Sapiens Symposium: “Humans in the Anthropocene”

As you walk down the sidewalk, you probably see signs and trees, yards and houses, cars and roads. Then, you look up and see a jet streak against the blue sky and white clouds. These are all marks; are all parts of the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene: where human causations have severely and dramatically altered the condition of the Earth; where we can now self-identify ourselves as major players in the Earth system and its many processes.

If there is any doubt about the effects of anthropogenic climate change and its effects, I urge you to go to the islands of the Pacific, where increased hurricane intensities rock the villages and cities; where in Kiribati, stacks of sandbags are the only defense against rising sea levels that threaten peoples’ homes. Or, go to the Arctic and watch as ice sheets melt, break apart, and fall into the sea before your eyes. Or, simply sit and wait, as the effects of human-induced climate alterations and many other negative anthropogenic effects will soon enter our own lives and backyards.

You see, the Anthropocene is not upon us–it is not coming, it is here; it is the future as well as the present; it is the now. We have raised sea levels, increased global temperatures, shrunken biodiversity, melted ice caps, bleached coral reefs, added to carbon dioxide levels, and polluted, degraded, or destroyed Earth’s air, soil, water, and organisms, in many different ways–and in the Anthropocene, all of these happenings will only become more and more prevalent.

Yet, on top of all this, in this new era humanity faced a pressing question: What does it mean to be human? What is our role or place; our meaning; the very quintessence of being human in this new and emerging world of the Anthropocene?

Right now, we are at a critical point–an impasse, if you will. The paths of history have all led us to this point, and now we are at the end of our road. Life and civilization as we know it is bound to change in one way or another.

But what a wonderful place to be! (And I don’t say that sarcastically at all, I mean it.)

We are at a point at the end of our road–facing an unknown and uncertain future–but this doesn’t mean that we are at our end. Rather, we are actually at a point of infinite beginning, with freedom and opportunity to choose our new path.

With the point of our current situation, with this aforementioned freedom and opportunity, we possess the power to give both Earth and Mankind a redirected potential of meaningful and equal progress. We are at the end our road–the blacktop of our society-given trajectory ends here–we must now begin paving our way in the Anthropocene.

As we go about this paving–this wayfaring–we embrace the future, but we also embrace ourselves: defining, redefining, and giving meaning to our Self’s and our species in this new era, as well as life and the Earth and everything in it. And this is the answer to that age-old, plaguing question: What does it mean to be human? In the Anthropocene it means that we have the choice to define ourselves and all that surrounds us; to write our own future based off more than our history; to possess that freedom to pursue the potential of true, sustainable human development. And through all this, to shape the world even as it shapes us, because we create the world, and through this creating we both create and cultivate ourselves.

So what meaning will we cultivate for ourselves in this new era? This is where I leave you, because this is where we are. We will go about defining ourselves, and what it means to be human will be the collective of all these definitions. What pieces will you add? Humans have dramatically shaped the planet, and in the Anthropocene, can we not also alter our Self and our being as we see fit?

William Cronon says this: “If living in history means that we cannot help leaving marks on a fallen world, then the dilemma we face is to decide what kind of marks we wish to leave.”

This is our current situation. We are living at a critical moment in history with more power than ever before to direct the future of ourselves and our planet. As humans, we recognize we are leaving marks, and we possess that ability and capacity to consciously decide and determine what type of marks we wish those to be. As you go about shaping and being shaped by and creating and being created by the world and yourself in the Anthropocene, what kinds of marks will you leave? What will you add to the definition of mankind?

Intimacy and Becoming Human in the Anthropocene

Currently, we, the whole of humanity, are wayfaring through the Anthropocene, and it does not appear that any sure future has yet come into our sights. This new geologic epoch is just that—new; what lies ahead is unknown, and our roles as humans, as well as our very meaning of being human is as unclear as our future.

Truly, we are in a “kind of hybrid Earth, of nature injected with human will, however responsibly or irresponsibly that will may have been exercised (Hamilton and Grinevald, 2015).” With the dawn of this new era of Earth, humans will be more in control of the planet’s future than ever before. This is the broadest way of describing what it means to be human as we enter the Anthropocene: to be in control. Human will, decisions, and willpower are at the forefront of determining the path taken by our inhabited planet and the meaning of being human. Mankind is in the driver’s seat, and whichever destination we and the planet are to eventually arrive is up to our own steering.

Rendering this to be true, how we utilize the freedom and power that comes with our control of the Earth’s path will be crucial in defining what it means to be human in the Anthropocene as well as further cultivating our particular role as we continue deeper into the period. An overarching goal as we go about exercising these self-ensured entitlements is to keep the Earth’s environment in a state that is propitious for further human development (Steffen et al, 2011). However, we are not alone on this planet, nor are we alone in our emergence to the Anthropocene and its plethora of possible and probable effects. Dr. Agustin Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Notre Dame, writes: “We shape and are shaped by our caretaking, consumption, manipulation of, destruction of and compassion for other beings [and the natural systems with which we associate] (Fuentes, 2015).” The ultimate goal then, is for all humans to have fulfilling lives without degrading each other, the planet, and the planet’s other inhabitants (“Human Development Initiative,” 2016). Only then will sustainable human development be ensured.

