Pub Date : 2024-07-25DOI: 10.1177/20530196241266227
Péter Szabó, Přemysl Bobek, L. Dudová, R. Hédl
Grasslands above the timberline in European high mountains, such as the Alps, have been used as summer pasture for millennia, creating diverse ecosystems of high conservation value. However, the historical ecology of natural grasslands in middle mountains is much less known. We combined archival and palaeoecological sources to understand the management history of subalpine grasslands in the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains (Czechia) and evaluated the results in view of current nature conservation efforts. The analysis showed that people managed these grasslands for at least seven centuries in a highly dynamic system. Following the abandonment of management in the mid-20th century, this socioecological knowledge was lost and current nature conservation relies on non-intervention to protect areas seen as analogues to nordic tundra. While this is justified for some parts, the encroachment of shrubby vegetation in other parts signifies that the reintroduction of management based on historical parallels can be a valid approach in nature protection.
{"title":"From oxen to tourists: The management history of subalpine grasslands in the Sudeten mountains and its significance for nature conservation","authors":"Péter Szabó, Přemysl Bobek, L. Dudová, R. Hédl","doi":"10.1177/20530196241266227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196241266227","url":null,"abstract":"Grasslands above the timberline in European high mountains, such as the Alps, have been used as summer pasture for millennia, creating diverse ecosystems of high conservation value. However, the historical ecology of natural grasslands in middle mountains is much less known. We combined archival and palaeoecological sources to understand the management history of subalpine grasslands in the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains (Czechia) and evaluated the results in view of current nature conservation efforts. The analysis showed that people managed these grasslands for at least seven centuries in a highly dynamic system. Following the abandonment of management in the mid-20th century, this socioecological knowledge was lost and current nature conservation relies on non-intervention to protect areas seen as analogues to nordic tundra. While this is justified for some parts, the encroachment of shrubby vegetation in other parts signifies that the reintroduction of management based on historical parallels can be a valid approach in nature protection.","PeriodicalId":510552,"journal":{"name":"The Anthropocene Review","volume":"31 21","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141803077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-12DOI: 10.1177/20530196241245650
Matthew Conte, Jennifer Bates
In delineating the Anthropocene, the Holocene is being redefined as the formative epoch of human development leading to the Anthropocene. This has led to a diversity of views of the Holocene and Holocene humanity in the Anthropocene, the extremes of which may be described as “Holocene utopianism” and “Holocene dystopianism.” The former views the Holocene as a solution to the predicament of the Anthropocene, as an idealized past of human activities and stable climate that must be aspired to. The latter perceives the Holocene and Holocene humanity as the root cause of the ills of the Anthropocene that must be avoided in the future. These views reflect a gross simplification of human activities and the environment of the Holocene. Human activity in the Holocene is characterized by diverse human behaviors that can be perceived as both destructive and sustaining to the earth’s ecological systems, and in many cases, emerged as a response to fluctuations in the Holocene climate. The Holocene does not provide an escape from the Anthropocene, as a solution or as a cautionary tale. Nonetheless, future human endeavors must necessarily draw from the diversity of human activities and systems of organization observed in the Holocene, but do so carefully.
