Scott+Kellogg

Hi. I added a couple of links to the wiki page including links to both John Todd and to Bill Mollison, two ecological designers who have been particularly influential to my own work. Additionally, I posted a link to the post-carbon institute, an organization who is doing interesting work in the area of energy descent and transition. Velikovsky's idea of the "noosphere" was completely new to me.

The Capra book is interesting to me as it's one of the few recent publications in the field of systems theory, particularly in a ecological context. While much has been previously published, none too much as of recent. This, I suspect, is largely due to the tensions described in the piece: t's difficult to even have the language to discuss these ideas before more of a "paradigm shift" occurs that creates the mechanisms, understandings, and takes away the fear of derision and embarrassment.

Ideas for research:

History of systems thinking, and and an examination of the barriers that have blocked it from being more widely accepted. Have concepts such as "chaos", "complexity", "non-linearity", "emergence" and so on been co-opted but the mainstream scientific establishment, or dot they offer revolutionary potential? Is there in fact a "pendulum" between holistic and mechanistic thinking still, or is there an arrow pointing in the direction of whole-systems approaches? How does this tension resolve in ecology, which is necessarily a whole-systems approach that is common forced to conform to reductionist standards? What changes in language/perception would be needed for more wide scale adoption of non-linear approaches?

Intelligence, cognition, behavior in non-humans. Examples of complex behavior or "consciousness" in non-human communities. Can it be recognized as such? Does our "brain chauvinism" prevent us from studying it or perceiving it? What are scientific attitudes towards it? Examples: bacterial/archae relationships, "mother tree" mycorrhizal relationships, "intelligence" in plants.

Ruderal ecologies and the anthopocene. Using human/non-human partnerships as a teaching tool for understanding the tree of life. Citizen bioremediation.


 * Week 2.**

Here is an annotation I wrote on the article "New Ecology and the Social Sciences" by Ian Scoones.


 * Complexity and Sustainability**

Complexity theory, or nonlinear systems theory, is a recently developed mathematical theory that allows for the creation of detailed models of self-organizing systems. The visual depictions of a system’s complex behavior as revealed through nonlinear dyanmics “represent a qualitative rather than quantitative approach to complexity and thus embodies the shift of perspective that is characteristic of systems thinking – from objects to relationships, from measuring to mapping, from quanitity to quality.” (Capra, 2014). When used properly, complexity can serve as the basis of scientific theories to describe nonlinear natural phenomena as diverse as biological, ecological and social systems.

Complexity has been highly influential in the formation of what are referred to as the “new ecologies”. These ecological approaches are characterized by taking a non-equilibrium view of natural systems. Essentially, the new ecologies reject previously held and traditional beliefs that ecosystems are static, unchanging, and tend towards a stable systems state, and that any notion of “the balance of nature” even exists. The growing awareness of the role that complexity plays in ecology has lead to the development of a new type of ecological science. In the article “New Ecology and the Social Sciences: What Prospects for a Fruitful Engagement?” Ian Scoones discusses the various dimensions of the “new ecology” and its implications for the social sciences.

Scoones begins his article with a general history of the notion of equilibrium in nature. Tracing the idea back through time, he links it to Greek, medieval Christian and rationalist thinking, going on to influence Ernst Haekel in the coining of the word “ecology”. By the 20th century, they view of ecosystems as being stable was beginning to be challenged, yet the idea of ecological stasis remains highly influential still in environmental thinking to this day. Notions such as ecological succession, while explicitly describing a process of change, still result in the culmination of a “climax community”. Systems ecology, as developed by Howard T. Odum, while conceptualizing of ecological relations as a system capable of being modeled, still take a view of ecosystems as being largely homeostatic. This classical view of equilibrium based ecology still continues to guide policy formation in areas of environmental management and in biodiversity protection.

It was not until the 1970s and in subsequent decades with the advent of nonlinear mathematical models that the equilibrium based paradigm was challenged. Scoones describes three concepts that served as the basis of this challenge: multiple stable states with multiple equilibria, chaos dynamics lacking long term predictability, and truly random stochastically dominated systems lacking regulatory feedback mechanisms. The study of these systems has yielded a new vocabulary of concepts including variability, resilience, persistence, resistance, sensitivity and surprise. This language is useful in the exploration of themes related to the variability in space and time, the concept of scaling in dynamic processes, and a recognition of the importance of temporal dynamics on current patterns and processes.

