Category Archives: Noosphere

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.

Chocolate and Chip

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During our most recent contemplative practice, which Professor Litfin recorded for us to listen to over Thanksgiving break, I took some time to reflect on where my holiday meal came from.

My aunt hosted our annual family dinner this year, so we were incredibly lucky to enjoy potatoes, green beans, eggs, and various fruits straight from her farm. But some of our food, like the turkey, needed to be bought from the grocery store. That turkey is what (or who) I thought most about during the contemplation exercise. Specifically, I considered what that turkey’s life must have been like before it ended up on our table. The article we read last month about slaughterhouses (Working Undercover in a Slaughterhouse: an interview with Timothy Pachirat) had a profound impact on my thought process.

As the article points out, death is widely normalized in our culture, but, at the same time, we all take great care to willingly ignore it. Deep down, I’m sure my family and I all understood that the turkey on our table had suffered for most of its life. It probably lived in awful conditions in a factory farm, where it was forcefully fattened up and bludgeoned to death, all for some family to eat in celebration of a holiday whose origins are rife with much of the same exploitation and violence. This reality is not one that many of us want to think about, but it’s one I forced myself to confront to help me be more appreciative of the (unwilling) sacrifice that animal made.

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

After gaining this clarity, I found myself thinking back to Thanksgiving morning, when President Biden officially pardoned Chocolate and Chip at the White House (pictured right). When I was watching this event, I felt joy that these turkeys would go on to live happily and healthily for many more years. However, I’ve realized instead that our country has this tradition of sparing the life of one or two turkeys every Thanksgiving merely to obfuscate those we’d rather not see.

In closing, I am thankful for the many insights I have gained throughout this quarter from our weekly contemplative practices, and as this class comes to an end, I am beginning to realize the positive impact they have had on me. Setting aside some time to just sit with my thoughts is something I plan to do more of in the future.

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.