefulness has been infated and devalued (misused, overused, abused) to describe a variety of predicaments in which hypermodernity fnds itself (‘economic–’, ‘social–’, ‘political–’, ‘fnancial crisis’) and to which so far no genuine remediation has been sought/found, clearly contributes to understate the gravity of the situation when used in the expression ‘environmental/ecological crisis.’ It will, therefore, only be used in this book for lack of a better expression to account for the dramatic/tragic,2 large-scale degradation (destruction) of ecosystems and interrelated systems of life that humans and non-humans are currently experiencing—what may be considered, given the magnitude of the phenomenon, as an ‘ecological holocaust.’ This is the most prominent and serious challenge the human race has ever had to battle with, and we can no longer deny that, at this juncture of our existence, humanity is failing. As expressed in the second World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity (Ripple et al., 2017), we are fast approaching many of the limits of what the biosphere and ecosystems can tolerate without substantial and irreversible harm done to all forms of life. We have, indeed, failed to address most of the impending or potential ecological damages inficted upon planet Earth. ‘Humanity,’ as pointed out by the Warning, ‘is not taking the urgent step needed to safeguard our imperiled biosphere’ (p. 1026).
While in agreement with the Warning, this book questions the notion of ‘humanity’ put forward by scientists as being responsible for the predicament and contends more particularly that those responsible for the current situation are, instead, the Western and Westernized wealthy countries and peoples of the industrialized capitalist world.3 They are currently jeopardizing the future of humanity and life on Earth by their incapacity/unwillingness to reform their intense and immense material consumption and to reappraise the entrenchment of their social organization in undifferentiated economic growth and arrogant anthropocentric narratives of control and mastery of nature. In effect, wealthy material societies are unable to adaptively change the way they inhabit the earth, and amend/reorganize themselves and their unsustainable high-energy and high-material consuming patterns and paths of life. With this present unsustainable manner in which Western and Westernized countries are living, no positive changes and no progress can be attained until radical shifts in modes of being are seriously taken and embraced, in the economic, social, cultural, and psychological dimensions of existence. There is no small irony in the fact that what has been named the ‘Anthropocene,’ or the ‘age of humans’—attesting to human ‘dominion’ over nature—is also a period when the survival of humanity has never been so much at risk. After 11,700 years of relative climate and geological stability in the Holocene,4 the Earth is now being so heavily transformed and manipulated by human technologies that it is responding by repaying us ‘in kind’ and reciprocates with calamities and disasters in catastrophic proportions. This phenomenon is described in what follows as ‘the return of nature in the Anthropocene,’ or the fact that global capitalism has gone so far in depleting natural resources and causing global ecological degradation that Earth’s life-supporting systems are becoming dangerously unstable, currently leaving the steady trajectory that characterized the Holocene.
It is increasingly clear that the disconnection and hyper-separation of humans from nature that has taken place within modernity and the development of growth-based economies in industrially developed nations is responsible for the ecological crisis. Moreover, the ‘great acceleration’ of GDP, population growth, consumption, urbanization, water and energy use that followed the 1950s has signifcantly increased environmental crises, causing an irreversible loss of species and biodiversity, rising climatic instability and levels of pollution which today put human
and non-human life forms under threat. We live, indeed, in an epoch characterized by a destabilized global climate, deforestation, the melting of glaciers and large ‘dead zones’ in coastal marine, unprecedented extinction rates of species, the tremendous presence of radionuclides, microplastic particles and aluminum in the core elements of matter, and the beginning of massive environmental migration due to environmental changes that compromise the well-being and security of livelihood for millions of people. The infuence Western growth-based anthropocentric industrial societies have exerted on the planet since more than 200 years is still costing us today numerous non-manageable risks that modernists and hyper-modernists unrefexively consider as the ‘normal’ collateral effects of ‘progress.’ Wealthy societies of the Global North have so dangerously impacted the planet that humanity (as a whole this time) is now endangered by bio/natural catastrophes. Climate scientists keep warning us that we are, for instance, in danger of producing an uncontrollable runaway greenhouse effect that will lead to radical ecosystemic transformations that might result in massive, large-scale destructions of living beings and ecological communities, and ultimately the possible extinction of civilizations.
