The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis: Rethinking Modernity in a New Epoch

201 Pages·2015·2.309 MB·English

by  Clive Hamilton, François Gemenne, Christophe Bonneuil

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THE ANTHROPOCENE AND THE
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
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t The Anthropocene, in which humankind has become a geological force, is a major
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] scientific proposal; but it also means that the conceptions of the natural and social
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o worlds on which sociology, political science, history, law, economics and philosophy
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The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis captures some of the radical
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g new thinking prompted by the arrival of the Anthropocene and opens up the social
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ll sciences and humanities to the profound meaning of the new geological epoch,
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C the ‘Age of Humans’. Drawing on the expertise of world-recognised scholars and
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t thought-provoking intellectuals, the book explores the challenges and difficult
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r questions posed by the convergence of geological and human history to the foun-
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v dational ideas of modern social science.
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U If in the Anthropocene humans have become a force of nature, changing the func-
y [ tioning of the Earth system as volcanism and glacial cycles do, then it means the end of
b the idea of nature as no more than the inert backdrop to the drama of human affairs. It
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e means the end of the ‘social-only’ understanding of human history and agency. These
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a pillars of modernity are now destabilised. The scale and pace of the shifts occurring on
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nl Earth are beyond human experience and expose the anachronisms of ‘Holocene think-
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ing’. The book explores what kinds of narratives are emerging around the scientific idea
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D of the new geological epoch, and what it means for the ‘politics of unsustainability’.
Clive Hamilton is Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy
and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia.
Christophe Bonneuil is a Senior researcher in History at the Centre A. Koyré
(CNRS, EHESS and MNHN) Paris, France.
François Gemenne is a Research fellow at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-
en-Yvelines (CEARC), France and at the University of Liège (CEDEM), Belgium.
Routledge Environmental Humanities
Series editors: Iain McCalman and Libby Robin
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t Editorial Board
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o Christina Alt, St Andrews University, UK
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n Alison Bashford, University of Cambridge, UK
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L Peter Coates, University of Bristol, UK
e Thom van Dooren, University of New South Wales, Australia
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e Georgina Endfield, University of Nottingham, UK
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o Jodi Frawley, University of Sydney, Australia
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y Andrea Gaynor, The University of Western Australia, Australia
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si Tom Lynch, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA
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e Jennifer Newell, American Museum of Natural History, New York, US
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ni Simon Pooley, Imperial College London, UK
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Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
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y Ann Waltner, University of Minnesota, US
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d Paul Warde, University of East Anglia, UK
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d Jessica Weir, University of Western Sydney, Australia
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w International Advisory Board
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D William Beinart, University of Oxford, UK
Sarah Buie, Clark University, USA
Jane Carruthers, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, USA
Paul Holm, Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Shen Hou, Renmin University of China, Beijing
Rob Nixon, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Pauline Phemister, Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University
of Edinburgh, UK
Deborah Bird Rose, University of New South Wales, Australia
Sverker Sorlin, KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum, Munich and Co-Director, Rachel
Carson Centre, LMU Munich University, Germany
Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, USA
Kirsten Wehner, Head Curator, People and the Environment, National Museum
6 of Australia
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r The Routledge Environmental Humanities series is an original and inspiring venture
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b recognising that today’s world agricultural and water crises, ocean pollution and
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e resource depletion, global warming from greenhouse gases, urban sprawl, over-
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e population, food insecurity and environmental justice are all crises of culture.
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9 The reality of understanding and finding adaptive solutions to our present and
1 future environmental challenges has shifted the epicenter of environmental stud-
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1 ies away from an exclusively scientific and technological framework to one that
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8 depends on the human-focused disciplines and ideas of the humanities and allied
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t social sciences.
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] We thus welcome book proposals from all humanities and social sciences
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o disciplines for an inclusive and interdisciplinary series. We favour manuscripts
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n aimed at an international readership and written in a lively and accessible style. The
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readership comprises scholars and students from the humanities and social sciences
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g and thoughtful readers concerned about the human dimensions of environmental
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ll change.
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t Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities
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r Jodi Frawley and Iain McCalman
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U The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progress
y [ An environmental history
b Cameron Muir
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a The Biosphere and the Bioregion
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nl Essential writings of Peter Berg
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Cheryll Glotfelty and Eve Quesnel
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Sustainable Consumption and the Good Life
Interdisciplinary perspectives
Edited by Karen Lykke Syse and Martin Lee Mueller
The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis
Rethinking modernity in a new epoch
Edited by Clive Hamilton, Christophe Bonneuil and François Gemenne
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THE ANTHROPOCENE
AND THE GLOBAL
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CRISIS
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First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Clive Hamilton, Christophe Bonneuil and François
Gemenne
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1 The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the
0 editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
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r has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
e Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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c reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
De or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
9 photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
1 retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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1 Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
8: or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
0 explanation without intent to infringe.
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] British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
n A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
o Library
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o Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
L A catalog record for this book has been requested

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e ISBN: 978-1-138-82123-1 (hbk)
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ol ISBN: 978-1-138-82124-8 (pbk)
C ISBN: 978-1-315-74342-4 (ebk)
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si Typeset in Bembo
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CONTENTS
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t List of figure and table ix
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L 1 Thinking the Anthropocene 1
e Clive Hamilton, Christophe Bonneuil and François Gemenne
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PART I
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t The concept and its implications 15
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v 2 The geological turn: narratives of the Anthropocene 17
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U Christophe Bonneuil
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d 3 Human destiny in the Anthropocene 32
e Clive Hamilton
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n 4 The Anthropocene and the convergence of histories 44
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5 The political ecology of the Technocene: uncovering
ecologically unequal exchange in the world-system 57
Alf Hornborg
6 Losing the Earth knowingly: six environmental
grammars around 1800 70
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
viii Contents
PART II
Catastrophism in the Anthropocene 85
7 Anthropocene, catastrophism and green political theory 87
Luc Semal
8 Eschatology in the Anthropocene: from the chronos of
6 deep time to the kairos of the age of humans 100
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b 9 Green eschatology 112
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1 PART III
7 Rethinking politics 121
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t 10 Back to the Holocene: a conceptual, and possibly practical,
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L 11 Accepting the reality of Gaia: a fundamental shift? 134

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C 12 Telling friends from foes in the time of the Anthropocene 145
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v 13 A much-needed renewal of environmentalism?
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y [ Ingolfur Blühdorn
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e 14 The Anthropocene and its victims 168
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a François Gemenne
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o Epilogue 175
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15 Commission on planetary ages decision CC87966424/49:
the onomatophore of the Anthropocene 177
Bronislaw Szerszynski
Index 184
FIGURE AND TABLE
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t Figure
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n 6.1 François-Antoine Rauch, The Ruins of Babylon Annales
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n Européennes, 1824, vol. 4, 17 75
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o 7.1 Four hypotheses about the Anthropocene, its potential
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y duration and its possible ending 91
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