About nature and the Anthropocene

Anthropocene—as an idea

Idea that human activities have become a major geological force, altering the Earth system on a scale comparable to some natural forces and leaving a distinctive signature that may remain detectable into the future.

“The age of humans as a geological force.”

Ideal environment for human beings

necessary resources

sustainable and renewable systems

opportunity for utilizing

connection with nature, shared experience

responsiveness

social environment → equity, power, systems

The Anthropocene: Beyond the great separation

Demonstrates the fault in the divides between nature and society.

-The Anthropocene reveals that society and nature are interconnected: social and economic structures influence how matter and energy are extracted, (unequally) distributed, consumed, and transformed, producing unequal environmental impacts.

Ideal environment for human beings for them to become sedentary — two things:

• stability

• predictability

• low risk

• prosperity

Holocene

Propelled to a world economy hosting over seven billion people.

We know for certain can support the modern world we live in: dangerous to depart from this…

Environmental crisis: how to address it

• Humans have the potential to address problems however, and so environmental management is. how we try to maintain conditions success in different systems.

Resource—define

A source of human satisfaction, wealth, strength

The concept is:

Anthropocentric

Instrumental

Relative

natural resources

A thing or a process

-non renewable resources

-Renewable resources

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Equity and Great Acceleration

OECD = small population; BIG economy

non-OECD = BIG population growth

then BIG increases in some activities

The Great Acceleration

has an exponential rate of increase in:

population

resource extraction

resource consumption

waste disposal

The Great Acceleration

has an environmental include:

damming rivers

deforestation

The Great Acceleration

has environmental impacts:

climate change

biodiversity

The Anthropocene has caused a transformation of the biosphere due to:

population growth and expansion

Socio-economic trends like

population

real GDP

Foreign direct investment

urban population

primary energy use

fertilizer consumption

large dams

water use

paper production

transportation

Telecommunications

international.tourism

are increasing trends

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) looks out for:

• Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’

• Transformative ‘changes’ needed to restore and protect nature

• Look out on globalization

Globalization has led us to follow a more linear system instead of a cyclical one, that forbids us to realizing:

Globalization has led us to follow a more linear system instead of a cyclical one, that forbids us to realizing: our impact, to be able to connect and internalize and be more knowledgeable about where things come from.

Thinking about Nature—The importance of nature

• Management can only work through cultural systems (inescapable social dimensions)

• Tide of ideas- recorded histories of how we perceive things

• Depends on religion, superstition, science, language, willingness to shift paradigms

• common future includes cultural systems to determine how people can connect with the environment.

• Understand and see the world and relate to the environment

Human interactions with the environment is necessary:

Be part of natural systems '

Have a social foundation

responsiveness

Conservation narratives— war or wildlife?

What is driving loss?

Who are the “protectors” of wildlife?

who are “enviornmentalists”?

How so our ideas about ‘nature’ shape the answers to these questions?

Social Construct

idea is created by social and cultural context; depends on perspective and values.

Constructivism

“Facts” are not inevitable outcomes of empirical inquiry—truth is bound to change with political and social contexts.

Nature as a Social Construct

Nature is a “dualistic” interpretation

Based on “Western” thought- nature/society, civilized/wild , separate and subordinate, value lies in its economic use to us;

“nature” is composed of “resources”

Nature-Society Dichotomy in a Wester view

Nature is wild, uncivilized, beautiful, chaotic while society is safe, civilized, and ordered.

Nature is unthinking and instinctual, while humans have consciousness, reason, and free will.

Nature is a backdrop against which the drama of human life unfolds.

-highly anthropocentric

Political Ecology

• History of land use

• Arguments around ethics of acquisition of land—complications interest and redistribution

• Narratives: What stories are being told

• Power dynamics: organizations seek out places where they hold relatively greater power to do things they wouldn’t be able to get away with elsewhere.

What stories are told about conservation?

Awareness of local tensions

ex: Alec Wildenstein owner of OI Jogi has 58,000 acres of pristine nature. rent it for 210,000 a week

→ distant to local dynamics and people

Earth System trends such as:

• CO2

• NO

• Methane

• surface temp

• Ocean acidification

• Domesticated land

• Terrestrial biosphere degradation

are increasing after 1950

hockey stick

Dominant Western Trends causes a dichotomy of:

dichotomy of: human activity and nature

Human-nature dichotomy and Environmental degradation/ conservation

Underlying all human — environment interactions lies an ever-evolving perception of what is natural, what the purpose of nature or the environment is: how we value it.

Human-nature dichotomy and Environmental degradation/ conservation

What we value

What we value is what shape areas of political debate what and how we talk about the environment.

Planetary boudaries

• Climate change

• Novel entities

• ozone depletion

• aerosol loading

• acidification

• biochemical flows

• freshwater use

• land-system change

• biosphere integrity

Planetary boudaries —

safe operating space for Earth

Maintaining the Earth’s biophysical subsystems or processes.

-Boundary positions were placed at was considered to be a safe distance from the risk of critical feedbacks and non-linear shifts that could trigger critical environmental systems.

2023- we have crossed 6 boundaries

Discontinuity

Process (stressful, emotionally) understanding the world as we thought it was, it is no longer there.

Views on nature and wilderness

Cronon: The Trouble with Wilderness

Historically = fear, trembling, worthless wasteland, darkness=> became sublime: rare places where one could glimpse the divine

• The idea of wilderness doesn’t hold a place for humans

• Only people whose relation to the land was already alienated could hold up to wilderness as a model for human life in nature.

• Romantic ideology of wilderness - nowhere for human beings actually to make their living from the land.

Views on nature and wilderness

Cronon: The Trouble with Wilderness

Wilderness and urbanization

• “The task of making a home in nature is “the forever unfinished lifework of our species”.

• Landscapes of home, of parks near home, cityscapes, flowers in cracks, urban nature

Views on nature and wilderness

Cronon: The Trouble with Wilderness

Wilderness and urbanization —There is a lack of:

…awareness of the biophysical connections and limitations of our socio-ecological system - bioregionalism (idea of being connected to the place where you are).

Understanding of environmental concerns and relations

How dominant views on nature immoact our relationship with resource management.

Management can only work through cultural systems (incapable social dimensions)

Moving forward…we need to:

• Consider how approaches to “environmentalism” and “sustainability” have changed through time

• Consider cultural perspectives on nature; how they’ve changed, shape our approaches to resources

• Identify problematic ways in which ‘resource management’ has been carried out in the past, look out for opportunities for new ideas.