{"title":"Holocene utopias and dystopias: Views of the Holocene in the Anthropocene and their impact on defining the Anthropocene","authors":"Matthew Conte, Jennifer Bates","doi":"10.1177/20530196241245650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196241245650","url":null,"abstract":"In delineating the Anthropocene, the Holocene is being redefined as the formative epoch of human development leading to the Anthropocene. This has led to a diversity of views of the Holocene and Holocene humanity in the Anthropocene, the extremes of which may be described as “Holocene utopianism” and “Holocene dystopianism.” The former views the Holocene as a solution to the predicament of the Anthropocene, as an idealized past of human activities and stable climate that must be aspired to. The latter perceives the Holocene and Holocene humanity as the root cause of the ills of the Anthropocene that must be avoided in the future. These views reflect a gross simplification of human activities and the environment of the Holocene. Human activity in the Holocene is characterized by diverse human behaviors that can be perceived as both destructive and sustaining to the earth’s ecological systems, and in many cases, emerged as a response to fluctuations in the Holocene climate. The Holocene does not provide an escape from the Anthropocene, as a solution or as a cautionary tale. Nonetheless, future human endeavors must necessarily draw from the diversity of human activities and systems of organization observed in the Holocene, but do so carefully.","PeriodicalId":510552,"journal":{"name":"The Anthropocene Review","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140709813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-07DOI: 10.1177/20530196241227641
Gregory Ferguson-Cradler
The transition to a zero-emissions world entails vast political economic restructuring. How resources are mobilized, what sorts of technological infrastructures are constructed, who funds, controls and has claim to profits from investments contributing to the green transition will shape political economies for generations to come. This article suggests that early 20th-century American institutionalism and subsequent legal institutionalist literatures provide a valuable resource for energy transitions scholars and other social scientists, activists, and policy-makers of the energy transition. The article summarizes some of the major lines of thought in classical and legal institutionalism and briefly outlines three areas in which they can inform thinking about political economies of the Anthropocene. First, these literatures are generative of creative thinking on how business activity is organized and help overcome reductionist public-private dichotomies. Second, the history of institutionalist and progressive thought in the New Deal-era runs parallel, in revealing ways, to thinking based on environmental, social and governmental (ESG) principles in the present. Lastly, the article discusses radical proposals for transformation of private property and investment in the thought of institutionalist Adolf Berle relevant to simultaneously addressing both climate and inequality crises.
{"title":"Institutionalism, the corporation, and the climate crisis","authors":"Gregory Ferguson-Cradler","doi":"10.1177/20530196241227641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196241227641","url":null,"abstract":"The transition to a zero-emissions world entails vast political economic restructuring. How resources are mobilized, what sorts of technological infrastructures are constructed, who funds, controls and has claim to profits from investments contributing to the green transition will shape political economies for generations to come. This article suggests that early 20th-century American institutionalism and subsequent legal institutionalist literatures provide a valuable resource for energy transitions scholars and other social scientists, activists, and policy-makers of the energy transition. The article summarizes some of the major lines of thought in classical and legal institutionalism and briefly outlines three areas in which they can inform thinking about political economies of the Anthropocene. First, these literatures are generative of creative thinking on how business activity is organized and help overcome reductionist public-private dichotomies. Second, the history of institutionalist and progressive thought in the New Deal-era runs parallel, in revealing ways, to thinking based on environmental, social and governmental (ESG) principles in the present. Lastly, the article discusses radical proposals for transformation of private property and investment in the thought of institutionalist Adolf Berle relevant to simultaneously addressing both climate and inequality crises.","PeriodicalId":510552,"journal":{"name":"The Anthropocene Review","volume":"38 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140259434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-07DOI: 10.1177/20530196241237249
Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, J. Vangeest
What role do contemporary narratives and counter-narratives play in policy regarding the Anthropocene crisis? Given the centrality of the anthropos in the Anthropocene, what conditions might make possible a “post-anthropocentric” or “non-anthropocentric” narrative? Tracing the production of both dominant and counter-narratives, the struggle for narrative power centers the role of the anthropos in the Anthropocene. The standard narrative—“strong anthropocentrism”—maintains humanist assumptions relating to the “control” and “cultivation” of the non-human. In contrast, counter-narratives, from both alter-humanist eco-centric and post-humanist positions, attempt to de-center human-centrism toward more egalitarian responses to the Anthropocene. Despite these attempts at de-centering human spheres of influence, this article argues that these counter-narratives maintain a “weak anthropocentrism,” given their maintenance of human volition and intentionality. The production of “post-anthropocentric” or “non-anthropocentric” narratives of the Anthropocene crisis would require speculative moves beyond the human: toward human abolition and disconnection.
