Category Archives: Anthropocene

The Gift of Life

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After talking about death and how to cope with it for an entire quarter, I would say I am still just as scared about dying and the thought of death as I was prior to this class. However, I would say that I have a better understanding of how that fear motivates me as a member of a certain society to act in a certain way. Terror Management Theory was a concept that I struggled to come to terms with as someone who likes to see myself motivated by life, not death, but working through it with our class has made me appreciate my time and place on this earth in a different light.

            Working with my action project group to showcase people’s opinions about death and how they could be rationalized or explained by the work of Ernest Becker and related to experiments done in Worm at the Core on Terror Management Theory was a very grounding experience. We got to work with the material we spent so much time discussing in class while we debated economic impacts of globalization on climate change and the influence of sacrifice and gift giving on our relationships with facing death. It felt like creating a small piece of information about the enormous concepts of life and death that we covered all quarter.

The Gift of Life – a painting by Aditi Jha

            Absorbing information about what to do as an activist in the face of climate change was just as difficult as facing the idea of death multiple times a week. I felt like we spent so much time talk about the irreversible damage that human pollution has caused to the environment during a time when I personally have never felt more connected to earth. It forced me to reevaluate if I was appreciating my position as a human existing as part of the earth system and giving back to it, because loving to hike and ski isn’t saving it even if it makes me appreciate it. It was seeing the albatrosses, learning the meaning of Anthropocene, and discussing the effects of the Bolt Creek fire on Seattle when we had the worst air quality in the world.

            Even though I am one person, this quarter has helped me understand the gift of existing as a person on this planet for the short time that I am.

The shared book.

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I have been wondering what can I write for that final post that I haven’t already, what can I reflect on that we haven’t yet touched, but I am finding it really difficult. For that reason I decided to embrace my “half-baked” thoughts, and see where I will go, while I am writing.

Eleven weeks ago, before we start this class, if someone was asking me “In what era are we living?”, I would probably give a much different answer to what I would say now.

Never in my life I have wondered “the epoch” that I am living at. Usually people identify these eras when they look back in the past. We look at the past like a chapter in a book and try to give it a title that would contain all the important events. We detach ourselves emotionally and see the events as part of the history. You meet older people and they tend to talk to you about the glory of their past years, about how beautiful, charming, seductive, motivated, active they were when they belonged to a different “era”, their twenties, thirties, forties. But people don’t set a name in the era they live now, not until they close the chapter.

If I was asked in what era we, human race, are living right now, I would probably think of a “post pandemic era”, a “social media one”, the era of Artificial Intelligence, or closer to what it is now “the era of cimate change”. But even on my answer about the climate change, I would be so detached emotionally and clean of blame. “Anthropocene”, the unofficial epoch in which humans have been the main source of impact to the Ecology of Earth. It really took me many weeks of this quarter to understand that even young, I am also part of the problem. Reflecting on the action project in a deeper level, maybe it was my redemption, a way to get rid some of the guilt or maybe a project I had to be engaged to feel special as a byproduct of death anxiety, having to feel that I am contributing to the solution of the problem.

The Anthropocene might be a dark chapter in the shared book of Human and Planet Earth, and might already have a title and a “plot” but the end has not been written yet, we have time to improve the storyline, and write a happy end.

How to Save the World: Individualism to Community

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My biggest takeaways from the course The Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene mainly came from our lively and engaging class discussions. One of the main, most pivotal thoughts that often came to the forefront of my mind during this class, was how the fear of death in Western society often provokes the cultural worldview of individualism. Therefore, my final synthesis paper explored this thought and the ramifications of it particularly relating to the Anthropocene.

This thought connected to the course content in multiple ways. One was through the contemplative practices. As stated in my previous blog post, I struggled to connect with the contemplative practices through this course, as I often found myself distracted by the productive cycle of the Western education system. However, this made me question how inextricably hard it is for participants in the capitalist system to be comfortable with the notion of ‘doing nothing’. This is linked to Terror Management Theory, as doing nothing, or sitting with your own mind for a second is contradictory to the productivity cycle of a worldview dominated by individualism. As most in the US, have this worldview, either as a choice or an indirect indoctrination by the institutions built upon it, when we do not conform to the capitalist system, we feel closer to death.

So, what is the solution? How do we live? The action project in this class allowed me to appreciate the idea of community. As someone who has not participated in a group project since secondary school, I forgot about the value of social connection within a classroom. In our increasingly isolated society, community is rare but increasingly more important. The fear of death is something inextricably linked with human behaviour, but by finding immortality projects within community action rather than individual prosperity, there can be a shift in cultural narratives. In Active Hope, this is spoken about regarding shifting the notion of power from being a dominating force to a collaborative one. Individualism in our society causes so much destruction, it can be linked to the mental health crisis, the ecological crisis and may even be the downfall of our civilisation. However, with a shift in our cultural worldview, from individual to community, this may be the shift we need in order to save humanity.

A John Berger quote, in a ‘meme’ format that I think beautifully describes how lonely our society can become when it is dictated by individualism, how social connection is craved, and how this relates to the fear of death.

