The Anthropocene?

When examining any question, one should first set the boundaries of the terms, establish what they mean and how they are to be used. Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen in 2000 widely publicised the idea of using the Anthropocene as a term to describe the current epoch we are in. Since then, his suggestion has taken root, and many scientists and historians use the term to describe this era. Crutzen used this definition as a means of highlighting the impact that man has had on the planet, and indeed the “global-scale transformation of the environment by industrialisation”[1] and continues to do so. While this is not the official term being by geologists, as this requires more focused scientific study into the impact of these harmful gases on the planet, it is a useful tool to describe the time period from around the start of the industrial revolution until now.

But while this term has well publicised, there are some who would disagree on using this term to describe the current period. Jason Moore is one of these, he has instead termed this period as ‘The Capitalocene’ as it is one dominated by the world system network of Capitalism. He argues that the Anthropocene assumes “The construction of humanity as ‘collective’ actor”[2] that we are all to blame for using fossil fuels and burning harmful gases into the atmosphere, rather than it being the fault of those capitalists who exploited and continue to exploit nature and its resources. While his argument is correct in arguing that not everyone is setting up coal plants and using them to their maximum energy production, the rest of the population is not putting up a credible stance against it. We become guilty by association and continued use of the products produced by Capitalism, allowing it to continue, and forcing it to grow to provide more, demanding more energy intensive production. While I may not be held personally responsible as someone running a coal plant, every time I drive my car, turn on the lights in my house, turn the radiator up in the winter I drive up energy consumption, so justifying Capitalism’s continued existence and growth.

Moore continues to argue that “Capitalism… creates external natures as objects to be mapped, quantified and regulated so that they may service Capital’s insatiable demands for cheap labour.”[3] Rather than treating Capitalism as a social and economic construct of humanity, Moore treats it as a living thing in itself, something beyond the control of humanity. While it’s true humankind has become highly reliant on Capitalism, who now can imagine a world without readily available sources of energy and power, that is to suggest that Capitalism and humanity is beyond reform or change in order to ensure its survival. Our desire to map and quantify things lies before Capitalism, most notably in the writings of Francis Bacon, who argued we should plumb nature’s depths as is our right. This is coupled with mercantilism, the economic predecessor of Capitalism, which helped bring into this world industrialisation and eventually Capitalism. But this example only helps to clarify the ability for change that we possess and our willingness to do so when it becomes clearer that a different system will work better for us.

There have been some claims that the idea of an Anthropocene is too narrow, that the focus is on “the consequences of human activity”[4] rather than examining the bigger picture. But therein lies the issue of what humanity has become now. With our actions, we have become “a major geological force”[5] that has significant impact on our environment and climate. We are no longer able to claim that our actions are too small to be noticed and a coal burning plant in the UK will not have an impact on the French countryside to the south. In globalising and becoming a much tighter knit global community our actions have an impact that ripples across the world, rather than being limited to a local area. Humankind has to start to take responsibility for its actions, both past, present and our future ones and begin to source a means of mitigating the damage we have. Undeniably Capitalism has been the tool through which we have polluted and damaged the planet, but you cannot blame a gun for firing the bullet, it is the hand that holds it which must come under scrutiny and change.

The problem now is that “economic growth under Capitalism is… a form of ‘cancerous growth.’”[6] It no longer represents progress and initiative, but rather is like a cancerous cell, that has grown so big as to become life-threateningly dangerous to the planet and to humanity. What is more, we cannot slow that growth if we wish to continue under a capitalist system as Capitalism “simply cannot tolerate it – it would collapse as a system.”[7] Whether that is a bad thing is up for debate, if it does though we would need a means of replacing it with something else, something that continues to give us growth whilst delivering it in an environmentally responsible fashion. Alternatively, we could look for energy saving methods within Capitalism, the use of renewable energy systems such as wind turbines or nuclear power. As we have no alternative for Capitalism currently, the latter is the more likely of scenarios, and these energy saving methods will be examined further in the next post.

Sources

[1] Will Steffen, Paul J. Crutzen and John R. McNeil, ‘The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature’, Ambio, vol. 36, No. 8 (Dec,. 2007) pg. 616

[2] http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/The_Capitalocene__Part_I__June_2014.pdf, pg. 3 (27/01/2015)

[3] http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/The_Capitalocene__Part_I__June_2014.pdf, pg. 12 (27/01/2015)

[4] http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/The_Capitalocene__Part_I__June_2014.pdf, pg. 3 (27/01/2015)

[5] W. Steffen, P.J. Crutzen and J.R. McNeil, ‘The Anthropocene’, pg. 618

[6] J. McMurty, ‘The Cancer Stage of Capitalism’, London (1996), Pluto Press, in ‘Climate Change and the Crisis of Capitalism, A Chance to Reclaim Self, Society and Nature’, Edited by Mark Pelling, David Manuel- Navarrete and Michael Redclift, Oxford (2012), pg. 132

[7] Peter Newell and Matthew Paterson, ‘Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global Economy’, Cambridge, (2010), pg. 9