A Warning for the ‘Gods’

Modern America is brimming with technology that serves us at our will. Phones, drones, microwaves, cars, planes, and trains are all examples. It is evident that these ‘advancements’ are deeply embedded in nearly all aspects of our culture. We truly have become the gods in a mechanical world. Technology exists to serve us. Ray Bradbury warns us to be wary of our technologies, and illustrates that they hold no value if we allow them to overcome us. While we are continually creating, it is important to realize the limits of our technologies, and to know when to stop—before we no longer have the option.

In his futuristic fable, “There Will Come Soft Rains,” Bradbury writes: “The gods had gone away and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.” Within the context of the story, this statement is in acknowledgement of the robotic, automated house that continues to function although its human keepers have been dead for some time. The ‘gods’ he refers to are human beings and the ‘ritual of the religion’ is technology’s continual service to humanity. Creating this analogy implies that technology worships us by loyally serving us. This is further evidenced when Bradbury says, “The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs,” as the attendants are the many mechanical devices throughout the house that were designed to pamper the humans that once lived there. His depiction of the house continuing to frantically serve the nonexistent humans greatly embodies that “the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.” In this manner, the fable provides a clear picture of just how pointless technology is without humans for it to serve. The house outlived its ‘gods,’ and without them it served no purpose whatsoever.

When Bradbury wrote “There Will Come Soft Rains, in 1950, America was amidst a frantic rat race of manufacturing, and many new technologies were beginning to surface and enter peoples’ lives. It was at this time that technology was first beginning to largely have an influence on both America and Americans. Among these technologies were weapons, fueling the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union. Bradbury’s fable was clearly written as a warning to be cautious of the many developments that were rapidly being implemented. He makes it evident that the humans that once lived in the house were killed by a nuclear explosion—which is a form of technological advancement. This illustrates the dangers that come with technology. It is our servant, so it will do whatever we ask of it, even if that means that it may eventually destroy us or the world around us. This is the condition that America and the rest of the world are approaching, not because of weapons, but due to the uncontrolled expansion of our technologies into nearly every aspect of our culture.

More technological developments require more materials and more energy, which means more resources to be extracted from our planet for exploitation. Today, America and all of humanity face global climate change, which can largely be attributed to the advancement of our many technologies. However, climate change means more than just the melting of artic ice. The predicted climate shift will result in the deaths of livestock animals that cannot survive the warmer temperatures, rising sea levels that will flood many coastal and island regions, and the depletion of crop yields as areas become warmer and drier. These effects will then cause other effects, such as famine, riots, and war. All of these consequences, and many more, threaten the human race. Some researchers even predict large depletions in global population that may approach human extinction. While these facts are well known by many scientists, the public refuses to “go green” or change policies to better preserve the condition of our planet. Humans remain ignorant to the issue, continuing to amplify the climate change process.

Humanity has not been cautious with our technologies, and now we are approaching a critical point in the history of the world. Have we become so used to being the ‘gods’ of technology that we have forgotten that nature is the ‘god’ over us? We have almost allowed our technology to overcome us and the rains of change are just over the horizon. It is now important that we realize that we have reached our limit. We need to stop and gain control of our technologies—before they no longer have any ‘gods’ to serve.

 

 

“There Will Come Soft Rains” — Ray Bradbury, 1950

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Semester Reflection

This semester has been one that has included some firsts.  One, it is the first time I have ever written a blog.  I didn’t really like blogs (and really still don’t) at the beginning of this class.  But, it is what the class is structure upon so I just went with it…and I survived.  Blogs are a good way of just getting ideas out there and writing down thoughts.  There is really no right or wrong in a blog when it’s is your opinion and thoughts.

We have read and discussed a wide range of information regarding the Anthropocene this semester.  Some I like and some I didn’t, but that is how anything goes.  Since I have taken classes on climatology, natural resources, sustainability, geology, and other classes I didn’t really learn anything new about the Anthropocene…as far as facts.  But, I learned a lot about ideas and thinking that I had not known before this class.  I just knew facts and figures and data, but not really what it means to live in the Anthropocene and think about where we are and where we are headed.