Scoones then asks the question of how these new concepts in ecology can be incorporated into the social sciences. He asserts that the traditional disciplines of anthropology, sociology, geography, and economics also cling to a non-shifting equilibrium based viewpoint. Influenced by such schools of thought as structuralism, functionalism, Marxism, and classical economics, these disciplines also have a view of environmental change as being linear, stable, and predictable. “The balance of nature has had a long shelf life in the social sciences, reinforced by functionalist models dependent on stable, equilibiral notions of social order.”

Scoones first discusses the discipline of ecological anthropology, which he criticizes for viewing linked ecological and social practices as being fixed and unchanging. He states this has resulted in the generation of multiple lists and classifications that “remain poorly situated in the complexities of environmental and social processes.” Scoones next discusses political ecology. Derived from the field of ecological anthropology, political ecology incorporates a greater analysis of the role that power, politics, and ideology play in shaping human-environmental interactions. Despite its broader analysis, Scoones equally criticizes political ecology for its failure to incorporate the findings of the new ecologies.

Scoones calls for the field of ecological economics to additionally undergo an integration of environmental, social, and economic models that can account for issues related to resilience, scaling and hierarchy, discontinuous and complex dynamics, and path dependence.

Next discussed are the philosophical debates over the distinction between nature and culture. A number of theorists cited by Scoones cite the belief of nature being separate from culture as the defining characteristic of modernity. Despite paying attention to ideas of historical contingency, complexity, and open-ended post-structural analysis, Scoones is critical of the debate for focusing almost entirely on issues in the social realm. This shortcoming he believes results in a failure to address many important areas of inquiry related to ecological issues and the dynamics of environmental change.

Scoones sees equilibrium based thinking as still greatly informing the actions and discourse of the mainstream environmental movement. Commonly referring to the need for being in “harmony with nature”, the mainstream environmental movement continues to largely embrace the ecological equilibrium notion, influencing schools of thought including ecofeminism and deep ecology. Scoones also cites an apparent contradiction in the fact that the environmental movement has an overall hostile attitude towards science, yet still commonly relies on the ecological sciences to support its claims about the impact that humanity is having on the planet, expecting them to arise from a position of neutrality. Mainstream environmentalists still commonly take the position that human presence is still the cause of environmental damage (as in the case of indigenous populations living in forested areas.)

Scoones then goes on to consider why it is that to date the new ecological sciences he discusses have not significantly influenced thinking in other disciplines. He primarily attributes this generally to lack of communication between disciplines, different languages and terminologies used, and the fact that much of the debate can appear insular and obscure to an outsider. Het attributes its exclusion from policy debates on account of an embeddedess of traditional equilibrium views working in concert with a “denial of environmental influence on social, economic, or political spheres for fear of being trapped in a determinist position.” That has the effect of “freezing the critical mind” and persuading some to believe that the “physical world does not exist”.

Scoones is hopeful for an integration of non-equilibirum ecology with social disciplines. He sees it as coalescing around three themes. They are:


 * 1) 1. the concern with spatial and temporal dynamics developed in detailed and situated analyses of “people in places”.
 * 2) 2. The growing understanding of environment as both the product of and the setting for human interactions.
 * 3) 3. The appreciation of complexity and uncertainty in social-ecological systems and the recognition that prediction, management, and control are unlikely, if not impossible.

Scoones next discusses the field of environmental history. This discipline, according to him, has done a better job of incorporating nonequilibium thinking, largely due to the fact that it applies a temporal dimension to its analysis. This has given it the ability to examine the interactions between human and ecological systems through time. This has occurred in varying degrees through the discipline. Scoones quotes William Cronon as saying “We can non longer assume the existence of a static and benign climax community in nature that contrasts with dynamic, but destructive, human change.