{"title":"Human, all too human? Anthropocene narratives, posthumanisms, and the problem of “post-anthropocentrism”","authors":"Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, J. Vangeest","doi":"10.1177/20530196241237249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196241237249","url":null,"abstract":"What role do contemporary narratives and counter-narratives play in policy regarding the Anthropocene crisis? Given the centrality of the anthropos in the Anthropocene, what conditions might make possible a “post-anthropocentric” or “non-anthropocentric” narrative? Tracing the production of both dominant and counter-narratives, the struggle for narrative power centers the role of the anthropos in the Anthropocene. The standard narrative—“strong anthropocentrism”—maintains humanist assumptions relating to the “control” and “cultivation” of the non-human. In contrast, counter-narratives, from both alter-humanist eco-centric and post-humanist positions, attempt to de-center human-centrism toward more egalitarian responses to the Anthropocene. Despite these attempts at de-centering human spheres of influence, this article argues that these counter-narratives maintain a “weak anthropocentrism,” given their maintenance of human volition and intentionality. The production of “post-anthropocentric” or “non-anthropocentric” narratives of the Anthropocene crisis would require speculative moves beyond the human: toward human abolition and disconnection.","PeriodicalId":510552,"journal":{"name":"The Anthropocene Review","volume":"37 19","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140077206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-13DOI: 10.1177/20530196231184777
Benjamin Johnson
The striking influence humans are exerting on their environment will likely result in the stabilization of a new climatic equilibrium of the Anthropocene, possibly without historical precedent. Many conceivable outcomes would reshape the planet’s biodiversity. If the Earth-human interaction is to endure in its current state, which still shares characteristics with the Holocene, one necessary development is that humans close the various biogeochemical cycles (C, N, P, K, etc) they have fundamentally altered (i.g. Haber-Bosch). Many of the technologies required to close the chemical cycles, such as the emissions-free production of methanol from industrial exhaust, already exist. Historical examples show, however, that deployment of technology can lag behind innovation resulting in an implementation gap that hinders our ability to mitigate climate change. However, assuming we close this gap, biogeochemical cycles can act as a gage for a “successful” Anthropocene in which mitigation strategies stave off much of what will otherwise become widespread forced adaption to a new, possibly hostile climate. Closed chemical cycles supporting human consumption can be causally linked to human action and precisely marked in time; they will leave an indelible global stratigraphic record, namely in that human influence decreases. Such a development would be a sign that humans had achieved a managed, stable (or at least steady) state within acceptable planetary boundaries of the Earth-human system. This article focuses on closing the carbon cycle over the following decades and proposes, as a measure of progress, the flattening of the Suess effect, a well-known indicator of human impact.
{"title":"The closed carbon cycle in a managed, stable Anthropocene","authors":"Benjamin Johnson","doi":"10.1177/20530196231184777","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196231184777","url":null,"abstract":"The striking influence humans are exerting on their environment will likely result in the stabilization of a new climatic equilibrium of the Anthropocene, possibly without historical precedent. Many conceivable outcomes would reshape the planet’s biodiversity. If the Earth-human interaction is to endure in its current state, which still shares characteristics with the Holocene, one necessary development is that humans close the various biogeochemical cycles (C, N, P, K, etc) they have fundamentally altered (i.g. Haber-Bosch). Many of the technologies required to close the chemical cycles, such as the emissions-free production of methanol from industrial exhaust, already exist. Historical examples show, however, that deployment of technology can lag behind innovation resulting in an implementation gap that hinders our ability to mitigate climate change. However, assuming we close this gap, biogeochemical cycles can act as a gage for a “successful” Anthropocene in which mitigation strategies stave off much of what will otherwise become widespread forced adaption to a new, possibly hostile climate. Closed chemical cycles supporting human consumption can be causally linked to human action and precisely marked in time; they will leave an indelible global stratigraphic record, namely in that human influence decreases. Such a development would be a sign that humans had achieved a managed, stable (or at least steady) state within acceptable planetary boundaries of the Earth-human system. This article focuses on closing the carbon cycle over the following decades and proposes, as a measure of progress, the flattening of the Suess effect, a well-known indicator of human impact.","PeriodicalId":510552,"journal":{"name":"The Anthropocene Review","volume":"318 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139841409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-13DOI: 10.1177/20530196231184777
Benjamin Johnson
The striking influence humans are exerting on their environment will likely result in the stabilization of a new climatic equilibrium of the Anthropocene, possibly without historical precedent. Many conceivable outcomes would reshape the planet’s biodiversity. If the Earth-human interaction is to endure in its current state, which still shares characteristics with the Holocene, one necessary development is that humans close the various biogeochemical cycles (C, N, P, K, etc) they have fundamentally altered (i.g. Haber-Bosch). Many of the technologies required to close the chemical cycles, such as the emissions-free production of methanol from industrial exhaust, already exist. Historical examples show, however, that deployment of technology can lag behind innovation resulting in an implementation gap that hinders our ability to mitigate climate change. However, assuming we close this gap, biogeochemical cycles can act as a gage for a “successful” Anthropocene in which mitigation strategies stave off much of what will otherwise become widespread forced adaption to a new, possibly hostile climate. Closed chemical cycles supporting human consumption can be causally linked to human action and precisely marked in time; they will leave an indelible global stratigraphic record, namely in that human influence decreases. Such a development would be a sign that humans had achieved a managed, stable (or at least steady) state within acceptable planetary boundaries of the Earth-human system. This article focuses on closing the carbon cycle over the following decades and proposes, as a measure of progress, the flattening of the Suess effect, a well-known indicator of human impact.