That is one of the most important questions and concerns that humanity faces right now…where are we headed?  How will climate change affect our planet, how are we going to combat rising sea levels, how are we going to free ourselves from fossil fuels, how are we going to have clean water for everyone, how do we get people on earth to view each others as equals instead of Global North vs. South, how do we get environmental equality, how do we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, how do we live sustainably, and many…many more questions about the future of our planet?

The main answer that we have learned during this class…it’s hard to say.  There is no magical quick fix to this global problem.  Will it be a technological remedy or social changes and ways of thinking?  Most likely it will take a combination of both.  We need to look at short term fixes that can be a middle ground to long term solutions.  With that be electric vehicles, solar (long term also), and other technologies that already exists that need to be more put into more widespread use.

With the big question of the future we also need to see more top down solutions along with bottom up.  The government of the U.S. (and other countries) needs to look at the facts and prepare for the future.  Weather they believe that humans are causing the heating or natural processes, the fact is that the global climate is getting warmer.   We need to mitigate and adapt to the first major threat of rising global temperatures, and that is the rising sea level.  Nearly 40% of the global population lives on the coastal locations that are threatened by this.  This will just add to the global instability that already exists.

The second on my firsts this semester is me trying to be more positive about my thoughts and opinions about humanity and its fight against global warming.  I’m trying to get away from “transition through catastrophe” to a more positive outcome.  I hope it is more of a “transition through equality and caring”.  We need to look at each other as one species in the same fight to save our one planet and future instead of one country or one race against another.  This isn’t a fight that excludes anyone, but a fight that includes everyone…everywhere.

Probably the single greatest thing I learned this semester is from Steve Rayner and his Pragmatist Approach.  Rayner’s “pragmatic (a reasonable and logical way of doing things or of thinking about problems that is based on dealing with specific situations instead of on ideas and theories) strategy to restart stalled global climate efforts through the pursuit of energy innovation, climate resilience, and no regrets pollution reduction.”  In his talk on Top-Down or Bottom-Up: Getting Traction on Climate Change he posted a slide that completely changed my view of humans combating climate change.  I always thought that I needed to change other peoples view to my own view.  Now, I know that is the wrong way to think and this is how I look at it now.

I graduate from college in a few weeks and have already accepted a job.  It is not in Geography, but I will take what I have learned in that area and apply it to my personal life.  I have goals about how I will choose to live my life and the choices that will shape it.  Here are a few things that will be in my future.  They are not just to benefit me, but to also benefit everyone globally.

The Tesla Model 3…fully electric with a great range to reduce emissions (also Ford just announced plans for a 200+ mile range electric vehicle).

Solar energy to power my future home to reduce emissions and water consumption for electricity production and my goal to a carbon neutral house.

Less consumerism and more re-use.  And, always to recycle as much as I can.

Will I continue to add to this blog?  Well I am not sure at this time, but it is a possibility.  If I do reach some of my goals in my journey to reduce my carbon footprint then I may add them to this blog.  Or, I may choose this as my last post on this blog and just work on my personal goals.  I’m not one that feels the need to post everything about my life so I may just sign off here…

Who Am I in the Anthropocene?

The Anthropocene, where humans have both severely and dramatically altered the condition of the Earth; where we can now self-identify ourselves as key players in the Earth system and its many processes. Our collective history and the underlying narrative of our entire species has all led us to this point–now we are at the end of our road. Things as we know them–society, life, civilization, nature–would all inevitably be changing as the Anthropocene pressed on.

In the beginning of my thoughts on the Anthropocene and the future, this current position seemed very depressing to me. The doom and gloom that appeared to come with our unknown future was overwhelming. It seemed as if the end of our road was a one way ticket to mankind’s utter demise. It hurt to know that we, humans had so harmed the planet that we also had harmed ourselves. My heart ached for the future generations, and for the lives that they would be faced with in the oncoming years. There was no light for me, I saw only the surrounding and oncoming darkness. The future was as hopeless as the present, and I had no faith that that would ever change–I had no hope for humanity.