Scoones comments that there has been a recent emergence of disciplines looking at socio-ecological interactions that “emphasize diversity and complexity in patterns of spatial and temporal change, which resonate strongly with the themes of nonlinear dynamics, multiple limits, and the importance of social-ecological interaction in the new ecology.” Structure, agency, and scale are also factors that are discussed than can account for nonlinear processes. Scoones describes “nested hierarchies” of ecological, social, and political systems that can influence the long term interactions between people and their ecosystems.

Complexity and uncertainty in ecological processes can be better described through non-equilibrium theories. Quoting CS Holling, “knowledge of the system we deal with is always incomplete. Surprise is inevitable. Not only is the science incomplete, the system itself is a moving target.”

Scoones goes on to describe the new ecological science as “one that moves beyond the Newtonian tradition of mechanistic explanation based on reductionist, controlled experimental analysis toward a science that is integrative and holistic and that focuses on variability and uncertainty as absolutely fundamental, instead of as “noise” to be excluded from the analysis.”

These revelations about the dynamic nature of ecosystems have challenged such notions as “carrying capacity” and “maximum sustained yield” that have previously informed and guided environmental management and policy practices, particularly in the discourse surrounding “sustainable development”. New conceptual tools and practices informed by complexity, such as resilience and adaptive capacity, have emerged to replace “equilibrium based” traditional approaches. These may better account for “incremental responses to environmental issues, with close monitoring and iterative learning built into the process, such that thresholds and surprises can be responded to.” (Scoones, 1999).

This analysis challenges social scientists to move beyond what Scoones sees as an artificial separation between “scientific or local, lay or indigenous knowledge” and to look at the “complex processes of epistemic negotiation in different settings.”

In conclusion, Scoones calls for greater interdisciplinary collaboration that will challenge false nature-culture dichotomies along with others. This approach “looks at scientific and local knowledge together, and integrates the natural and the social in exploring environmental change. For it is the interaction between these two perspectives - socially constructed perceptions and representations and real processes of biophysical change and ecological dynamics – that is key to policy and practice.”

I had read this article previously, but enjoyed giving a more careful and detailed analysis. As this article was written in 1999, when nonlinear dynamics and complexity theory were particularly in vogue, I would be curious to see how broad and lasting of an effect this article had upon interdisciplinary coordination. The clearest manifestation of this to me would be the emergence of resilience thinking, and the profound impact that has had upon policy and trans disciplinary work in recent years. Interestingly though, despite this article having been cited multiple hundreds of times subsequently by other authors, not too many of them appeared to be on the topic of resilience directly.
 * Reaction**

All and all, I agree strongly with the assertions my by Scoones in this article. I’m continually baffled by the persistence of the “balkanization of knowledge” presenting itself in the schism between the ecological and social sciences. While an entire field and language has emerged around the study of the “SES”, or socio-ecological system, it seems to still be primarily a sociological approach that pays greater consideration to the ecological sciences. Sociology as a whole, I believe, does not truly recognize social processes to be an emergent property of ecological systems, yet still an isolated phenomena that can be studied independently of “the environment”. Part of this limitation is our tendency to snapshot the present moment and draw conclusions based upon that for the mere convenience of having a simpler model without the temporal dimension. If we can apply this lens, however, we will see socio-ecological systems as being constantly in flux, highly connected, and morphing and changing form on account of numerous forces and influences.

More of a persistent problem in both the biophysical and social sciences is a tendency of “othering” the global ecosystem, and while the interconnectedness that is implied in the concept of ecology is acknowledged, it is only comprehended from an abstracted and intellectual position. The reluctance in any academic field to literally “get ones hands” dirty in a way that would promote a deep and genuine sense of connectedness is a significant limitation to meaningful and relevant knowledge generation.

Genealogy:

Ian Scoones is co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex and joint convenor of the IDS-hosted [|Future Agricultures Consortium]. He is an agricultural ecologist by original training whose interdisciplinary research links the natural and social sciences and focuses on the relationships between science and technology, local knowledge and livelihoods and the politics of policy processes in the context of international agricultural, environment and development issues. A social and institutional perspective is at the centre of his work, which explores the linkages between local knowledges and practices and the processes of scientific enquiry, development policy-making and field-level implementation. Over the past twenty-five years, he has worked on pastoralism and rangeland management, soil and water conservation, biodiversity and conservation, as well as dryland agricultural systems, largely in eastern and southern Africa. A central theme has been a focus on citizen engagement in pro-poor research and innovation systems. Most recently he has been working on the governance of agricultural biotechnology in India and veterinary/animal health science and policy in Africa, including projects on livestock marketing and foot-and-mouth disease in southern Africa and the international responses to avian influenza.