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Pub Date : 2024-02-01DOI: 10.1177/20530196231226307
James Angus Fraser, Ariane Cosiaux, Gretchen Walters, Adeniyi Asiyanbi, Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei, Patrick Addo-Fordjour, James Fairhead, Paulin Kialo, Nestor Laurier Engone Obiang, Richard Oslisly
How natural and cultural forces shaping tropical forested landscapes are conceptualised is of vital importance to Anthropocene debates. We examine two concepts: disturbance and landscape domestication. From the perspective of disturbance, humans – whether ancient or modern – are a priori negative for tropical forests, outside of and alien to nature. From this view, the Anthropocene is a planetary scale aggregation of disturbance. A more just vision of tropical forests, accepting anthropogenic influence on biodiversity, would combine ‘disturbance’ with other concepts that capture human agency and intentionality. Landscape domestication proposes that humans can shape ecology and plant and animal population demographics, making the landscape more productive and congenial for humans, upgrading or degrading the biodiversity of tropical forests. Herein, forest peoples shape the Anthropocene itself through their ‘domestication’ of the forest. Yet this approach can overdetermine culture, ignoring non-human agency, whilst human impacts can be seen as the outcome of intentional modifications to increase landscape productivity, at worst a disavowed projection of ‘economic man’. Using the convivial scholarship framework of Nyamnjoh, we argue that these ideas give incomplete views of tropical forests in the Anthropocene and can be enriched by concepts derived from African worldviews with ‘relationality’ and ‘wholeness’ at their core. These are expressed in ohanife, deriving from Igbo language, ubuntu, from the Nguni language and ukama, a notion from Shona culture. Together these concepts evince an ‘eco-bio-communitarianism’ embracing humans, God, spirits, ancestors, animals and inanimate beings in a ‘community of beings’ irreducible to the culture-nature divide (moving beyond disturbance) and allowing for the agency and personhood of non-humans (moving beyond historical ecology). This is consonant with Indigenous Amazonian worldviews, such as that of Kopenawa. Approaching human-nature relations from Nyamnjoh’s idea of conviviality, we elaborate a less incomplete and more just perspective on the cultural and natural shaping of Anthropocene tropical forests.