Image source

Final Blog Post: Solving the collective action problem

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Collaboration Is a Key Skill. So Why Aren't We Teaching It?

My paper is about solving the collective-action problem that inhibits humanity from creating sustainable communities. I highlight five major key points.

  1. We must understand the insecurities created by fear of death.
  • Worm at the core gives examples of how insecurities lead to violent tendencies and self-destructive behavior
  1. TDM is essential for creating strong communities that are necessary for fostering sustainable habits
  • Worm at the core gives solid evidence that explains individuals with strong bonds are more likely to collaborate.
  • Strong communities mean that individual values and goals become group goals
  • People are more likely to live selflessly, this means giving back to the community in a sustainable way. Recycling, Reusing, etc
  1. We need to cultivate a culture that promotes sustainability
  • Cultures are a set of informal rules and norms, often times they are more influential 
  • Culture can spread awareness
  1. Sacrifice is needed for change
  • Self-sacrifice must be ingrained in a sustainable culture
  • Litfin mentions that a sustained cycle of life and death must involve sacrafice
  • The planets life-force functions on the earths organisms taking but also being able to give back
  • For example, planting three trees after cutting down three trees
  1. Solving the collective action problem
  • The tipping point (motivating the moderate voter)
  • Pressuring key legislature
  • Organizing a movement
  • Public accountability
  • Incentivizing the public

 

Although I don’t mention it very much in the paper, my project, beyond plastics, is about creating legislation that incentivizes people to recycle, reuse and reduce. It’s also very important to note that the legislation Beyond Plastics is trying to pass is intended to be the groundwork for future sustainable practices. But I think the most important part of the project is getting people to collaborate. To answer the question of solving the collective action problem, we can look at our group projects. The assignment is structured where individual goals are aligned with group goals, thus incentivizing individuals to work together toward a common goal. This is a selective incentive that is critical to understanding my paper. The paper is structured as follows, understanding how we can optimize individuals into a group activity and optimize groups efficiently and get more people involved in the group. 

My conclusion is this: Our deaths have meaning through our actions and the sacrifices we make. Our histories are built upon the collective contributions of every individual who has ever lived. Group action is crucial to progress, but individual action is the first step.

What Did I Learn This Quarter?

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While my action project experience in this class could have been better, I am able to recognize the valuable lessons I learned from it – primarily about the importance of having a group leader. If we had one person taking charge, I think we could have gotten a lot more done. Regardless, I am proud of how we came together in the end to create engaging and informative content, despite our busy schedules.

In the context of our class, I found that our project, promoting the passage of legislation aimed to revolutionize plastic recycling in Washington, perfectly represents political ecology. We live in a system where we elect individuals to make environmental policy decisions on our behalf, and this recycling bill relies on them to pass it. I don’t want to say that my group’s action project was worthless (because I think there is a lot of value in public education), but we should acknowledge that a social media campaign will likely have a limited impact on the decisions made in Olympia.

Honestly, that is the reality of political ecology in the Anthropocene.

As far as the other action projects, WashPIRG’s Save the Orcas campaign was what finally allowed me to understand what our class was about. I could see that, like my group’s, theirs hinged on the actions of legislators, and that Senator Cantwell’s refusal to support breaching the dams might be motivated in some way by her fear of dying. Relatedly, the Ernest Becker group was contributing to the study of conceptions of death, which is beneficial in helping us to predict whether future environmental reforms might be possible in the face of climate disaster, given that Terror Management Theory explains our actions in response to death reminders. As this group mentioned in class, they were frustrated at the constraints they were given by the people in power over them, which is exactly what the ICA is for. This last group’s action project was directly investigating the political ecology of UW in the Anthropocene and trying to get our Board of Regents to follow through on their fossil fuel divestment commitments, again relying on people in power.

All in all, while it wasn’t my own group’s action project that led to me discovering the true meaning of our class, it was the action projects of our class in general that helped me to understand what it means to survive the political ecology of death in the Anthropocene.

How then shall I live?

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My major takeaway from this course regards how I want to proceed with living my life.

We have learned that death anxiety rules our lives and decisions, and that we cope through various forms of terror management. This constant fear drives our species to war, industrialization, colonization, exploitation, and now to the brink of a planetary climate disaster.

One of our contemplative practices asked us to consider three mindsets. Where 1) the world is generally getting worse, 2) the world is generally getting better, and 3) the world is how it is. I find the 3rd mindset to be the most realistic and empowering. In this view, we see the world as it is without sugarcoating it or focusing purely on evils. In this view, humanity has agency. We can sit back and continue our trajectory toward a terrible future, or we can choose to collaborate, innovate, and save our species from collapse.

With this mindset of agency, I am struck by the question: “how then shall I live?”

I need to start with my forms of terror management. Before this course, my management consisted of spree online shopping to fill a non-existent gap in my life and constant distractions because silence allowed intrusive thoughts to run rampant. These are unsustainable strategies.