This book’s contention is that the ‘Anthropocene,’ or ‘Age of humans’ (Anthropos), is the apex of the Western-induced ecological crisis, and that the decisions made in the name of this concept will set the stage for the future of all species. The ‘Anthropocene’ is described here as a controversial notion, not so much for the empirical claims that it makes—that is, the fact that humans have become a dominant geological force—but rather, for its ontological, ethical, and (a)political assumptions. As it will be demonstrated, the ‘Anthropocene’ does not mean so much our victory over nature but quite the opposite: It indicates our ecological defeat in the face of events that exceed our technical (‘impotent’) power. What the Anthropocene—or the culmination of human dominion over nature—reveals is the constitutive dependency of human life on natural ecosystems which they are intrinsically a part of. This situation does not demand more economic management of the planet, more intrusive technologies, or more artifcialization. It rather calls for a radical reinvention of our societies (post-capitalist, post-(neo)liberal perspective), a decentering of the humans within the metaphysical worldview (post-anthropocentrism), a withdrawal of the capitalist technosphere at the beneft of the biosphere (green post-growth), or in other words, a new economic paradigm that replaces the unsustainable capitalist logic of
growth by an ecologically sustainable degrowth and/or steady economy. It also requires envisioning an institutional model which preserves and enhances democratic institutions and processes (procedural and critical democracy), fosters environmental justice, and, against the ‘superpower syndrome’ (Lifton, 2003) and dominant techno-optimisticPromethean views of liberal societies, acknowledges the biological and social embeddedness as central elements of human existence (green republicanism). The transition away from unsustainability does not require more technology, scientifc knowledge or economic growth but more action-oriented convictions and socially progressive political innovations. It implies abandoning or radically reappraising the core values of the neoliberal order such as competition, consumption, productivity, economic effciency, the valorization of technological risks and economic growth, which have all led to the global environmental crisis and produced the social, political, and moral degradation of our civilization. It means, instead, valuing freedom, care, quality of life over quantitative objectives, equality, empathy, a sense of communality, public political life, democratic participation, and active citizenship. Against an ‘autophagic’ capitalist society (Jappe, 2017) which exemplifes the folly of a species that destroys its material conditions of survival and against a deleterious ethico-socio-political order that consumes all that lies in its path, this work offers a road map out of the ongoing ecological, social, economic and anthropological crises the Western world is facing. It aims, indeed, at building the foundations of sustainable, pluralist, democratic, fair, and life-affrming societies and at advancing ideas for the advent of a new way of inhabiting the planet, that is, for the rise of an ‘ecological civilization.’ In this respect, ‘after the Anthropocene’ also means ‘after the Thanatocene,’ or ‘how to extricate ourselves from an era characterised by life-threatening practices?’. In a climate of political despair ruled by cynical destructive ideologies, this work provides a reconstructive social and political project named ‘green republicanism’ whose purpose is to restore hope and reinvigorate the loyalty of our institutions toward the defense of the common good, encourage the reverence for life, as well as the protection of the ecospheric conditions that make the continuation of what we know and experience on Earth possible.
Belfast, UK
Anne Fremaux
noTes
1. I will not make, here, any terminological difference between the expressions ‘environmental crisis’ and ‘ecological crisis’ although this work aligns with Dobson’s distinction between ‘ecologism’ and ‘environmentalism.’ According to the green political scientist, the former is a ‘maximalist’ political ideology which requires radical changes in our institutional and ethical structures while the latter is a managerial approach to environmental problems which conveys the idea that ‘they can be solved without fundamental changes in present values or patterns of production and consumption’ (2007: 2).
2. If a drama is a narrative produced by human actions while a tragedy is a series of events produced by superior forces (destiny/gods), the ‘ecological crisis’ might well be a drama that will eventually end up a tragedy, that is, a human-made situation that will ultimately totally escape the power of humans.
3. The ‘Westernized’ world includes all members of the ‘transnational capitalist class’ (Sklair, 2000), which comprises also a part of the Global South.
4. The Holocene is the geological interglacial period that has lasted 11,700 years and which forms, together with the last Pleistocene ice age, the second period of ‘Quaternary.’
references
Jappe, A. (2017). La Société Autophage: Capitalisme, Démesure et Autodestruction. Paris: La Découverte.
Lifton, R. J. (2003). Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World. New York: Nation Books.
Ripple, W. J., Wolf, C., Galetti, M., Newsome, T. M., Alamgir, M., Crist, E., …, Laurance, W. F. (2017). World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. Bioscience, 67(12), 1026–1028.
Sklair, L. (2000). The Transnational Capitalist Class and the Discourse of Globalisation. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 14(1), 67–85.
series ediTor’s announceMenT on ediTorial exPansion
As the editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Series on ‘Environmental Politics and Theory,’ it has been my privilege and pleasure to introduce books published in the Series (see list of previous publications above). For this next book in the Series, After the Anthropocene, by Anne Fremaux, the Editor’s Preface will be expanded to a joint statement.
I am happy to announce that John Barry, Professor of Green Political Economy at Queen’s University Belfast, has graciously accepted my invitation to be the new Series Co-Editor. I am delighted to welcome John to the leadership team for our EPT Series. His knowledge and publishing record in the interdisciplinary feld of environmental political theory is a distinguished one.
This expansion of the editorship will strengthen the Series in several ways. First, John adds his interests and specifc perspective to the immense scope of subject matter encompassing environmental politics and theory today. No single scholar can presume to master all of the different and relevant disciplines—the physical sciences and social sciences, as well as the normative discourses of political theory, environmental philosophy and ethics, plus ecotheology.
Second, based in Belfast, John is involved with the scholarly community in Europe focused on the political and social consequences of the environmental crises. He will extend the reach of the Series to a new and large group of European environmental researchers and their written works. As imminent problems of the environment are global, so must its scholarship be.