But then, things began to change within my mindset. I saw that although we were at the end of our road, we were not necessarily at our end. Mankind was not going to end, it was at a point where it possessed the power to transform and grow and cultivate itself. This transcendence brought the light, and it was a light that I created for myself through the hope that I now held for the future.

I recognized that rather than being at our end we were actually at a point of infinity. The end of our road brings new freedoms and opportunities to pursue meaningful potentials, to redirect our path as we deem fit. While we are entering into the complete uncertainty of our future in the Anthropocene, we are not lost. We are steered by our hope and want for a better future. I have the hope that through our collective wayfaring in the Anthropocene, we will come to terms with those negative aspects of our society and seek reform, change, or even revolution based upon equality, justice, love, and happiness as well as the sustainability of human development.

After being caught in the darkness of societal and world-wide human and planetary despair, I finally was able to kindle my spark of hope in order to supply my light. This spark now burns deep within me, sequestering those previous thoughts of doom and gloom, and replacing them with the faith that everything will eventually be all right. That the future is what humanity makes for itself, and with this, I regained my hope in our species.

So, as time goes on, as we enter ever deeper into the uncharted depths of the Anthropocene, it is this spark that will guide my wayfaring. It is this spark of hope that will build me and break me, mend me and tear me, as I ramble along my path, creating and recreating myself and the world around me. The end or our road, the end of everything as we know it, brought with it a point of infinite choice, where we, the individuals, collectively bound together as the whole of humanity, each hold the ability to decide what kinds of marks we wish to leave on the world, each other, and ourselves. We have the capacity to consciously write our own future, based off more than just history; to determine and define our Self’s, life, and all that surrounds us; and to pursue a potential for both Earth and Mankind that hold true to all that is right.

All the while, throughout the Anthropocene and our wayfaring within it, we go about shaping and being shaped by the world, as well as ourselves, because we create our world, yet even as we create it, we create and cultivate ourselves–adding our part to the ever-transforming definition of “What it means to be human?” And this is who I am in the Anthropocene. I am human and I am humanity; I am continuously and sinuously creating and defining the world, the future, and also my Self, and through all this, as I venture into the Anthropocene and into life, I am undoubtedly having my say in what it means to be human, adding my Being to that collective Self of mankind.

Complacency of Today

“Romans before the fall,” wrote Ward-Perkins in his “Fall of Rome,” “were as certain as we are today that their world would continue for ever substantially unchanged. They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.”

We have so altered the system that we are now beginning to see that our world and ways of today are not, and will not be eternal. It is this knowledge of our shaken sense of complacency that leads us to fear the Anthropocene, dread the future, and stall ourselves from making a reasonable response to the situation we have entered. Our deep feeling of embedded complacency has been loosened, and our only response has been to defiantly tighten our grip on the idea that we, as we are today, are infinite–even as every sign tells us that we are not. This is the complacency of today, and the sooner we vanquish this idea from our minds, the sooner we can recognize that all the roads we have followed for so long have come to an end, then the sooner we can begin our wayfaring and our paving of our path through the Anthropocene.

The Horizon

The Anthropocene is an unending horizon. The Anthropocene holds a future of mankind that we are always approaching, yet never arriving at, because even as we advance towards it, it shifts its form, it slips just beyond our grasp. In this way, our wayfaring is illustrated. We can do all we want in the now, aim for whatever we want, point our course in what we believe to be a sure direction, yet on the journey there, we will adjust and readjust, think and rethink, all while voyaging, and that will change our future. Like a sailor looking out towards the horizon, we get only a glimpse of what our future holds; we can only see hints of the horizon of our future as we stand on the deck of the present. However, these glimpses tell little of the future; you cannot determine the destination when the course is unknown. Just as the horizon stays ahead of us, even if we sail towards it, so our future is ever-changing as we wander through the Anthropocene. As we get closer, it gets farther, as more unknown is unveiled, we see more unknown up ahead–the Anthropocene is truly an adventure of mankind; a journey into waters not only uncharted, but previously unknown.

