Ethics, Adaptation, and the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT

Some proponents of the Anthropocene argue that it is time adopt a future-oriented outlook: natural baselines no longer matter, and humans should remake the planet for the better. This raises questions about whose vision should guide such remaking, and whether the past deserves any consideration in adapting for the future. I argue that the past remains relevant, because the natural, cultural, and social worlds people enter into – shaped by those who came before us – matter. On this view, there are reasons to value ‘nature’, even in a human-altered world, and climate adaptation should take that into account.

KEYWORDS:

• adaptation
• Anthropocene
• climate ethics

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a global scientific body that works under the auspices of the United Nations to produce comprehensive reports that review and synthesize current knowledge about climate change and its impacts. The most recent comprehensive report, Assessment Report 5 (AR5) was issued in 2014; AR6 is underway, and is due for release in 2022.

2. As I revise this paper in the midst of the global novel coronavirus pandemic, the confidence – or hubris – embodied in this claim seems stark. Baskin (2015), Hamilton (2016), and Cuomo (2017) and others note a strongly hubristic strain within discourses of the Anthropocene, particularly among eco-modernists (e.g. Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015), who suggest that a ‘good Anthropocene’ marked by greater human control over the planet is both possible and desirable.

3. In offering this possibility, I do not intend to suggest that all aspects of ‘the world as we find it’ warrant deference: for example, there are clearly problematic histories, values, and institutions that should be changed. However, even efforts to effect change can benefit from attention to the world as we find it, to provide a clearer picture of historical and ongoing socio-ecological relationships and provoke reflection on what is worth preserving, and what is not. An approach that ignores the world as we find it also ignores history, and it therefore may orient toward forms of adaptation that fail to take seriously important features of particular contexts. For Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic, for example, these features include the intertwined legacies of colonialism, social disruption, and ecological harm, all of which are relevant to climate adaptation (see, e.g. Cameron, 2012).

4. I am cognizant that that the term ‘we’ is often used in a universalizing sense, which can result in generalizations that obscure diversity and difference. Baskin (2015, p. 11), for example, argues that this sort of generalization is characteristic of Anthropocene discourse, which ‘universalises and normalises a certain portion of humanity as the human of the Anthropocene,’ and he goes on to argue that this kind of universalizing conceals relations of power among humans (16). I try to limit use of the term ‘we’ in this paper; however, I believe that the concept of ‘the world as we find it’ can be helpful and illuminating, so long as one keeps in mind that ‘the world as we find it’ does not reference a single, shared conception of the world, or even a single, uniform world. ‘The world as one finds it’ may vary for people in different places, with different identities, and in different social, cultural, and economic positions.

5. For example, in a 2011 New York Times editorial (‘Hope in the Age of Man,’ available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/the-age-of-man-is-not-a-disaster.html?_r=0), Emma Marris, Peter Kareiva, Joseph Mascaro, and Erle C. Ellis write, ‘This is the Earth we have created, and we have a duty, as a species, to protect it and manage it with love and intelligence.’ Though protecting and managing the planet with love and intelligence may seem quite reasonable, the suggestion that we have created the Earth, even if intended in a loose sense, backgrounds the significance of non-human causality.

6. As Erle Ellis (2011b) writes, ‘From a scientist’s perspective, the emergence of humanity as a global force of nature is neither good nor bad. It’s just a fact supported by overwhelming evidence. The Anthropocene is here to stay.’ A little further down, he argues, ‘This is an amazing opportunity – humanity has now made the leap to an entirely new level of planetary importance. As Stewart Brand said in 1968: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”’

7. It also raises the question of who the planetary managers are envisioned to be. Christine Cuomo (2017, p. 7) has argued that the concept of the Anthropocene is problematic, obscuring agency and responsibility: ‘attributing the catastrophic changes Earth is experiencing to an abstract, diffuse non-actor like “humanity” hides the influence of specific ideologies, industries, and cultures, and allows everyone to avoid taking responsibility.’ Relatedly, the recommendation that ‘humans’ should become planetary managers does not address the political question of who, if anyone, should be empowered to make global-level planetary management decisions. As Baskin (2015, p. 21) asks, ‘[W]hat does it mean to frame policies within a global, universalist goal of “running the Earth”, and what condition are we trying to manage it towards?’ Baskin worries that planetary management will cleave toward the ‘rule of experts’ (13), reinforce existing power dynamics, and fail to operate ‘in the interests of most of the world’s people’ (23).

8. Material in the next two paragraphs draws on Hourdequin (2016).

9. For related discussion of Slote, Faustianism, and receptivity, see Hourdequin (2016, p. 16).

10. This is especially important at the level of adaptation policy, when the writing off involves making decisions on others’ behalf.