Third, John’s extensive research agenda illustrates and reinforces the paradigmatic research in environmental politics and theory, advancing the mission of this Series. His prolifc publications clearly refect the Series’s commitment to develop ‘ideas from the burgeoning empirical and normative scholarship spanning many disciplines with a global perspective’ and the resulting urgent ‘need for social change from the hegemonic, consumer capitalist society in order to realize environmental sustainability and social justice’ (see Series mission statement above). I invite the reader to consult John’s webpage: http://qub.academica.edu/ JohnBarry to learn more of his research interests and views, and how he might contribute to the Series’s important objectives exemplifed by After the Anthropocene. It is an example of the latest and best thinking about our environmental predicament from around the world that the EPT Series aspires to bring to its readership.
I look forward to working with John to advance the Environmental Politics and Theory Series as a valuable instrument for disseminating trenchant and innovative ideas and prescriptions about our environmental politics. We hope it will serve as a catalyst for social change that can
prevent an environmental catastrophe and improve the quality of life for all human and non-human living inhabitants of our planet.
Anne Fremaux’s After the Anthropocene: Green Republicanism in a Post-Capitalist World is an important discussion of the recent concept of the ‘Anthropocene,’ an idea frst proposed by Nobel Prize-winning chemist, Paul Crutzen. Its impact on the social sciences and humanities has erupted lately. We are very pleased that Fremaux’s work exploring the ‘Anthropocene’ and ‘green republicanism’ in a post-capitalist social order will launch our new editorial partnership since John was one of the author’s mentors at Queen’s University Belfast.
I am delighted to present our Co-Editorial Preface to After the Anthropocene and hope that you will fnd the insights contained in this creative volume to be provocative and valuable. Please continue to consult the EPT Series for similar outstanding book-length discussions that explore important issues facing our environmentally threatened world.
a green PhilosoPhy, PoliTics, and econoMics for navigaTing The anThroPocene:
PosT-anThroPocenTrisM, green rePublicanisM, and PosT-growTh PoliTical econoMy
[T]he neoliberal consumer dream for individuals has turned into the decline of commons for the whole, and calls for renewed political institutions that preserve the public good and reassess what constitutes a good life in the framework of a limited planet. This cornucopian dream is a dream for a few privileged humans and has resulted in a nightmare for a majority of the human family and more than human others. A new system must urgently take place that will be conducted by ideals of living together, sharing, caring, and protecting the social and natural components of life. ... [This] new ecological civilisation will consider all living beings as an interdependent community of members led by the same history, which is the history of planet Earth, and support the fourishing of non-human and human life.
—Anne Fremaux
Between the ‘good Anthropocene’ and the ‘eco-Apocalypse,’ we can locate Anne Fremaux’s important guide to understanding and navigating
our way in these unstable, fundamentally challenging … and exciting times signaled by this contestable neologism out of natural science, the Anthropocene. After the Anthropocene: Green Republicanism in a PostCapitalist World offers an informed critical analysis and critique of the new buzzword on the academic block—‘the Anthropocene,’ denoting ‘the age of humanity’ and a complex normative, descriptive, empirical declaration and/or recognition and/or invitation for us to acknowledge humanity as a ‘geological force of nature.’ After the Anthropocene asks who, and with what interests and intentions, is promoting this concept, and philosophically and ethically questions both those who declare that ‘nature is dead’ as an independent ethically meaningful entity and set of relationships, and those who promote (and at times celebrate) the dawn of a new human-centered (and human-dominated) era on planet Earth.
Shifting to politics and political economy, Fremaux also criticizes dominant Anthropocene narratives (such as those who talk of ‘the good Anthropocene’ and who urge us to ‘love our monsters,’ i.e., human-created/humanized or transformed environments or socio-natural hybrids and ‘techno-natures’). Her profound insight is that such narratives offer a depoliticized, ethically questionable ‘business of usual’ vision of a so-called ‘decarbonized’, ‘more ecologically rational’ and legitimized neoliberal capitalism. They offer a view in which reducing inequality is not central, where deeper democracy and processes of democratization optional are extras, and a vision of the future in which the structural dependence of the economy on endless orthodox economic growth is taken for granted. This ‘naturalisation’ of growth is complemented as she points out by the ways in which capitalist growth also ‘colonizes’ the social imaginary, so that we reach a point where it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalist economic growth.
