The Anthropocene - Global and Local Elements - The Academic Debate #2

The introductory conversations about the scale and scope of the Anthropocene with Masami Yuki and Nancy Langston discuss the Anthropocene in the context of locality and globality. The Anthropocene with its imprint of human activity on the planet is a large scale phenomenon with consequences and excesses that can be observed on a planetary scale. During the last 10.000 years, Earth experienced an unusual stable environment with very favorable living conditions that led to the development and rise of human civilizations (Steffen et al, 2015). Since this time period – which is defined by geologists as the Holocene – humans have shaped, modified and managed the planet’s ecosystems which significantly led to unprecedented human population growth (Ellis & Rammankutty, 2008). During the Holocene, man-made changes to the environment occurred locally in different places around the globe.

However, those activities did not change our Earth System on a global scale (Steffen et al, 2015). Since the start of the industrial revolution and during the “Great Acceleration” those local human activities have caused fundamental shifts the state and functioning of our Earth System (Steffen et al, 2015). Thus, the Anthropocene needs to be seen both on a global as well as on a local scale.

Lekan (2014) criticises that often the “global view” on environmental problems of the Anthropocene are seen in the light of post colonialism. He argues that “fractal topographies, by contrast, serve as more effective indices of the recursive layering found in digital representations such as Google Earth and help us to stretch our historical imagination and cultural criticism into scale-dependent and multi-agentic realms that lie beyond the Apollonian visions of the late Holocene” (Lekan 2014). Both Yuki and Langston emphasize in their video conversations the high interconnectivity of the local and global scale as well as humans and nature. Within our complex ecosystems, substances like toxic chemicals travel around the world and pollute also local areas on long distance. Also, Ellis & Rammankutty (2008) stress the interconnectedness of “human and natural systems almost everywhere on Earth´s terrestrial surface”. Rockström et al (2009) refer in their concept of planetary boundaries to the relationship and dependence amongst the certain boundaries.

Anthropogenic changes are unevenly distributed around the globe, “both physically (changes more extreme at the poles) and ethically (environmental injustice)” (Robin & Steffen, 2007). Therefore, the man-made challenges that we are facing in the Anthropocene cannot be analyzed or solved solely by considering one perspective. In order to address the challenges especially in terms of climate change, it is necessary to base our actions and decisions on different diverse scientific perspectives, by including scholars from different disciplines who consider history and different scales (Pielke, 2005; Robin & Steffen, 2007).

Yuki argues in the video that we need to regain our “sense of care” for our local environment in order “care” for the “global”. Therefore, the Anthropocene must be analyzed beyond only considering the local and global scale which are often seen as apart from each other. In fact, we need to recognize the interconnectivity of the past, present and future in the light of gender, culture, race and different values systems as well as the aspect of environmental justice. “Global change demands a new idea of ‘patriotism’, a loyalty not to country but to Earth” (Robin & Steffen, 2007).

References:

Ellis, E. C., & Ramankutty, N. (2008). Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6(8), 439–447.

Steffen, W., Broadgate, W., Deutsch, L., Gaffney, O., & Ludwig, C. (2015). The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2053019614564785.

Pielke, R. A. (2005). Consensus About Climate Change? Science, 308(5724), 952–954.

Robin, L., & Steffen, W. (2007). History for the Anthropocene. History Compass, 5(5), 1694–1719.

Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., Lambin, E. F., … Foley, J. A. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461(7263), 472–475.

Lekan, T. (2014). Fractal Eaarth: Visualizing the Global Environment in the Anthropocene. Environmental Humanities, (5), 171–201.