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Pub Date : 2024-02-01DOI: 10.1177/20530196231226307
James Angus Fraser, Ariane Cosiaux, Gretchen Walters, Adeniyi Asiyanbi, Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei, Patrick Addo-Fordjour, James Fairhead, Paulin Kialo, Nestor Laurier Engone Obiang, Richard Oslisly
How natural and cultural forces shaping tropical forested landscapes are conceptualised is of vital importance to Anthropocene debates. We examine two concepts: disturbance and landscape domestication. From the perspective of disturbance, humans – whether ancient or modern – are a priori negative for tropical forests, outside of and alien to nature. From this view, the Anthropocene is a planetary scale aggregation of disturbance. A more just vision of tropical forests, accepting anthropogenic influence on biodiversity, would combine ‘disturbance’ with other concepts that capture human agency and intentionality. Landscape domestication proposes that humans can shape ecology and plant and animal population demographics, making the landscape more productive and congenial for humans, upgrading or degrading the biodiversity of tropical forests. Herein, forest peoples shape the Anthropocene itself through their ‘domestication’ of the forest. Yet this approach can overdetermine culture, ignoring non-human agency, whilst human impacts can be seen as the outcome of intentional modifications to increase landscape productivity, at worst a disavowed projection of ‘economic man’. Using the convivial scholarship framework of Nyamnjoh, we argue that these ideas give incomplete views of tropical forests in the Anthropocene and can be enriched by concepts derived from African worldviews with ‘relationality’ and ‘wholeness’ at their core. These are expressed in ohanife, deriving from Igbo language, ubuntu, from the Nguni language and ukama, a notion from Shona culture. Together these concepts evince an ‘eco-bio-communitarianism’ embracing humans, God, spirits, ancestors, animals and inanimate beings in a ‘community of beings’ irreducible to the culture-nature divide (moving beyond disturbance) and allowing for the agency and personhood of non-humans (moving beyond historical ecology). This is consonant with Indigenous Amazonian worldviews, such as that of Kopenawa. Approaching human-nature relations from Nyamnjoh’s idea of conviviality, we elaborate a less incomplete and more just perspective on the cultural and natural shaping of Anthropocene tropical forests.
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Pub Date : 2023-12-25DOI: 10.1177/20530196231211849
R. Porto
This article is a theoretical engagement with the book The Falling Sky, written by anthropologist Bruce Albert and Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa. It presents how the concepts of nature and ecology in Yanomami cosmology, as developed by Kopenawa, break with stereotypes of indigenous people living in harmonic and stable relationships with nature. Instead, this ecology is a way of dealing with an unstable nature that can derail into chaos, disarranging the cosmic arrangement of humans, non-humans and spirits that shamans should work to keep in place. Kopenawa named this cosmic entropy the fall of the sky, which now is an imminent risk caused by the destruction of the forests. His conception of ecology shows that maintaining forests in indigenous land is not merely a spontaneous fact. Rather, it is also a consequence of the intellectual engagement of indigenous people and their collaboration with other living beings.
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Pub Date : 2023-12-25DOI: 10.1177/20530196231204326
Ulrich Stange
Geologists are currently finalizing the specification of a new geological time unit, the Anthropocene Epoch, characterized by the Earth’s response to humans driving geological change. Once it is ratified we can use it also as a civil time unit. The standard for time reckoning used worldwide today is the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582. As a calendar of the Catholic church, it is structured around supernatural events and indeterminate religious dates. Astronomical year numbering has long fixed the arcane arithmetic and religious notations of the Gregorian calendar, but the origin of its time scale perpetuates the links to religious and supernatural dates. If we shift the origin of the astronomical time scale to the onset of the Anthropocene, we can update the calendar with a science based time scale that is anchored by real world data and events. Such a time scale would be better suited as a culturally inclusive standard in a multi-cultural world.
{"title":"The Anthropocene as a civil time unit","authors":"Ulrich Stange","doi":"10.1177/20530196231204326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196231204326","url":null,"abstract":"Geologists are currently finalizing the specification of a new geological time unit, the Anthropocene Epoch, characterized by the Earth’s response to humans driving geological change. Once it is ratified we can use it also as a civil time unit. The standard for time reckoning used worldwide today is the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582. As a calendar of the Catholic church, it is structured around supernatural events and indeterminate religious dates. Astronomical year numbering has long fixed the arcane arithmetic and religious notations of the Gregorian calendar, but the origin of its time scale perpetuates the links to religious and supernatural dates. If we shift the origin of the astronomical time scale to the onset of the Anthropocene, we can update the calendar with a science based time scale that is anchored by real world data and events. Such a time scale would be better suited as a culturally inclusive standard in a multi-cultural world.","PeriodicalId":510552,"journal":{"name":"The Anthropocene Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139159078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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