Conformity to Individualism

 

Why is it that though we are informed (and sometimes even care) we refuse to lead the charge or even simply take a stand as we face the most imposing foe of our time? There are numerous suitable answers to this question, but conformity and a lack of a will to overcome this conformity is definitely among them. This is an interesting and quite ironic concept, because in our society we are generally thought to “be our own person” and to have an individualistic, success-based point of view, which was actually one of the factors that led us to our current, dire situation. However, possibly it is this conformity to individualism that has led us to do nothing, and this is the point on which I wish to elaborate.

Conformity to individualism: the act of conforming to the individualistic ways of society (often with clear knowledge of the consequences). It’s actually quite a sad and articulate concept to examine (and one that is terribly difficult to attempt to explain, so please forgive me).

Long has it been said that, “Humans are social creatures.” Never has this statement appeared so true, yet so paradoxical to me as when I began to delve into this topic: conformity to individualism. Society tells us that we, as individuals are the most important thing, and we conform to that idea. Sorry, but something about that whole concept just makes me think: are we that gullible? So gullible and ignorant that we let society convince us that the I is the center of the universe? We are, because that’s the state that the Western world is currently in. We are in constant conflict between being ourselves and being societies projection of ourselves. Furthermore, I believe that gaining an understanding of this idea will show why we as individuals in society (most of us, anyways) fail to act and make the needed changes to sustain ourselves in the Anthropocene.

In today’s world, there is a constant stress of importance placed on the individual. Everything is about who you are, how you live your life, what you are doing, if you are succeeding, et cetera, et cetera. But what about the we? We have conformed so much to being successful as individuals that we have lost sight of the bigger picture, of the greater good. Within society, we all abide by the idea of individualism. We weigh amounts of success by individualistic means, and in a society with a scale as such, we have conformed to this way of life. We have conformed because we accept it and fail to challenge it, even when individualism needs to be challenged for the sustainability and betterment of the whole world. But we also conform because society has given us no choice other than to do so: Either we conform to society’s norms, or we make it impossible for us to be successful, and our will to resist conformity is always going to lose when brought up against being a failure.

We live lives where the focus is placed on the individual, on being yourself as an individual, and on succeeding alone as an individual as well as an individual within a system of individuals. Climate change, and the many implications that will follow, are not an issue that can be dealt with and/or solved on an individual level. Millions and billions of individuals could all take action to combat this problem, but their difference would still be insignificant, if acting individually. One hundred individuals acting alone could not accomplish even a single percentage of the potential of a banded group of that same number. The issues that are arriving on the tidal wave we call the Anthropocene are too large, too pressing, and too complicated to be handled by separate individuals of any multitude. It is as a collective, as a society, that these problems must be addressed. As a coalition, not as multiple I’s, but only as a unified we, can solutions be reached.

 

References:

• “Living in Denial,” Kari  Marie Norgaard
• “Green Boat,” Mary Pipher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Objects of “Nature”

What is nature?  How would you define it? Are humans a part of it or are we separate?  In class we have been discussing this very thing.  And really the answers to these questions are not simple or very well definite.   The answer for one person may not be the same answer to the next.  And, can someone tell you that your answer is wrong?  I don’t think they can.

Nature as we see it today is really a human created and controlled nature.  The Konza Prairie is a good example of what modern nature is.  It is created by people and strictly controlled by study groups and the people that run it to limit how much outside influence humans have on it.  A few weeks ago there was an article in the K-State Collegian about how they may close the area to visitors because they are not following the rules.  They are going off the controlled paths and bringing dogs to the area which is not allowed.

The project that we had for our blogs this week was to “collect 3-4 found objects that tell you something about how we think about nature…the idea is to interpret each object and gain new insights into how we think about nature and also associated ideas like “technology,” “civilization,” or “wilderness.”

1)  Buffalo Grass

The first object I chose is the roundabout outside the student union.  Probably for many that drive or walk around it they pay little to no attention to it or to what is planted inside.  The grass that is growing inside of it is a species of buffalo grass.  This grass is what is out at Konza and Tallgrass Prairie and it is the native grass that would have been here before the university was created.  Why is this important?

