Hello everybody,

I would like to start this post by introducing myself. My name is Dimitra Sofia Tsamopoulou, and I was born and raised in Athens, Greece. In 2019 I got recruited from the women’s rowing team, here in the University of Washington. I am doing a Political Science major with a double minor in Human Rights and Law,Society and Justice. The honest reason I chose the class of “Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene”, was basically because I got really intrigued by the usage of a word that is greek, the word “Anthropocene”. Although greek is my mother language I had to look the meaning of it in order to understand that it refers to an era, the era that the Earth’s Geology is the most impacted by the human “hands”.

So far, most of the classes I have taken are really theoretical. They cover subjects of justice, legislation, economics etc. What took me by surprise with this class is the hidden spirituality of it. In order to succeed and learn in that class, you cannot just keep up with the readings and the course material, you really need to connect with yourself, acknowledge the way you feel about the topics being taught and reflect on these feelings. A deeper understanding of the political ecology of death requires a deeper understanding of the internal processes we have as humans. These internal “exploration” brings a lot of questions on the surface. One of the questions that was brought to me is “What would happen to Earth if the Human race was all of a sudden going extinct?”. We live our lives thinking that we are the center of everything, and I think by trying to answer that question we can understand that we are not as essential as we would like to be. The biosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere and lithosphere do not need the noosphere in order to survive and thrive.

While trying to answer my question, I came across a video that I would like to share in our forum. In the video we can have a little “taste” of what would actually mean for earth if the human race was disappearing. I would love to read your reflections on the video and also my post. Thank you for your time. Have a great day!

Link for YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/EWXdTwFHETA