The positive reconstructive contributions of After the Anthropocene focus on two important and growing areas of both academic research and political importance. The frst is Fremaux’s development of a ‘green republicanism,’ a fusion of insights from the civic republican political tradition, with its focus on freedom as non-domination (as opposed to the liberal-capitalist reading of freedom as non-interference), rough equality of citizens, and the centrality of active citizenship and contestation (as opposed to the hegemony of the consumer over public citizen role and consensus) for a democratic society ft for the purpose of facing the challenges and opportunities of addressing and coping with
climate breakdown, the global ecological crisis, poverty reduction, socioeconomic inequality, and realizing the conditions for fourishing for all life (human and more than human) on Earth. Unashamedly and proudly utopian and emancipatory, it is refreshing to see such aspirational argument, Fremaux’s green republican vision of democratization beyond the formal political sphere, seeks to supplement and problematize representative democratic institutions with constitutional innovations for greater citizen voice input into decision making and suggests that any tension there maybe between democracy and the transition from ‘actually existing unsustainability’ is perhaps more a problem for neoliberal-capitalist democracy than democracy per se. She takes from republicanism its hardnosed focus on facing the threats (both social/economic and ecological) to the underlying conditions of endurance through time of a democratic, free, and equal republican polity. In so doing, she makes the case for seeing in the republican political tradition (much neglected in comparison with liberal or socialist/Marxist scholarship) both prefgurative ideas for a sustainability polity and also a set of theoretical insights of use for crafting resilient responses to our ‘fuxed futures.’ Fremaux’s green republicanism uncommonly, but signifcantly, proposes extending democracy to the productive sphere, asking the important and provocative question: ‘why should democracy end at the factory gate, or offce door?’, thus opening up a long-overdue conversation about workplace democracy and non-state and non-corporate/private forms of productive arrangements, such as worker cooperatives and social enterprises, and the role of these democratized or democratizable political economic practices in the transition to and realization of a sustainable economy.
The second, and related to the character of a ‘sustainable economy,’ based on insights from green republican political economy and normative political theory (including institution building), is her promotion of a ‘post-growth’ economy and post-growth economics. Here, Fremaux proposes what she terms a ‘realist utopian’ vision and set of concrete policy proposals (ranging from a universal basic income, greater promotion of worker cooperatives, a reduction in the working week, and a shift from GDP/monetary measurements of economic activity, including shifting our focus from ‘employment’ to ‘work’), to make the case for the need (from a climate breakdown and ecological crisis perspective) and indeed desirability (in terms of enabling a greater focus on human fourishing and addressing socioeconomic inequality) of promoting a
‘post-growth,’ post-capitalist economy as a (if not the) viable, broad, and fexible political economy framework for ensuring the thriving and not simply the surviving of human and more than human beings in the decades ahead.
After the Anthropocene is an important book for the turbulent and fundamentally challenging times we live in—politically, economically, culturally, and ecologically. Above all else perhaps, Fremaux has produced a hopeful book something that is rare in the dystopian ecological literature. And hope is vitally important in these unsettled but decisive times for the future of the planet and its living inhabitants. Explicitly eschewing and rightly criticizing the naïve ‘techno-optimism’ one sees in proponents of the ‘good Anthropocene’ and in depoliticized, expert-driven (and hence undemocratic), as well as ethically dubious proposals for geoengineering, After the Anthropocene is a book based on the recognition that there is no app for ‘solving’ climate breakdown, and indeed, there are many dangers in such naïve, if attractive, utopian wish-fulfllment. Her book echoes the important distinction made by the playwright and former Czech President Vaclav Havel in this poem ‘Hope’ where he notes that:
“Hope is defnitely NoT the same as optimism. It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out”.
After the Anthropocene reminds us that the task facing us might not be how do ‘we’ (and who is this ‘we’?) control ‘nature,’ but rather how do we control or manage our relationship to nature which of course leads us refexively back to the constitution of the ‘we’ and how humans relate to one another which highlights the political dimension to the ecological crisis, as part of that dynamic and always provisional relationality to the more than human world.
And more than that. After the Anthropocene suggests that any hope has to be based in political struggle and contestation, that hopeful green futures are politically created not ‘given’ or ‘discovered’ by technology or experts. At the same time, Fremaux gives a clear-eyed analysis of the problems humanity is facing but one which does not lapse into an all too prevalent ‘eco-Apocalypticism’ or the ‘too late a cene.’ And for offering a hopeful, positive and emancipatory but thoroughly realistic analysis
of where we are at and the direction/s in which we can and should go, we should be grateful and welcome this important contribution to our ongoing conversations about how we should live and what sorts of societies, economies, political values and institutions, forms of the good life and forms of the ‘good society’ are both possible and desirable in the decades ahead.
—John
Barry and Joel Jay Kassiola
a cknowledge M en T s
This book being extracted from what was once a Ph.D. thesis, I want to express my most profound gratitude to Prof. John Barry for his guidance, leniency, open-mindedness, and solicitude throughout the development of the project, as well as for grounding me in the academic feld with his uncompromising integrity and stimulating critical insights. As a politically engaged and committed intellectual, he is a wellspring of inspiration to me particularly in the way he conducts his own life in congruence with what he professes in the classrooms. I cannot thank him enough for having guided me through this experience with so much wisdom, humanity, and professionalism and especially for encouraging me throughout my Ph.D. to think freely and to emancipate myself from ‘intellectual guardians.’
