Category Archives: Anthropocene

Death is what makes life great

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What role does the denial of death have in the Anthropocene?
Humans are currently a driving force of ecological disasters. We are ruining the ecosystem, killing off species, and destroying the ozone layer, which will kill all human life if nothing changes. What can we do to change this?
I think a part of the problem is dominant modern culture ignores death. Maybe this could be because most people don’t think about their deaths. Worm in the Core quotes Michel de Montaigne’s famous essay That to study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die,

—let us learn bravely to stand our ground, and fight him. And to begin to deprive him of the greatest advantage he has over us, let us take a way quite contrary to the common course. Let us disarm him of his novelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death. Upon all occasions represent him to our imagination in his every shape; at the stumbling of a horse, at the falling of a tile, at the least prick with a pin, let us presently consider, and say to ourselves, “Well, and what if it had been death itself?” and, thereupon, let us encourage and fortify ourselves. Let us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, set the remembrance of our frail condition before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be so far transported with our delights, but that we have some intervals of reflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity of ours tends to death, and with how many dangers it threatens it.

The book points out effective terror management should constitute being comfortable with one’s death. We should normalize talking about death so we can take a deeper appreciation of life, with more empathy towards living things around us. By being comfortable and reflecting on our own inevitable deaths, we can appreciate life’s beauty. This means being conscious of our actions and how they affect others and the planet.
I propose to whoever is reading this to think about death, not morbidly but about your death, and how that affects your actions, thoughts, and world views. Thinking about what you think can help you reflect on how to live a more decisive and aware life. Hopefully, you can be more self-conscious about your actions, evaluate whether you are spending your time the way you want to, and how you have affected those around you.
Anthropocene Syndrome: a complex of environmental degradation,... | Download Scientific Diagram

What A Piece Of Work Is Man

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Anthropocene – A word describing our planet’s current geological age, in which human activity is the dominant force on our climate and the environment.

When I signed up for this class, I was unaware that humanity had surpassed all natural Earth systems in becoming the primary influence on our biosphere. It is daunting to think that we – ‘we’ being relative, since only a small subset of our population has the power to combat the world’s worst polluters – no longer inhabit this planet but control it. Unfortunately, however, the state of our Earth is of second importance to so many, due to another human-caused disaster: heightened inter- and intra-national political conflict that seems to constantly bring the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

Thinking about these compounding realities often lands me in feelings of despair and loneliness. But what brings me comfort is the knowledge that modern-day people are not much different from those of the medieval day. I have found that historical literature always helps me to feel grounded and motivated in my quest for societal change. One of my favorite passages about humanity, which almost perfectly sums up my own thoughts, is the following monologue Shakespeare wrote for Hamlet:

Quote from Act 2, Scene 2 of Hamlet: The earth seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire – why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by David Bevington, Bantam Books, 1988. 

In this, Shakespeare (through Hamlet) is describing the world’s beauty and humanity’s strengths, while also revealing his true feelings of distaste for them. I find the phrase “What a piece of work is man” especially significant because it represents to me this duality. In the context of the monologue, the phrase appears to celebrate God’s masterpiece of the human being. However, the contemporary “piece of work” insult is my preferred interpretation. Yes, there are great qualities of humankind – our resiliency and our intelligence – but it’s difficult to overstate the extent of our failings.

When I signed up for this class, I didn’t understand the true extent of our climate emergency, but I do believe that, despite our failings (perhaps even because of them), our society can adapt to the ever-changing circumstances and emerge stronger than before. The tragic story of Hamlet does not have to prophesy our own.

Climate nihilism and community care

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I worked through two responses before deciding on this one, which I chose for its attempted honesty in the face of real, violent, and discriminative political/ecological threats. This short response argues for an understanding of community care as a means to mitigate the effects of climate change on the most marginalized. I assume several things which are not necessarily true and are framed imperfectly, listed below. 

  1. There is nothing the masses can do to “stop” climate change
  2. There is nothing the capitalists and imperialists can/will do to “stop” climate change
  3. Climate change is resulting in mass extinction
  4. Climate change will not kill all humans, and will discriminate along geopolitical, racial, and class lines 

These assumptions are at best incomplete and at worst false. That said, I adopt them in my life to move toward an acceptance of “our” collective fate, and move forward in my own actions. I’ve come to terms with this as “climate nihilism,” which strikes me as similar to Rupert Read and Samuel Alexander’s This Civilization is Finished, and builds off the anonymously-authored Desert (which is kind of worth the read, but not at all working toward an Indigenous analysis of climate change and its effects).