The ways by which we define what it means to be human in the Anthropocene will be molded by our interactions with each other and the rest of the Earth system, creating the advancement of our future all the while. These interactions will be based largely off the intimacy or our relationships to different entities. In his article “Love Our Monsters,” Bruno Latour makes the following statement:

“If God has not abandoned His Creation and has sent His Son to redeem it, why do you, a human, a creature, believe that you can invent, innovate, and proliferate — and then flee away in horror from what you have committed? Oh, you the hypocrite who confesses of one sin to hide a much graver, mortal one! Has God fled in horror after what humans made of His Creation? Then have at least the same forbearance that He has.”

In these sentences, Latour stresses the fact that our deepest sin is that we failed to effectively care for our creations, such as fossil fuels, capitalism, and high-energy consumption ways of life, which essentially led to the eventual creation of our most imposing monster yet—the Anthropocene epoch. This illustrates that we must first accept the whole of who we are, including our creations and our creations’ creations, and own ourselves in order to see the changes that need to be made—both within ourselves and out in the world. Intimacy to, rather than a separation from, our creations is required, as is intimacy with the environment through planetary stewardship.

Becoming intimate with the Earth rests on our role as planetary stewards that is vital to the meaning of humans in the Anthropocene. Over the past centuries, we attempted to distance ourselves from nature, and by doing so, we allowed ourselves to not care for, harm, alter, and unbalance the Earth. Yet, despite this, our attempts only led us to be more entangled with the natural world, as we are now a driving force in that system, more linked to it that ever in our past. If we make this connection intimate through stewardship, we will more effectively make decisions and take actions that allow for the sustainable development of the relationship between our species and our planet (Steffen et al, 2011). Earth has many different thresholds that if breached, will have unknown— but predicted negative— effects (Rockström et al, 2009). The balance has already been skewed, and if we fail to become intimate with our environment, we will tip it over the edge, from which return is extremely unlikely. As we go about becoming human in the Anthropocene, we must embrace our role as stewards and/or keepers of the Earth, making our interaction intimate, in order that we may ensure the tranquility of humanity without the deprivation of the natural entities with which we intermingle.

Lastly, how intimately humans perceive each other will also play a major role as we continue our wayfaring through the Anthropocene. Not all areas, nor all peoples, of the planet will be equally affected as the effects of the Anthropocene begin to occur, and it is our care and compassion through intimacy towards each other that supplies the only saving grace for some of mankind. Furthermore, if humanity is to collectively work towards sustainable human development for the future, it will take the whole of the species to achieve this. Only through intimacy can a collective form and succeed. When we embrace our fellow men and women with intimacy, realizing differences but understanding them and not allowing them to beset us, we will truly be able to create a better Earth.

Through intimacy—of and to our creations, planet, and fellow beings—we can assure a bright future for ourselves in the Anthropocene, and also find our place in this new era. What it means to be human in the Anthropocene will be to embrace, not to distinguish; to entangle, not to disengage; to connect, not to distance; to be intimate as we exercise our entitled freedoms and powers of control. Today, our global system is so intensely interconnected, that massive social or environmental failure in one region threatens the entirety of it all (Costanza et al, 2007). “Perhaps the overarching question for the 21st century is the following: can the current global system adapt and survive the accumulating, highly interconnected problems it now faces? (Costanza et al, 2007).” If those interconnections are made intimate, so that the relationships are valued, then yes, and this is what will be the defining item for mankind as we all become human in the Anthropocene: how well are we able to make our interactions intimate, that we may solve our problems wholly while maintaining sustainable human development worldwide.

 

 

 

References

Costanza, Robert, Lisa Graumlich, Will Steffen, Carole Crumley, John Dearing, Kathy Hibbard, Rik Leemans, Charles Redman, and David Schimel. “Sustainability or Collapse: What Can We Learn from Integrating the History of Humans and the Rest of Nature?” AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 36.7 (2007): 522-27. Web

Fuentes, Agustín. “Becoming Human with Others in the Anthropocene: The Long View.” Engagement (blog), September 29, 2015. https://aesengagement.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/becoming-human-with-others-in-the-anthropocene-the-long-view/.

Hamilton, C., and J. Grinevald. “Was the Anthropocene Anticipated?” The Anthropocene Review 2, no. 1 (2015): 59-72. doi:10.1177/2053019614567155.

“Human Development Initiative.” Human Development Initiative. Accessed April 18, 2016. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/fighting_poverty_our_human

Latour, Bruno. “Love Your Monsters — Why We Must Care for Our Technologies As We Do Our Children.” The Breakthrough Institute. 2012. Accessed April 18, 2016. http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-2/love-your-monsters.

Rockström, Johan, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin, Eric F. Lambin, Timothy M. Lenton, Marten Scheffer, Carl Folke, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Björn Nykvist, Cynthia A. De Wit, Terry Hughes, Sander Van Der Leeuw, Henning Rodhe, Sverker Sörlin, Peter K. Snyder, Robert Costanza, Uno Svedin, Malin Falkenmark, Louise Karlberg, Robert W. Corell, Victoria J. Fabry, James Hansen, Brian Walker, Diana Liverman, Katherine Richardson, Paul Crutzen, and Jonathan A. Foley. “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity.” Nature 461, no. 7263 (2009): 472-75. doi:10.1038/461472a.

Steffen, Will, Åsa Persson, Lisa Deutsch, Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams, Katherine Richardson, Carole Crumley, Paul Crutzen, Carl Folke, Line Gordon, Mario Molina, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Johan Rockström, Marten Scheffer, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, and Uno Svedin. “The Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship.” Ambio 40, no. 7 (2011): 739-61. Accessed April 17, 2016. doi:10.1007/s13280-011-0185-x.