From https://www.ids.ac.uk/person/ian-scoones

Capra, Fritjof, and Pier Luigi Luisi. //The systems view of life: a unifying vision//. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Scoones, Ian. "New ecology and the social sciences: what prospects for a fruitful engagement?." //Annual Review of Anthropology// (1999): 479-507.

Week 3:

Kueffer, C. "Ecological Novelty: Towards an interdisciplinary understanding of ecological change in the Anthropocene." //Grounding global climate change. Contributions from the social and cultural sciences//.

In the article “Ecological Novelty: Towards an Interdisciplinary Understanding of Ecological Change in the Anthropocene.”, author Cristoph Kueffer discusses how in the age of the anthropocene environmental systems are being increasingly shaped by both social and biological processes. This is having the effect of transforming ecology into a hybrid science of both social and ecological systems. His aim is to show “that ecology not only increasingly shares the same study object with environmental social sciences and humanities-namely, adaptation to rapidly changing socio-ecological systems – but also that the epistemological and methodological challenges converge.”

Kueffer begins by defining the idea of ecological novelty. The concept stems from the fact that humans are dramatically altering both the biotic and abiotic aspects of their environment, affecting all levels of biological organization including genomes, populations, communities, ecosystems, and landscapes. These alterations result in unfamiliar patterns at both local and global scales that will manifest in ecosystems that are unprecedented by either past or present systems. There are six defining characteristics of current environmental changes and of ecological novelty: they are 1. Anthropogenic, 2.large, 3. Fast, 4.multi-dimensional, 5. Variable, unknown and unpredicatable and 6. Of global extent, affecting remote wilderness.

Kueffer then makes the case for the extent of human influence on the planet (what he refers to as “man-made”). Citing climate change, biodiversity loss, global distribution of toxins, and the extent of human inhabitation of the earth (75% of the ice-free area), Kueffer states there are few places on Earth outside the extent of human influence.

One interesting point made is that feedback loops between environmental changes and societal responses have become shorter, making it so that human responses to environmental changes can have a greater impact on ecosystems than the original environmental change had in the first place. One example is that of humans moving agriculture in to new areas in response to climate change and in doing so altering the land and species composition. Human migration and geo-engineering are other examples given. One concern is of “shifting cognitive baseline syndrome”, where “feedbacks between environmental change and human responses might be modulated or accelerated through changing human perceptions of ecological systems due to the loss of experience about past experiences”. Another concern is that ecological research that emphasizes the extent of human-caused changes to ecosystems will result in a sense of futility in attempting to protect relatively un-disturbed areas.

The next area considered is the magnitude and rate of change that humans have had on the global ecosystem. According to Kueffer, the human contribution to the biogeochemical cycles of water, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus is as large or larger than all the natural sources combined. Increasing global temperatures and species extinction are other aspects of the global ecosystem that have also been severely impacted. The magnitude of change coupled with the rate of change give societies little time to adapt. Due to incredible rate of change we are experiencing, a well adapted response to present environmental conditions may be dysfunctional in a matter of decades. Fluctuations in change coupled with uncertainty make adaptation strategies particularly challenging. The confluence of multiple variables and factors combines with the synergistic impact of these on changing environments compound to make adaptation even more difficult to prepare for and anticipate. Non-linear dynamics and tipping points are also among a mix of surprise factors emerging from ecological novelty. For instance, inter-annual variability in seasonal temperature fluctuations are becoming more normal.

Kueffer argues that in the future, “ecological science will deal almost exclusively with ecological systems that are shaped by humans.” Despite there being a long history of trying to conceptualize hybrid natural/social systems in the humanities and social sciences, these ideas have mostly remained on the fringes in both ecology and the social sciences. Kueffer identifies areas within the study of human/nature systems that require greater conceptual innovation. According to him, ecological sciences view human-ecological hybrids as systems, modeling energetic flows and population patterns within them. There has been a failure to account for, and to model, the variable of human agency. Attempts to do so in the social sciences have not been far reaching in the ecological sciences.