Professor Jem Bendall in his video about Deep Adaptation asks viewers to cherish what they have. To enjoy life in the short time that we have it. Though I talk about why I dislike Bendall’s perspective in another blog post, I have come to accept this concept when taken alongside the strategies presented in Active Hope, the relief and fulfillment of volunteer work like my action project for WashPIRG’s Save the Orcas, and the hope that humanity still has agency to change.

Image Credit: Syracuse Peace Council

To answer the question “how then shall I live?,” I must adjust my terror management. Rather than needlessly consuming, I can focus on being grateful for what I already have. Rather than constantly distracting myself, I can spend more meaningful time with friends and family to feel reassured that I have people I care about who also care about me. I can take part in local efforts that better my community and environment. I can make changes like being better about recycling and using my purchasing power to favor local, sustainable businesses. I can choose to live with hope.

There are easily implementable things I can do to live a more conscientious and sustainable life without drastically changing my lifestyle. I don’t know if this is enough, but I hope that between collective individual action, death anxiety harnessed by corporate inventors to find technological solutions, and global politicians trying to one-up each other, we will find a way to persist as a species.

Fear Within our Anthropocence and How We Can Over Come It

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My biggest takeaway about the political ecology of death in the Anthropocene is that people are ruled by fear. Political leaders, religious leaders, everyday people, and everyone in between has some amount of fear in their lives. Fear of our death, fear of failure, fand ear of how our world is being run.

This poem by Shakespeare speaks of fear:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50428/song-fear-no-more-the-heat-o-the-sun-

Fear does not have to be a negative influence. Letting fear control you allows for it to have power over you. But, acknowledging this fear creates a new opportunity. An opportunity for love, desire, hope, and a life full of adventure.

The Worm at the Core states “Why not depart from life as a sated guest from a feast” (Solomon) and I agree. Why not take our life for everything it has to offer. Living in the depths of despair does nothing for for anyone. This class has shown me that yes, our world is dark, has several demoralizing issues, and needs some fixing-but the beautiful thing is that we have the power to change this. We can be the light in our own world.

My action project was built around WashPirg’s Save the Orca Campaign with the goal of breaching the Lower Snake River Dam to allow more salmon to be available for the Orca’s to feed on. This is a passion project, and as I reference in my paper all passion projects are a way of coping with death anxiety. Passion projects to me are a positive way of working through personal death anxiety on some level. Being a part of something greater than oneself is an incredible feeling, and to me gives the feeling of hope.

Hope is stronger than fear, but when paired together can create opportunities to better our world

Shakespeare’s poem talks about how we will all come to rest as dust eventually (Shakespeare), and The Worm at the Core talks about how we are no more valuable to this Earth than a lizard or a potato from a biological perspective (Solomon), so then what is the point of being riddled with anxiety. This ay be a blindly optimistic point of view, but with how things are currently going… What do we have to lose by giving our best effort to enact change?

Parallel to Climate Politics

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Walking around a room with 18 other people, eyes on the floor, lights off, mind adrift in thoughts of death, climate change, and politics, was a confounding experience.

My takeaways from this strange contemplative practice did not become clear until days later. In the moment, the practice seemed somehow ironic and meaningful, yet I could not understand why. I now see my experiences in this practice as almost representing or paralleling the politics of climate change.

Mindfulness among the masses. Image Credit: Unknown

With our eyes on the ground, I felt overwhelmed. Listening to Karen’s descriptions of the world, I felt helpless in the face our extensive problems. There is so much to unpack, not enough time, and I don’t even know where to start. Amongst all these other shoes walking around the floor, how can anything I do be significant? How can I sway people to my side if we all come from different backgrounds, have different priorities, and live in a polarized playground where everything is black and white, or so gray in between that it is unintelligible? This overwhelming feeling is matched in the politics of climate change. It is such an extensive issue that leaders and individuals have no idea where to start or how to help. This overwhelmingness is dangerous because it can lead to stalling on solutions, and inaction which could effectively cause voluntary human extinction.

When we lifted our eyes to acknowledge each other I struggled to remain serious. I found the reality of 19 of us aimlessly wandering the tiny classroom, trying not to hit each other, while listening to poems about death funny. Sort of a “laugh because otherwise you’ll cry” response. This reaction is similar to how many people handle the climate crisis—they don’t take it seriously. They laugh because it is a wild idea that humans could unintentionally cause so much destruction and death while wandering the earth industrializing. They ignore it, because if they believe that there is nothing they can do, then it is better to laugh and cherish what they have while they are alive, rather than to get lost in a spiral of despair waiting to die.

In this practice I felt myself putting on a face for my peers. I couldn’t just acknowledge them with an honest expression of my feelings because that would have been too vulnerable. I felt like I had to smile, exaggerate my expressions, and communicate a false narrative. This, too, is similar to the politics of climate change. World leaders go to climate conferences and exaggerate their actions and intentions, project their virtue and strength, and hide their vulnerability and honest reality of confusion and disaster. We want to die with pride, and for our largely old politicians, acknowledging a problem would mean dying guilty.

Bonn, Germany Climate Conference. Image Credit: UNFCC