During my time in Belfast, I am likewise grateful to Dr. Matthew Wood (R.I.P.) for the unique camaraderie we have forged. Moreover, I would like to express my great appreciation to Emmanuelle Chaléat and Peter Mieras for encouraging me to pursue my philosophical studies, Kevin McNicholls for our interesting discussions, and Wendy Feltens, for her proofreading. I also wish to thank Dr. Cillian McBride, Dr. Keith Breen, and Dr. Matteo Bonotti for their advice and recommendations during the differentiation process, as well as the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) of Queen’s University Belfast for sponsoring me during my tenure.
I would like to address special thanks to Michaela Schmidt, who has been a source of steady support, solace, and encouragement during the
years of research this manuscript has taken. Without her help, this dissertation would not have been realized.
As this thesis also concerns the more-than-human world, I want to mention my animals and faithful companions, Ginger and Leo, who gave their signifcant contributions to this work in their peculiar unconditional ways.
Lastly, I am profoundly blessed to have the support of a beautiful and wise soul, Ermina, who readily helped me with the corrections for the published work, but most importantly who made me believe more in myself and regain a sense of well-being and confdence at a very crucial stage in my life.
4
a bbreviaT ions
CoP Conference of the Parties
ESS Earth System Science
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GHGs Greenhouse Gas Emissions
GNP Gross National Product
ICs Indigenous Cultures
IGBP International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
IMF International Monetary Fund
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
LtG Limits to Growth
NBIC Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information technology and Cognitive science
NCT Niche Construction Theory
NGo Non-governmental organisation
oECE organisation for European Economic Cooperation
PNS Post-Normal Science
TBI The Breakthrough Institute
UDHR The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
UDRME The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth
l is T of f igures
Fig. 1.1 High-consequence risks of modernity (Giddens, 1990: 171).
Reprinted with permission 4
Fig. 1.2 The potential unravelling of civilization (Capra & Luisi 2014: 364). Reprinted with permission 5
Fig. 1.3 The three nested systems of sustainability (Adams, 2006: 2).
Reprinted with permission
Fig. 2.1 Defnitions of the Earth System and origins of the concept of the Anthropocene (Source Steffen, Crutzen, & McNeil, 2007: 615)
Fig. 2.2 The Great Acceleration (Source Steffen, Broadgate, Deutsch, Gaffney, & Ludwig, 2015: 84 & 87)
Fig. 2.3 Trends of environmental issues after 1992 (black line) (Ripple et al., 2017: 1027)
18
43
55
56
Fig. 2.4 Earthrise from the moon (Image Credit NASA [Apollo 8 December 24, 1968]) 65
Fig. 5.1 Economy as a nested system (Capra & Jakobsen, 2017: 836) 166
Fig. 5.2 Doughnut economics model (Raworth 2017a: 44) 193
l is T of T ables
Table 1.1 Some common points and differences between liberalism and green republicanism
Table 1.2 A comparison of conceptions between Modernity (M), & Refexive Modernity (RM), Current Postmodernity (CP)—including Techno-postmodernism (TP) & Ecological Postmodernism (EP)—and Green Republican Postmodernity (GRP)
Table 2.1 The ecological ceiling and its indicators of overshoot: synthesized by Raworth (2017a: 258), additional data (value in % last column): Schoenmaker (2018: 6)
8
20
47
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The anThroPocene or living in TiMes
of Pluri-disasTers
If the main starting point of this book is the severe environmental crisis we are facing and the natural planet-wide collapse toward which we are heading, today’s ecological reality is powerfully connected to other issues such as growing socioeconomic inequalities, the erosion of democratic institutions, the organized apathy of citizens, the loss of power of nation-states in favor of corporations, the progressive disappearance of the notion of common good, and the economic colonization of the social, cultural, and political life by economic objectives. The global ecological crisis reveals these interlinked disasters caused by the core components of capitalism that include: an excessive exploitation of nature, the rise of industrialism, the self-destructive overconfdence in human-technical power, the arrogant anthropocentric mindset, and denial of ecological limits, as well as the narrow rationalism and materialism that develop within a reductionist predominant form of science.
Neoliberalism as a ‘global system’ threatens societies as a whole and more especially the core values of social communities and democracy, such as justice, ‘common decency,’ civic virtue, or citizenship. In neoliberal patterns, economic effciency, market values, employability, consumer freedom, and instrumental rationality are favored over democratic participation, civic values, personal autonomy, active citizenship, intellectual development (‘enlightenment’1), and moral rationality (reasonability2).