Ecological sciences, according to Kueffer, base their research and methods on the assumption that there are fundamental laws in “wild nature” that result as consequences of evolutionary processes over time. As Theodosius Dobzhansky states: “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. As a result, ecological research is focused on “pure nature” systems least impacted by humanity. It is assumed that the ecological dynamics at work in such systems can be easily translated to anthropogenic systems, however this is by no means the case. Humans, even in pre-industrial times, have had a tremendous impact on ecosystem functioning. The restriction of species movement and gene flow is one example. It cannot be assumed, Kueffer says, “whether the functioning of anthropogenic ecosystems can be understood based on the empirical generalizations and theoretical principles derived from wild ecosystems. The functional similarity or dissimilarity between pre-human and human-shaped ecosystems should be explicitly investigated, because in the Anthropocene nothing in nature makes sense except in the light of human action…A predictive science of ecological novelty will have to be able to address feedbacks between ecological and social change.”

Kueffer goes on to explain how the rapid rate of change characteristic of ecological novelty means that ecological knowledge of the past may no longer be of value in the future, requiring the need to be continuously generating new knowledge about the functioning of emerging novel ecosystems.

“Some ecologists believe that addressing these new demands requires a shift in the boundaries between the experimental/nomothetic and observational/ideographic research approaches….For some, ecology is, or should be, a ‘hard’ science such as physics, which aims at identifying universal laws through experimental testing of hypotheses. By contrast, for others, it is, or should be, a ‘soft’ science such as most environmental or social sciences, which embraces the openness, multi-scale nature, historicity and contingencies of real-world systems and aims to reconstruct and interpret the past and present of particular real-world systems through the integration of heterogeneous-and mostly observational –data. If observational/ideographic research approaches gain new prominence in ecological research in the near future, reciprocal learning between ecology and (some forms of) research in the social sciences and humanities that face similar methodological and epistemological challenges could help both scientific culture to work towards a common scientific methodology for understanding man-made real-world systems.”

The article concludes with a mostly unrelated discussion about the role that large data collection and interpretations systems have on the ecological sciences, and the relationships between those collecting and interpreting the data.

I enjoyed reading this article, it’s heartening to see more ecologists struggling with the question of how to study novel ecosystems, rather than discounting them on account of being “impure”. I’m fascinated by the study of anthopogenic and novel ecosystems, as I agree with the author’s sentiment that in the future an increasing number of ecosystems will be shaped and defined by human activity. The most interesting question to me is, what value system will we use for the shaping and governance of such systems. On one hand, acceptance of novel ecological processes could result in a regressive, reactionary process that says “human-induced changes such as climate change are inevitable and now “natural”, therefor it’s foolish to attempt to preserve less anthropic environments”. In my opinion, a smarter reaction would be, “yes, humans have a tremendous influence on planetary cycles and on shaping and creating ecosystems. However, can that process be carried out in such a way where there is acceptance of feedback and a high level of humility and reciprocity?” The discipline of historical ecology shows us that there are many precedents for benign human/ecological interaction. What can be learned from those societies to be applied to today’s world?

I also find it interesting to see researchers on both sides of the social-natural science divide discussing similar issues. It’s surprising to me still that a named boundary spanning discipline does not explicitly exist, but the idea of ecology as a form of social science is very interesting. Ecologists, who as a whole possess a more grounded understanding of ecological processes have refreshing insights into a cross-disciplinary terrain previously occupied primarily by social scientists and philosophers. The latter commonly theorize about ecological processes from an uninformed, overly-intellectual, and disconnected standpoint. Intimate familiarity with ecological systems can, in my opinion, only be achieved by getting one’s hands literally dirty.

Genealogy of the author:

Christoph Kueffer is a researcher in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at the Geobotanical Institute at ETH Zurich.


 * Statement of research interest: 2/19**

How can the relationship of average urban residents to emerging socio-ecological paradigms such as resilience, the anthropocene, and ecological novelty be understood through the lens of grassroots community organizing, and be used to both increase the ecological literacy of citizens and the adaptive capacities of cities overall?