Indigenous struggle as climate struggle and struggle against the colonial state—a blockade in so-called Toronto in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en nation in so-called British Columbia displays a banner reading “NO PIPELINES: Stop RCMP Invasion on Indigenous Lands.”

With this acceptance, I try and often fail to do actions that have the greatest immediate impact on those that are most affected by climate change. This can be described as community care, which I define in line with bell hooks’s All About Love, where she attempts to redirect her readers toward a constant and true practice of love in their lives. Mutual aid, whether true to its theory or not, comes to mind—in Seattle this seems to be one common way for community care to manifest. It especially stems from the knowledge that our disproportionately Black and brown unhoused neighbors are also disproportionately affected by climate change. Long, hot, smoky summers, and long, cold, rainy winters lead to preventable deaths from exposure. A meal or a cigarette for a neighbor can be a radical act of love.

Climate change is here—orange smoke in Seattle 2020 shrouds the buildings and trees.

This line of thinking, admittedly, is dangerous. It ignores opportunities to mobilize mass lines, work on long-term campaigns, and otherwise organize in politically powerful groups. I describe it, though, in an attempt at an honest answer to the question of “first thoughts”—an acceptance of collective semi-destruction must not mean apathy, but instead move us toward care for each other. 

After this wordy response—more words! Here are so many books (should be linked to free online versions) that inform these thoughts. In no order:

  1. All About Love
  2. Accomplices not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex
  3. Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact (will have to make an account then download)
  4. Desert
  5. Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla
  6. The Progressive Plantation: racism inside white radical social change groups
  7. The Land of Open Graves 
  8. National Union of the Homeless: a brief history
  9. Primer: Transnational Weapons Corporations (click through to w-tnc.pdf)
  10. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next!)
  11. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Liberalism

Citations:

Abbas, Freya. “What Canadians should Know about the Wet’suwet’en Nation’s Struggle.” InkSpire, https://inkspire.org/post/what-canadians-should-know-about-the-wetsuweten-nations-struggle/-M2R80RtqjuC-63LBrof. 

Alexander, Samuel. “This Civilization is Finished: Conversations on the End of Empire—and What Lies Beyond.” The Simplicity Collective, June 14, 2019. 

Anonymous. Desert. E-book, The Anarchist Library, 2011. 

hooks, bell. All About Love. HarperCollins Publishers, 2000. 

Live Storms Media. “09-12-2020 Seattle, WA – Wildfire Smoke – Major City With Worst Air Quality in the World.” Youtube, September 12, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH6Spfsntjc.

Separation is the Greatest Illusion

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Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene views the world with “Systems Theory.” To me, this means understanding that everything is part of something more than itself.

In “Terror Management Theory”, psychologist Sheldon Solomon argues that our fear of death leads us to strive to “become part of something less mortal…[to be] a person of value in a world of meaning” (Vedantam 2019). However, even if we do not actively pursue it, we are already part of something bigger than ourselves, something immortal. Even when we are alone on a desert island we are not alone. The fish provide minerals for us to function. Our waste provides nutrients to the worms. There is no “self.” We are already part of something valuable and meaningful.

Source: Summer Grassland by Kathryn Foster

I feel a sense of peace when I think of myself from this perspective. I imagine myself as a blade of grass in a painting. I sway with the wind alongside other blades of grass as the sun provides us energy and the air provide us food. However, one can look at this blade of grass from another perspective. It must compete for resources and lives in fear of being eaten by herbivores. Thus, it grows the deepest roots to uptake the most water and releases chemicals to defend itself.

I think it is the latter perspective that dominates our society. Solomon argues that the fear of death also leads to “self-esteem striving,” where individuals work to be “better, smarter, richer” to further make meaning of our lives (Vedantam 2019). When we do not think of ourselves are part of a greater system, we must expand ourselves to not be overtaken by others. The only value we have is our own value, and the only life we further is our own.

But even when that blade of grass is overtaken by other blades of grass or eaten by herbivores it lives on within others. We always live on.

As Professor Karen mentioned, I also think this world is amid a “transition” from a perspective of self to a perspective of the whole. In the Anthropocene where humans touch every part of the world, we have no choice but to recognize the world as connected. Perhaps as we grow more aware of this wholeness, we can create new systems of functioning to account for the impact our choices have on the world.

Work Cited:

Foster, Kathryn. Summer Grasslands. 2009, Fine Art America, https://fineartamerica.com/featured/summer-grasslands-kathryn-foster.html.

Vedantam, Shankar, host. “We’re All Gonna Die! How Fear of Death Drives Our Behavior.” Hidden Brain from NPR, 16 September 2019, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/760599683.