Because, over the many decades that Kansas State University has been here we humans have changed the native landscape into an urban area with trees, concrete, buildings, grasses, and other things that are not native to this area.  Now after that many years there are a variety of locations on campus where they are creating landscape that use the native grasses of this area.

We spent so much time and money to change the landscape into something that wasn’t found in nature in this area.  Now we are spending time and money to change the landscape back into what was originally in nature in this area.  Sometimes instead of going out to nature we bring nature into our daily surroundings.

2) Is There No Limit to Changing Nature?

The second object is a newspaper article from the Kansas City Star dated January 1, 2016.  The title of the article is “At the bottom of the world, nations scramble for a spot.”  The article deals with a Russian Orthodox Church that was built on King George Island in Antarctica.  The wood that built the church were brought down from Siberia.  The U.S. also has a church down there so don’t think they are the only ones.

But, the articles main topic isn’t about the church being built down there.  The main concern is that many nations are creating stations down there to do research, and many claim that it is really to get a foot hold on the continent if, at some point in the future; it will be open to resource exploration.  As of now there drilling or mining of resources is not allowed.  Antarctica is protected by a national Treaty.

Since I used to work in Antarctica this really bothers me.  This is really the last “natural” place left on earth that humans haven’t destroyed or changed beyond recognition.  We are allowed to study and observe, but not to disrupt natural processes even though we still do just by our presence.  I hope that the day that humans are allowed to extract resources from Antarctica I won’t still be alive.

Antarctica is about the “purest” nature that we have.  Humans didn’t have to create this one.  The majority of the biodiversity is in the oceans and not on the ice.  But, the wildlife that exist down there is usually safer from extinction that most places on earth except for the deep sea fishing that goes on in seas around Antarctica.  There are many organizations that do not like this practice and work hard at fighting it.  The species that is hit the hardest is Antarctic Cod or, as restaurants call it, Chilean Sea Bass (also if you go out to eat a restaurant…know where your food really comes from and if it’s from a sustainable source).

3) River Rock

The third object is a river rock.  What does this have to do with nature?  Well it obviously came from nature, but that’s not where I found it.  It came from my driveway.  Humans spend millions of dollars every year to move things from nature into our society.  Some things are for aesthetics and landscaping, such as trees, shrubs, and grasses.  But, this was picked up, most likely mined, form a river and dumped in a lawn to be driven over.

We disturb the natural environment to make an unnatural environment.  The cranes and machinery that remove river rock and gravel from the bottom of rivers are huge.  They create more sediment that is moved down river, they disturb wildlife, and they dirty up the water even more. All to move across the country and put into dump trucks to be spread out over your yard to kill the grass and make a driveway or a flower bed.

4) My Damn Computer

The fourth object, and since I haven’t discussed technology, is my computer.  A computer is something we all have.  It is probably the most used technological innovation in the world…not backed by science…just my assumption.  We use it for all sorts of things such as email, movies, sports, social media, reading, and looking at pictures.  The computer comes with default desktops of landscapes, nature, and sceneries of the United States.

Instead of going outside and looking at the real nature we sit on our computers (writing blogs) and look at pictures of nature.  Is this what we have come to?  I know that most of what we call nature is really a man made area that is controlled as tightly as possible to not allow any changes to occur.  But, are we just going to spend our lives looking at nature in pictures on the computer or what others have posted on Facebook when they were actually out in Nature?  I human created natural environment with great scenery, landscape, and biodiversity is better than having nothing like that at all.  With the growing population and rising sea levels we may have even less of that in the future.

Nature: Big, Bold, Everywhere

So, for this post, we were assigned to find objects that relate to different ideas about nature in relation to civilization, wilderness, and/or technology. For my five items, I based their meanings off five different quotes from an article by William Cronon titled “The Trouble with Wilderness” (the limit for the assignment was Each item holds a different interpretation of nature, but together, they collectively form   an identity of nature’s true meaning, as it has multiple varying definitions.