 * Week 4:**
 * Lorimer, Jamie. "Multinatural geographies for the Anthropocene." //Progress in Human Geography// 36.5 (2012): 593-612. **

In this article, author Jamie Lorimer examines the role that the discipline of geography has in addressing the question of the Anthropocene. Following Paul Creutzen’s description of the era, numerous high profile writers have called for the reorientation of the environmental movement. While many may disagree with its epochal naming, many feel that marks a point in society where nature can now be seen as something other than the single, stable domain “removed from and defined in relation to urban, industrial society.” While some have responded with either romanticism or “technocratic and market environmentalism”, geographers have long critiqued the politics of nature, many claiming that there “has never been a world without us”. Lorimer’s aims for the article are as follows:
 * 1) 1. To review recent approaches to “multinatural” or “more than human” biogeography
 * 2) 2. To bring these viewpoints into conversation with “cognate developments in the environmental sciences to present an interdisciplinary biogeography for the Anthropocene.”
 * 3) 3. To merge this thinking with neoliberal critiques put forth in political ecology.

Lorimer begins with a review of writings on the notions of “multinatural” and “more than human” biogeography. He then attempts to bring these ideas, through the context of conservation biology and biodiversity studies, into conversation with the environmental sciences and finally with political ecology. Beginning with a review of Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway’s respective concepts of hybridity and cyborgs, Lorimer traces how the emerging notions of multinatural and more than human have come into contact with notions of ecological novelty. He quotes Daily et al. as saying “from both purely academic and practical perspectives, ecologists should be able to say more than “weedy” about the biota that survives human impact”. I believe such studies have become more common in the guise of studying “ruderal” ecologies and “synanthropic” species.

Lorimer examines how Haraway has extended this analysis to her work in companion species dealing with interspecies’ co-evolutionary relations. She extends Latour’s notion of “we have never been modern” to “we have never been human”. In essence, she posits that one cannot separate a single organism from the many others that co-habitate inside and outside of it. The human microbiome project would be an ideal example. Lorimer links Haraway’s work with Lynn Margulis, referencing her description of bacteria’s “extreme genetic fluidity” and tendency to form either permanent or temporary partnerships with other species. Lorimer offers an interesting framing of landscapes as “forever chasing moving targets” in an attempt to capture a non-equilibrium view of ecosystems. In a discussion on biodiversity, Lorimer states that:

“For some conservation biologists, the Anthropocene is a “homogecene” in which ecological globalization creates a ‘global anthropogenic blender’ resulting in the ‘convergence’ of emerging novel ecosystems and the erasure of established forms of genetic, species, and habitat diversity.” Lorimer counters that there is a debate on this issue, and argues that novel ecological assemblages may result rather in increased differentiation, producing “cosmopolitan hybrids”. This is an ongoing discussion among ecologists studying novel ecosystems. While some may see them as creating “McDonalds ecologies”, others see their potential to possibly enhance biodiversity and perform valuable ecosystem services. He follows by stating

“When nature was conceived as pure, singular, and in balance, conservation biology could be guided towards and audited by a set of transcendent archetypes – species, habitats, ecosystems, etc. The authenticity or truth of a landscape could be objectively measured by its divergence from a fixed form, which provided the benchmark for (sometimes autocratic) conservation management. As several critics have observed, non-equilibrium political ecology with biodiversity as a multiplicity of immanent and discordant harmonies poses far-reaching challenges to this model of conservation.”

Effects of the Anthropocene are working to erode these “benchmarks”. Non-equilibrium dynamics have the potential to open the discussion to a wider variety of stakeholders: “When one can no longer make recourse to nature, what forms and trajectories of difference matter? Who decides? On what grounds? And through what processes? Attempts to answer these questions can be differentiated by their theoretical commitments and empirical foci, offering concepts and methods that span the lab and field sciences, In the Global North and South.”

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Again, Lorimer investigates the potential of using novel ecosystems on an experimental basis to observe what types of changes await as the Anthropocene advances: <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“There is a growing sense that the Anthropocene represents one global, accidental (and poorly designed experiment) and that, on a more local sale, novel ecosystems could represent ‘ideal natural experiments’ for tracking ecological adaptation to anthropogenic change.”