 

To New Beginnings…

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After the first full week of class, I am ready for more. Death in the Anthropocene, what is that and why is there a college class on it? From what I have gathered in our three sessions together thus far is that this class is a space for our minds to grapple with the issues of our systems (world, Earth, and noosphere), our mortality, the current political climate, and how to factor in sustainability into all the above-mentioned spaces. First things first, I needed a concrete definition of Anthropocene, which is as follows: “the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and environment” (Oxford Languages). The Anthropocene is where we are in time and space, easy enough. How do our lives fit into the Anthropocene? Well, we are a part of the noosphere which is the human side of the geospheres living system. The noosphere is something I had never heard of before, but after learning about it I understand how necessary it is to our Earth system. The humans are their own entity on this Earth, our systems work with and against the Earth system, but are also independent of the Earth system and require our own category. When I googled noosphere just to see what pops up, a satirical blog popped up with this image.

https://planetpailly.com/2017/08/11/sciency-words-noosphere/

I found this to be funny and a little too real. Jokes aside, the blog had some interesting thoughts on the noosphere, more predominantly that they were not ready to claim humankind as the Earth’s brain-and I have to agree with them (J.S. Pailly). We are not the system that run’s the Earth, we are currently just the system causing mechanical issues for the system running the Earth. With all this in mind, all of the Earth systems- atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere- they are all interdependent. All the system can be individual and do their own process, but they also work with the other systems to create something beautiful: our home. After this first week of class and the weekend to digest my thoughts, I have come to the conclusion that this class will teach me the intricacies of the noosphere and how it fits into the Earth system as well as how we as the noosphere can make our sphere a healthier sphere for the Earth system.

Qualms About My Demise

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“Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene” is a fascinating title––oddly specific, yet broad enough to cover so many things. Signing up for this course, I was hooked.

My death is something that I contemplate quite often. It entails considering the possible ways that I want my body disposed of: I hate the idea of being eaten by worms, so burial and composting are out, and while I don’t enjoy imagining my body burning, at least my cremated ashes won’t be a direct meal for some creature. It entails thinking about my soul––will I have a next life, or will my “soul” and conscious just cease to exist in the universe? It also entails significant FOMO (fear of missing out), which is my ultimate motivator in life to do my best, please as many people as possible, see as many places as I can, and consume without need. To quote the NPR podcast We’re All Gonna Die!, “the fear of death haunts the human animal like nothing else.” I can certainly relate.

Now, only a week into this course, I’m realizing that there are many problematic implications with how I approach the fear of my death.

Using systems thinking, my death and following disposal is individual, in that it is important psychologically to me. It is also part of a larger system of the earth’s ecology. How then should I approach the subject of my body? Do I respect myself and get cremated to avoid the “ew” factor? Or do I respect the Earth, future generations, and climate action, and instead choose composting? The fact that I have a choice is part of the problem and demonstrates how our species is out of bounds. I am inclined to choose an option that hurts the environment, other humans, and the entire planetary system. To the question of “what kind of species will we be,” from Professor Litfin’s Becoming Planetary, it will someday be up to me decide in this one small, yet impactful decision and make the mature choice.

Considering terror management theory, it may be my fear of the unknown that drives my FOMO and qualms of the soul. Maybe if I were religious, I would not feel the need to travel so much or buy so many things because I could find comfort and security in a certain “after.”

I’m curious to see how this course’s content, discussions, and contemplative practices will continue to insight deeper understandings and challenge my views about death.

Image Source: Ken Lambert, The Seattle Times. Recompose, the first human-composting funeral home in the U.S. in Kent, WA.

Welcome to our course blog!

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We are a learning community asking big questions. Because life feeds on life, death is indispensable to the healthy functioning of ecosystems and even evolution itself. One species, however, has developed the capacity to anticipate (and therefore dread) death and commandeer other species in service to increasing its numbers and its material consumption. Humanity is now operating well outside the planetary boundaries that characterized the Holocene, the interglacial “sweet spot” during which civilization emerged. The implications are profound: not only are we facing the end of “nature” as something separate from human culture, we also face the potential death of civilization as we know it.

Image source: Ligorano Reese, Melted Away

We therefore ask ourselves: what are the political and ecological consequences of how individuals and societies approach death? And what can the current pandemic teach us about the political ecology of death? While death is a fact of life, questions of who lives, who dies, who decides, and with what consequences are also political ones. Our discussion is therefore informed by themes of justice, equity, power and authority, and political agency. At the same time, because mortality is also an intensely personal reality, we are deepening our self-inquiry through poetry, videos, contemplative practices, and personal exploration.

As we stand at the threshold of the Anthropocene, we hope our inquiry helps to inspire your own inquiry!