1.) “If it doesn’t permit us the illusion that we are alone on the planet, then it really isn’t natural. It’s too small, too plain, or too crowded to be authentically wild.”

So, for my first “object,” I chose this picture of myself standing on a rock outcropping on the Precipice Trail in Acadia National Park (by the way, over the edge of that outcropping is a literal hundred foot drop or so). I visited the park this past summer as part of a vacation with my family, and my brother and I decided to do this “advanced” trail. The views atop the mountain we hiked up were indeed breathtaking, which takes us to my reasoning for selecting this image as part of how we depict and/or think of and define nature.

Nature, to many people is places that make them feel small, as if they truly were a part of the world. These places are injected into our minds as being exotically perfect, untouched by the blemishing hand of mankind, making them rare in an ever-urbanizing world of industry and societal expansion. This idea speaks to the idea of nature as a foreign, almost alien place, where we as humans can feel like we are just a part of the Earth system, not a force within it that has rapidly altered and/or destroyed it.

Places like the one in the picture appeal to this idea of nature as something big, wild, making us feel so extremely small in the presence of bold mountains, untamed forests, expansive oceans, and grand views of the world. This allows us to subconsciously “throw out” places that seem “normal” or “not wild enough,” deeming them not true nature or wilderness because they seem boring, simple, or plain. When most people think of nature, it is places like the one in the picture that come to mind, not the Konza Prairie or something similar.

In his article, Cronon talks about thinking about nature in such ways, indicating how it forces us to only hold a handful of places at a level of that high respect we give to “true wilderness” areas, such as National Parks. As we advance further into the Anthropocene, it will interest observe how this particular view of nature changes for mankind as more and more of us realize that the entire planet has been brushed by our hands and as the effects that come with the Anthropocene threaten to encroach upon those “sacred” places that we think of as so absolutely natural.

2.) “The wilderness dualism tends to cast any use as ab-use, and thereby denies us a middle ground in which responsible use and non-use might attain some kind of balanced, sustainable relationship.”

 This quote speaks to the distinctions drawn between man and Nature. I chose the above picture (also the background picture for our blog title header) to represent this quote, because it shows the many ways man uses nature, both explicitly and inexplicitly, many of which, because of the way in which those specific “uses” are practiced, would be counted as abuses. While the picture provides an illustration of humanity’s uses of nature today, I hope that it would also stir thoughts within you about ways in which we could live with and use nature, as Bruno Latour would say, loving it as we do.

In today’s world, we often think of nature to be something separate from us, rather than something that is a part of us and of which we are a part. Through our separation of nature from ourselves, we have come to question what even is actually true and pure nature in a world where human impact is becoming more and more intense and widespread. Also, and more importantly, this wall put between us and nature has shut us off from the “middle ground.” Because we view ourselves as essentially the opposite of nature, we have come to believe that we can only harm it or degrade it. We can only live next to nature, side-by-side, and even then only there must be some distance between. Thinking in such a way disallows for any thoughts of civilization and mankind living in harmony with nature and wilderness, dismissing them as irrational, since the only use man could apply to nature is abuse.

This quote by Cronon speaks to some of the ideas of Bruno Latour in the article “Love Your Monsters.” If we would have loved our creations, our modernized society and its many entailing items, as we love nature, would we be in the predicament we face today? Would be even be in the Anthropocene? Probably not. This is where the ideas of Bruno Latour can come into play, because when we begin to live in the “middle ground” mentioned by Cronon, embracing the idea that nature is a part of us and of our world in which we are made to live and with which we are destined to intermingle, it is important that we love our monster, for if we do not, our monsters surely will destroy, deface, and degrade all of nature as they spin out of control, as they currently are doing to some degree.

We assume that any use of the planet and all that it encompasses (all of this is, in essence, nature) by man is abuse because we assume that we will not love our monsters, but that is not the way things have to be. We can deviate from the paths of history and care for our monsters, loving them diligently with intimacy, that we may keep them from destroying and abusing the Earth. We don’t have to be Dr. Frankenstiens.  Actually, we could go even further than loving our monsters and supply them with mates, meaning ways of living our lives that would coincide with our creations. Abuse of nature, of the planet, is assumed by man, but this is not how it has to be. If we love our creations, our monsters, then we will indirectly be loving and caring for nature as well, simultaneously enhancing our relationship with ourselves, our creations, and the planet on which we live.

