EE 7-8 (Politikos, Prometheus). GT 2.8--2.14 (thru Fresh Water). WW 85-102 (Disasters, Drain). McK thru John Muir. Select Midterm report presentation topics/dates
EE
1. Some worry that recognizing the Anthropocene might serve as the political equivalent of what statement and dismissal?
2. Failing to recognize the Anthropocene, according to Erik Swyngedouw and others, is to deny what?
3. What Titanic analogy is offered by James Scourse?
4. How has human agency with regard to the environment changed, according to Chakrabarty?
5. The human way of living on earth is shaped far more by what?
6. What are the comparative emissions rates of average Chinese and Americans, and of the wealthy/urban and rural/poor ?
7. According to Jason Moore and others, what caused Earth's transformation by producing massive social inequalities?
8. What is the Chthulucene?
9. What's the benefit of recognizing the Anthropocene, according to the editors of Nature?
10. What is the noosphere?
11. Why might Icarus be a better metaphor for the Anthropocene than Prometheus?
12. What are some things that "raise the prospect of a better planetary future"?
13. What does the Anthropocene call on us to do, and how is that symbolized by the Long Now clock project?
GT
- What do recent reports say about Greenland and West Antarctica? 72
- What unnatural drought development is beginning to emerge? 75
- What are some alarming problems caused by ocean warming? 79-80
- What is AMOC, and how long does it take to recover from disruption? 81, 83
- What new component of seawater has been found nearly everywhere that has been sampled? 86
WW
- Where can you already find dreamtime? 86
- What results from paving over vulnerable coastlines? 89
- How much land does Louisiana lose to the sea each hour? 92
- Why do we frequently choose to obsess over personal consumption? 99
McK
- How did John Muir anticipate current ideas about anthropocentrism and interconnectedness? 84
- Without what would the universe be incomplete, in Muir's judgement? 88
- What did Muir find in California forests and trees? 93
- What was for Muir the relation between solitude and loneliness? 99
- What did Muir say about those who wanted to dam and develop the Hetch Hetchy Valley? 112
More Discussion Questions
- Like native/indigenous traditions, the eco-pragmatist approach urges our adoption of long-term thinking about our relation to Earth and other species. Do you think the Long Now clock project holds promise for implanting such an ethos in this and future generations? How can we most effectively engender an active sense of "the long now"?
- "Who are we to name a new interval of geologic time after ourselves?"
- Which is worse, anthropocentric hubris or denialism?
- Would scientific recognition of the Anthropocene change public perceptions and actions?
- What's wrong with "enlightened species" narratives? 132
- Homo sapiens as a whole is not causing rapid global climate change, wealthy individuals and nations are. Does that make non-wealthy Americans equally complicit?
- Is this the Capitalocene, the Anthropocene, both, or neither?
- Do you agree with the authors of The Shock of the Anthropocene that anti-environmental elites have always been engaged in a cover-up of their activities? 136
- Is it better to solve fossil fuel emissions by removing carbon, invest in alternative energy sources like solar or nuclear, or both? 138
- Is global governance the key...? [& see the other questions posed on 139]
- Is individuality just an illusion? 140
- COMMENT: "Make kin, not babies."
- Do humans have any right to change Earth? 141
- COMMENT: "Humanity forms nature." 142
- COMMENT: "The Anthropocene demands action." 143
- [Note the brief list of Anthropocene books on 142... they're not works of fiction, but if
- anyone would care to use one of them for your report(s) consider it an option.]
- What do you think it means to need "many different Anthropocene narratives"? 145
- On balance, do you think it's a good thing that humans have become "a force of nature"?
- Is there a better concept or term than "stewardship," that still conveys the fundamental point of humans' responsibility for their actions that impinge upon or impair the Earth's capacity to sustain itself as a healthy and habitable planet for our form of life and others?
- Is western religion earth-centric? ##
- Do Zen Buddhism and St. Francis offer suitable remedies to human exploitation and degradation of nature?
- $$ What do you think of E.O. Wilson's appeal to fundamentalists? Is religion in America now hopelessly politicized?
- Are you confident that alternate energy generation of renewable energy will scale up quickly enough to make a difference? Or that appropriate fuel efficiency standards on automobiles will be imposed in the years just ahad? Do you expect to drive an e-vehicle soon?
- Do you think Deep Ecologists,ecofeminists, Greens et al will unite effectively in pursuit of environmental and social justice>
- 10## See Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (based on his 1985 Gifford Lectures in Scotland, echoing William James's Gifford Lectures of the early 20th century which became The Varieties of Religious Experience. Sagan: “we have a theology that is Earth-centered and involves a tiny piece of space, and when we step back, when we attain a broader cosmic perspective, some of it seems very small in scale. And in fact a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the God portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much less of a universe.”
- “Human nature is deeper and broader than the artificial contrivance of any existing culture.”
- “We need freedom to roam across land owned by no one but protected by all, whose unchanging horizon is the same that bounded the world of our millennial ancestors.”
- “There is no solution available, I assure you, to save Earth's biodiversity other than the preservation of natural environments in reserves large enough to maintain wild populations sustainably. Only Nature can serve as the planetary ark.”