A. Fremaux, After the Anthropocene, Environmental Politics and Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11120-5_1
Institutions dedicated to the common good are systematically turned into competitive structures to satisfy the interests of markets and greedy elites. Pluralism is disappearing under the assault of a one-dimensional consumer pattern which treats humans and non-humans as commodities under the hegemony of private interests. Civil society, an essential element of the agonistic and critical democracy defended in this book, is losing out to ‘spectator democracy.’ Indeed, citizens are more and more passive and self-centered in part because existing political and democratic structures leave them with few opportunities to participate and make collective decisions. As a consequence, the link between democratic politics and citizens is being critically weakened. Neoliberal individuals end up being overtaken by lassitude and resignation, indifference, and loss of interest for the shared common world. What defnes neoliberal society is, indeed, a widespread disaffection for democracy and social bonds entailed by the loss of political agency and self-determination. In such a system, propaganda is necessary to manufacture consent3 and to shape the fundamental values to ensure that individuals see themselves as consumers, workers, or owners of capital, rather than citizens, spiritual or relational individuals, friends, or members of social and ecological communities. In order to be fully operational, such a system must also rely on high doses of cynicism and the value of relativism cultivated by deconstructive postmodern views. Neoliberal competitive market-state systems have colonized all aspects of life, but mainly, they have subjugated nature and used it as an ‘unlimited’ spring of proft and resources intended to feed the logic of growth. The globalized neoliberal framework behaves as if nature were only a neutral background for proft-seeking and economic development. In order to push back the ecological limits that are more and more visible, neoliberals argue that those limits can be transcended through decoupling and technological innovations (Chapter 5). Indeed, constructivist neoliberal governments act as if the biosphere were a mere component of the socioeconomic sphere. As an anti-ecological ideology, neoliberalism denies the existence of natural limits and promotes unlimited material wants vs. limited resources, a cult of endless consumption (consumerism), and techno-fxes (techno-optimism) as the solution to social and ecological problems. The appropriation and commodifcation of nature undertaken by this form of economic ideology and the freedom it enshrines—understood mainly as the legitimate exercise of extractive power—entail that the environment is viewed only as an instrumental source of raw material and sinks of fossil fuels rather than as an ethically valuable physical, biological, and chemical context of life. Inevitably, this type of economy has supported an insatiable extraction
that is today overwhelming ecosystemic capacities. Neoclassical economics is certainly the instrumental form of rationality ‘that most actively opposes the ethical valuation of the environment’ (Smith, 2001: 26).
The neoliberal capitalist agenda, associated with an arrogant anthropocentrism and the technological optimism of many political leaders, experts, techno-scientists, academics, and citizens, has transformed nature and people into raw materials (‘natural’ and ‘human resources’). It has replaced democratic and republican institutions—defned by their concern for the common good—by structures aiming at facilitating the activities and profts of corporations and markets. It has deprived Western political structures of substantial democratic energy by turning citizens of wealthy liberal nations into demoralized and nihilist homo oeconomicus (‘neoliberal citizens’), that is, passive consumers as opposed to active citizens. More than that, neoliberalism, through mass media, entertainment, information, and educational systems, has incrementally converted all the spheres, activities, and dimensions of life into economic ones (‘economization’ or ‘marketization’ of life). Private and public institutions are used as ways to transmit the values of capitalism.4 As an unethical and unsustainable model of commercialization, ultraliberal capitalism supports crass commodifcation, intensifes inequalities and transforms everything in its way—from non-human nature to human beings—into replaceable, dispensable and disposable products. As a global threat, neoliberalism leads to ‘environmental stresses (water shortages, deforestation, soil erosion or climate change), food and energy insecurity, peak oil, rising poverty and inequalities within and between societies, increasing passivity of citizens within democracies and the inexorable rise of corporate power within and over the democratic state’ (Barry, 2008: 3).
The price we, humans, are socially, politically and ecologically paying and will continue to pay in the future for the triumph of the neoliberal ideology is disproportionate with anything humankind has experienced so far (see Fig. 1.2). However, human relatively recent history already shows that the popular passivity and political apathy (mentioned above) fostered by cynical and disempowering systems of ideas have the potential to favour the rise of dictatorial regimes in which a father fgure or ‘strong man’ could take upon the conduct of public affairs. At a time when chauvinistic, racist, anti-elitist, and macho-ist parties are dangerously rising in all Western countries, this fear is taking a serious turn, which includes the risk of an authoritarian ecology.