3.)  “If living in history means that we cannot help leaving marks on a fallen world, then the dilemma we face is to decide what kinds of marks we wish to leave.”

I chose this boot, treading in the wilderness to represent this quote and the attached idea of nature, because we are there, we are in it. Nature is a part of our world, it is all of our world, and we will leave our mark on it one way or another. Our footprint on nature is there, but it is ever-changing and reforming as we move about in the spectrum of the present. The mark we leave is changing and will continue to change–what kind of a mark it decides to be is up to us.

In his article “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene” (my favorite article on the Anthropocene, by the way), Roy Scranton makes the points that humanity must realize that we are already dead before we can truly begin living in the Anthropocene. “Instead of fearing my end, I owned it.” That quote by Scranton in his article just about sums up the concept of dying in the Anthropocene, and definitely has a strong correlation to the above quote by Cronon. If we continue living in this fear of what will happen, holding back, being tentative, we will never free ourselves from the grip of our own minds, and hence never be able to change ourselves or the world. If we continue to separate ourselves from nature, creating a wider and wider gap between the pure, untouched by humans world of nature and the dirtied, human tormented world of technology and civilization, we will only end up saving a small portion of the world, or saving none of it at all. A radical thought: why make a State Park to conserve land, why not just conserve it whilst living in or on it. This idea of nature as a pristine place in the world must change, but how we treat places does not have to change, we can choose the marks we leave–this is where the dying comes in.

You see, we are at this current point in our history, and unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no turning back, we are going to have to move forward, that’s just the way it is. We are going to leave our marks on this world one way or another, there is no way around it–some marks have already been made–so the question now is what kinds of marks will we leave? What future will we create for ourselves? We are the most dominant and powerful species on this planet we call home, and to save it, we must first learn to die in the Anthropocene, that we may take the steps that will leave footprints of true progress. The natural world cannot and has not escaped our ever-reaching sphere of influencing, but when we can let this idea of a pristine, rare, and selective nature die, embracing nature as the entirety of our home, we will be better able to sustain our lives and the whole planet in the Anthropocene–we will be able to leave marks of progress on the world.

4.) “If wilderness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world–not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both.”

Here, Cronon makes the point that we see nature as something so foreign, when actually, it is all around and all about us. Nature is ever prevalent in our lives, whether its the forest in your backyard, your favorite state park, the high rise dormitory you live in, or the desk against your head as you sleep in class, nature surrounds us, envelops us, entangles us with and within it. Nature is us and our whole world. When we recognize this, we will truly be able to live rightly with and within the world. So for this object, I chose this, a picture of my desk, because as I was sitting there, writing this very post, was I not surrounded by, connected to–within and a part of–nature?

Nature is not one thing or another, it is all things: it can be just as human as it can be natural, it can be just as close as it is far. When we see nature in this new light, we will act toward all things as we do toward those “sacred” areas we see as “pure” nature, and this will allow us to live in a new way. Seeing nature as the entirety of this planet we call home will lead us to change our liveways towards intimacy, sustainability, care, respect, responsibility, togetherness with our planet. Nature encompasses our home, all of our homes, and when we realize this, dually realizing that nature is not “out there,” but also “in here,” our relationship with and towards the Earth will change–for the better.

Ultimately, this is the change that needs to take place, the underlying concept in all other changes. When we can change our relationship with the Earth, embracing all of it as the nature that it is, and see ourselves as a part of this nature as well, then we will truly be living a life of in the Anthropocene that is one of progress. As Roy Scranton would say, let ourselves die–in this sense, our ideas of nature–that we may live, and that we may live not just side-by-side, but within, around, intertwined with the Earth as one, because what division really is there? After all, aren’t we an cardinal and connected part of nature?