- “Science has become the most democratic of all human endeavors. It is neither religion nor ideology. It makes no claims beyond what can be sensed in the real world. It generates knowledge in the most productive and unifying manner contrived in history, and it serves humanity without obeisance to any particular tribal deity.”
- Post your DQs
** I recommend The Sacred Depths of Nature by Ursula Goodenough... and, a propos nature and the sacred, I also recommend Cousin Mary's poem:
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—over and over announcing your placein the family of things. -Mary Oliver==
$$ The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earthby Edward O. Wilson
We have not met, yet I feel I know you well enough to call you friend. First of all, we grew up in the same faith. Although I no longer belong to that faith, I am confident that if we met and spoke privately of our deepest beliefs, it would be in a spirit of mutual respect and goodwill. I write to you now for your counsel and help. Let us see if we can, and you are willing, to meet on the near side of metaphysics in order to deal with the real world we share. I suggest that we set aside our differences in order to save the Creation. The defense of living Nature is a universal value. It doesn't rise from nor does it promote any religious or ideological dogma. Rather, it serves without discrimination the interests of all humanity.
Pastor, we need your help. The Creation—living Nature—is in deep trouble.
Organizers hope a 2,000-foot-long unmanned boom will collect 150,000 pounds of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in a year. Read More...
More Methane...
In a victory for energy companies, the administration plans to roll back rules covering methane leaks and the “flaring,” or burning, of the potent greenhouse gas. • It was the third major step this year to reverse the United States’ previous efforts to rein in global warming. Read More...
More Methane...
In a victory for energy companies, the administration plans to roll back rules covering methane leaks and the “flaring,” or burning, of the potent greenhouse gas. • It was the third major step this year to reverse the United States’ previous efforts to rein in global warming. Read More...
The video featuring E.O Wilson was interesting. He has such an important message to deliver regarding our insect species and the other microscopic organisms vital to life. I heard him and his of consequence message he is delivering, but I believe it takes a conveyance of ultimate transportation to dispatch and achieve a desired response of action. Maybe this beautiful telegenic video would have been better executed without the album "Songs For Distingue Lovers by Billie Holiday" accompanying the essence of content. I do appreciate the sentiment and am pleased someone in this generation is speaking out for unassuming organisms representation. So important!
ReplyDeleteby: Chelsie Gordon
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ReplyDeleteWould scientific recognition of the Anthropocene change public perceptions and actions?
Honestly, I don't think so. I just don't think it would hold as much weight to the general public than it would to geologists. Even to me who has taken many geology courses, the term is just a title and not much else. I understand the effort behind it but I just don't think it would change very much. There are plenty of people who don't care about the environment and who never ever heard of the geologic time scale. What impact would this recognition have on them?
Is individuality just an illusion?
I think so. We depend on each other for just about everything and trying to refuse that is just going against our natural instincts. Almost every species on earth lives in at least small groups. We are meant to live together and build communities with other living things around us. Being self-sustaining is important and a great skill but it is just not realistic or natural.
Is western religion earth-centric?
Yes, very much so. I know many Christians believe that God choose Earth and that there is no other life on any other planets because we are the chosen planet.
As humans have learned and also affected parts of the geologic timeline. I feel like naming a time after ourselves shows that we take responsibility for our actions and recognize what we did was wrong. Naming this era would show how much the world has been affected and could cause sympathy to our actions. Denialism of our situation is the worst thing we can do as its final product would be the severity of the climate.
ReplyDeleteI find the concept of the Capitalocene interesting, however capitalism is inherently human. So it makes more sense to me to classify it under the Anthropocene, rather than something else entirely. Although it still seems important to consider, because although all humans are responsible for the climate, it is mostly wealthy people driving it. So the Capitalocene is interesting to show the difference in responsibility between the rich and poor, but should not be seen as a way to shift the blame of environmental damage from humans to an arbitrary system.
ReplyDeleteI would say that this is the Anthrocene, not the capitalocene. Capitalism and the ideas of capitalism have been around since trade was invented and it is nothing new in these regards. The effects or capitalism compared to other economies both create as much influence as each other on the environment.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that western religion is not earth-centric in the slightest. In the example of “The Creation”, it seems that the efforts to spread Christianity undermine the earth and its preservation. In a real life example, most fundamentalist Christians seem not to give care about the world and only seem to act in selfish ways. Example: Donald Trump has policies up his sleeve that directly hurt the environment for the sake of economic growth. There is a big audience for these policies among those who are deep within Christianity, as they seem to deny science and claim climate change isn’t real. In a big way, yes, Western religion tends to undermine the earth. There is also a core concept to Christianity that we as humans should be able to have dominion over nature, and be able to manipulate it to our advantage.
The idea to name a new geologic era after ourselves furthers the hubris we hold in our control of the earth. It is, however, fitting considering how much we influence the world.
Is it better to solve fossil fuel emissions by removing carbon, invest in alternative energy sources like solar or nuclear, or both?
ReplyDeleteI think that initially you have to have a balance. We can't just go carbon free and rely on alternative energy. There has to be a transition, and it isn't going to be as fast and easy as people want it to be.