Indeed, the risk entailed by a nihilistic neoliberal ideology should not be overlooked at a time when ecological conditions are deteriorating at a breath-taking speed, leaving apathetic and divided crowds at the hands of infuential political, economic, or cultural leaders. As Zimmerman says,
‘[i]n stressful times, peoples are all too willing to surrender to leaders promising to end humanity’s alienation from nature’ (1994: 7). The lack of democratic practices and education associated with growing inequalities, the (organized) bankruptcy of basic public services, the panoptic forms of social control (‘electronic cage’) conveyed by the new Information and Communication technologies (ICTs), governance (private corporations and governments) efforts to mold and modify subjects’ behaviours in the direction of predictable consumer-oriented social relations and market dependency (new modes of coercion and disciplinary strategies that include seduction practices and an illusion of ‘voluntariness’) and the absence of ecological remediation convey, all together, the risk of eco-totalitarianism. While some liberals have denounced the peril of authoritarianism that they see inherent in green political theories,5 we have no choice but to note that the danger does not come from green politics but from (neo)liberalism itself. Green political theorists have spent a great deal of time demonstrating that green political theory is intrinsically linked to democracy, opposing traditional liberal critiques that see green political tradition as inextricably tied to eco-authoritarianism. Indeed, it is the unsustainability of consumer democracies as we know them, i.e., the way liberal democracies are currently organized through the manipulation of passive individuals and the takeover of private corporations, which has the potential to lead to undemocratic institutions and practices (for instance, expert technocracies). In brief, the (neo)liberal organization of life is paving the way to large-scale ecological, social, ethical, and political catastrophes. Figure 1.1, extracted from
Fig. 1.1 High-consequence risks of modernity (Giddens, 1990: 171). Reprinted with permission
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
Pivoted
Searchlight Made of an Old Milk Strainer
B JOHN J. SPAULDING
Both as a safety device and a practical novelty, a homemade searchlight for a canoe, or other small craft, is worth while making. An old milk strainer was used for the reflector of that shown, and many equally serviceable makeshifts can be devised easily from old cans, or formed from sheet metal. The detailed construction, as indicated, is suggestive only, since local conditions and materials available will govern the design of the fittings. The light has a double control, one cord governing the vertical adjustment, and another, arranged like that of a ship’s wheel, the horizontal pivotal range. The vertical adjustment is desirable, but not essential. The control cords are run in screw eyes along the coaming of the craft, so that one person can paddle the canoe, and adjust the searchlight as well. Dry cells, stored under the bow deck, or in a box set at some other convenient place, supply the current for the 6-volt lamp.
Canoeing and Boating at Night Is Safer and More Pleasurable if the Craft is Equipped with a Searchlight. This One was Made of Pick-Up Materials at Small Cost
The Support for the Reflector is Pivoted in the Deck, Reinforced as Indicated
The main dimensions of the fittings, as detailed, are: strainer, 10 in. in diameter and 10 in. long; vertical support, 12¹⁄₂ in. over all, and 6 in. wide at the upper portion; the wood used is ¹⁄₂ and ³⁄₄ in. thick, except that for the pivot post, which is 1 in. thick. The reflector is fitted with a wooden block through which the porcelain socket is set,
as shown. A knife switch, placed near the stern of the craft, controls the connection with the battery circuit.
The inside of the reflector should be polished with emery cloth, and if the surface is rough, it may be painted with white enamel. The outer surfaces of the metal part are painted black. The wooden parts may be painted, or given several coats of spar varnish, to withstand the weather.
Gravity-Feed Coal Hopper on Truck
The Large Capacity of the Hopper and the Ready Portability of This Arrangement Are Practical Features
In the large farm kitchen, in the workshop, and even for firing a small furnace, a coal hopper that will hold considerable coal, and that can be rolled along the floor easily, is a convenience. Such an arrangement, made from a section of galvanized-iron pipe, 10 in. in
diameter and 30 in. long is shown in the sketch. The pipe was cut at one end, as shown, so that when the coal was poured into the hopper, it would feed out. A truck, mounted on casters, was made, 12 in. wide, 5 in. high, and 25 in. long. The hopper was mounted on one end of it, and bolted securely at the sides and end. The coal is shoveled into the hopper at the bin, and the load pushed to the furnace, where it can be easily used as needed. The construction can be made larger for use with a coal scoop, in firing a boiler or large furnace.—L. R. Markwood, Factoryville, Pa.
Taking Photographs in Falling Snow
Falling snowflakes in a camera photograph—the large feathery, slow falling kind—often make an exquisitely beautiful picture out of a commonplace scene. And while the great majority of the attempts to get them prove failures, the photographer—usually an amateurneeds only to provide an avenue in front of his lens a short distance, that is free from falling flakes by the use of a shelter such as a tree or porch. The slow snapshot necessary in cloudy weather will not stop the motion of the flakes nearest the camera and these passing through greater angles of space in equal length of time than those farther away, will blur on the negative. We made some excellent outdoor views in deep snow, while heavy snow was falling, with flakes splendidly decorating the darker regions of figures and foliage, by holding a felt hat and two umbrellas in a line in front of the camera, and above the range of the lens.—J. Cecil Alter, Cheyenne, Wyo.
A Double-Contact Vibrator
When the Vibrator Touches One Contact, the Coil on the Opposite Side Attracts the Vibrator, This Process being Repeated Alternately
A double-contact vibrator, which eliminates sticking contacts, spring troubles, and other sources of annoyance, in addition to producing a fine high tone, is shown in the sketch. It is an instrument easy to construct, by reason of its simplicity. Special care in making the vibrator D will insure good vibration. The springs, holding the contacts, are of phosphor bronze The contacts may be made of silver platinum, or other metals, which will not burn and break contact. The coil B are of the common bell-ringing type. The springs on the vibrator should not be too long, nor too weak; experimenting will determine the length at which they will work best. The adjustment is made at the thumbscrews A. The coils are supported on metal brackets, bolted to a wooden base. The method of hooking up the vibrator in the key circuit is shown in the diagram.—J. L. Taylor, Barker, N. Y.
Battery Buzzer Converted into a Telegraph Sounder
The Amateur can Practice the Morse Code Handily on This Sounder, Made from a Buzzer
An ordinary battery buzzer may readily be converted into a telegraph sounder for use in practicing the Morse code. All that is necessary is to connect the vibrator contact C of the buzzer to the binding post that is not insulated from the frame. The other connections of the key and battery are the same as in any ordinary telegraph or buzzer circuit. In the diagram, C represents the vibrator contact; D, the wire connecting the contact and the uninsulated binding post, and F, the uninsulated binding post; E is the telegraph key, and B, the dry cells.—Clarence F. Kramer, Lebanon, Ind.
Lawn Seats Built on Tree Stumps
These Practical Lawn Seats Show the Possibilities of Stumps as Supports for This Purpose. The Conservation-Chair Design Is Especially Interesting
A practical use to which stumps, left from the felling of trees, are put in a city park is as supports for lawn benches. This obviates the need of grubbing them out, while the work of preparing them to receive the seats is less than would be required to remove the stumps. Of course, the location of the stump will determine whether it is worth while as a support for a seat, or had better be grubbed out. Many designs are possible, and the position and size of the stumps available will suggest suitable construction. The woodwork for the
seats is simple, and the benches can be made removable for the winter if desired.—C. L. Meller, Fargo, N. D.
A Hinged Box Cover Made without Hinges
When a wooden box with a hinged cover is desired, especially a small one, hinges are not always at hand, and are sometimes difficult to obtain. Under these circumstances a good substitute is to make the box as shown in the sketch, using the extension of one end and nails, or screws, driven through the back corners of the lid, as a hinge arrangement. This makes the use of hinges unnecessary, and is serviceable even for permanent use. Where hinges projecting from the surface of the box are objectionable, this method of construction is especially desirable. It is best to make the hinged ends with the grain vertical, and to round off the hinged corners of the lid slightly.—R. J. Rohn, Chicago, Ill.
Marauder
This Photographic Evidence Was Proof Positive as to the Identity of the Thief in the Night
After the wire fence around the chicken house had been torn up, and the place entered 13 nights in two weeks, I decided on more preparedness. Various ways and means failed, so I used a comparatively slight knowledge of photography in the process. I mounted my flash lamp on a piece of board, 1 by 4 by 8 in. long, and fastened this to a base, as shown. I attached a weight to the lamp, which was supported by a hinged drop, halfway down the upright board, which in turn was supported by a nail, to which was attached a string. The flash was set off by a slight pull of the string, which dropped the weight. This contrivance I concealed in the chicken yard, and the camera in the chicken house. That night I opened the lens of the camera in the dark, and attached the string to a loose board in the fence. The next morning, before daybreak, I closed the lens again. The flash had been set off during the night. Also there were drops of blood on the ground. I could hardly wait until the plate was developed. The result, as reproduced, was hardly what I expected.—H. U. Scholz, Medford, Ore.
A Fishing-Tackle Outfit in a Shotgun Shell
At the camp or on the trail, an emergency fishing-tackle outfit is almost as handy as matches, compass, and knife, and it may even be the means of saving one’s life. A convenient way to carry such an outfit is in two old shotgun shells, telescoped. The hooks, on a cork, and the sinkers are fitted snugly into the shell. Several yards of line are then wound on the outside. This outfit can be stowed into a pocket handily, always ready for use.—E. Everett Buchanan, Jr., Elmira, N. Y.
A Split-Bamboo Lettering Pen
This Pen, Cut from a Piece of Bamboo and Fitted with a Spring Fountain Device, Is Especially Useful for Marking Packages
Marking of packages and similar lettering can be done neatly with a pen made in a few minutes from split bamboo fitted with a short section of watch spring. Select a piece of bamboo, ¹⁄₄ by ¹⁄₁₆ in. and about 7 in. long, and finish the end, as at A. Trim the end to an angle, as at B, and then point it, as at C. Split the point carefully, as at D, and smooth away the tufts at the edges. Cut a piece of watch spring the width of the pen point and bind it into place, arched as
shown. To use the pen, insert ink into the arch of the spring, and it will work much like a fountain pen.—Raymond H. Lufkin, Dorchester, Mass.
How to Make a Houseboat
B H. SIBLEY
The houseboat shown is of the scow design, 6 ft. wide by 20 ft. long, with the cabin extending beyond the scow 1 ft. on each side. The scow tapers up at the forward end and is protected with a heavy sheet-iron plate so that the craft may be snubbed up on sandbars without danger of springing a leak, even though a submerged log be struck while running at full speed.
The power plant consists of a standard 4-hp. reversing gasoline engine which drives the paddles at their most efficient speed, 45 revolutions per minute through a 13-to-1 reduction. Cast-iron hubs, into which are inserted cold-rolled steel spokes, and wood paddles bolted to their ends constitute the propeller wheels. The cruising speed is about 4 miles an hour.