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Lorimer here compares conservation biology in the Anthropocene as a type of “postnormal science”, in which there may be greater potential to involve citizen scientists, although he notes the importance of questioning the social justice aspects of this transfer of knowledge and for whom this knowledge is intended to benefit. <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Conservation biology is an archetypical ‘postnormal discipline, operating in situations of ‘cricis’ with high levels of uncertainty and dependent on an ‘extended peer community’ many of whom are not scientific experts. Accordingly, there is a well-established recognition among conservationists of the importance of ‘public engagement’ and ‘citizen science’ – at least when these citizens and publics are white and western. Much of this endeavor has adhered to a ‘deficit model’ of public engagement – people need a ‘knowledge transfer’ of more of the right information – rather than starting from the pluralist positions outlined above.”

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The article then turns to a discussion of political ecology in the anthropocene. Some authors are concerned that the notion of non-equilibrium fluid ecologies are convenient for capitalist exploitation, while others see radical potential in them. Lorimer quotes Sullivan and Homewood as saying

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Non-equilibrium ideas demote the expert, superior positioning of the scientist by emphasizing unknowability in terms of predicating the behavior of complex systems. They create problems for conservationists wishing to clear (purify) landscapes of people and livestock in order to return these spaces to a desired, imagined original undisturbed state of nature. And by emphasizing the significance of local and historical contexts and knowledges they affirm developed land use and management as the most appropriate match between people and the environment, thus reducing the legitimacy of state-centric, expert-led, top-down policy and planning.” (Sullivan et al., 2003) <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">This highlight the potential of non-equilibrium ecological thinking to be used as a tool to either promote or to resist neoliberal agendas.

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In conclusion, this article was as extensive literature review of geographers and STS scholars thinking on the subject of ecological novelty, the Anthropocene, conservation biology and non-equilibrium paradigms. As the topic is inherently in “overlap territory” between the social and biophysical sciences, it is interesting to see the range of thinking on the topic from a critical sociological lens. Much of it, however, was greatly centered on the highly abstract thinking of Latour, Deleuze, and Guattari. There seems to be either a spoken or unspoken pressure to fit concepts into frameworks previously established by these thinkers, often at the expense of comprehensibility and basis in physical and social reality. Despite this criticism, the article was a useful overview.

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Genealogy: <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Jamie Lorimer joined the School of Geography and the Environment in October 2012. Jamie has a BSc (Hons, first class) and PhD from the University of Bristol. His PhD and subsequent post-doctoral fellowships at Oxford (2005-7) were funded by the ESRC. Prior to returning to Oxford, Jamie lectured for four years at Kings College London.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Jamie's research interests encompass cultural geography, the geographies of science, the politics of Nature and wildlife conservation. His work explores inherently geographical questions that conjoin the social and the environmental sciences. He employs qualitative, visual, ethnographic and historical methods. He has conducted extensive periods of fieldwork in the UK, Sri Lanka and most recently the Netherlands. Jamie's research has been funded by a series of grants from the ESRC and has been published in many of the leading geography and interdisciplinary journals. He has been a visiting researcher at the Universities of British Columbia and Peradeniya (Sri Lanka).

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Sullivan, Sian, and Katherine Homewood. "On non-equilibrium and nomadism: knowledge, diversity and global modernity in drylands (and beyond…)." (2003).


 * <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Week 5 **

Houston, Donna. "Crisis Is Where We Live: Environmental Justice for the Anthropocene." //Globalizations// 10.3 (2013): 439-450.

In this article, Donna Houston explores how frameworks and concepts developed by the environmental justice movement over the past few decades mesh well with the emerging construct of the anthropocene.

Houston begins her article by describing the anthropocene as a time where “we are called to collectively witness the consequences of human decisions and the impacts of our ‘failing modernisms’ on the conditions of planetary life.” She also sees it as an emphasis on a narrowing opportunity to avoid tipping points associated with environmental change and uncertainty.

She sees one of its key challenges to “reimagine how humans make connections between planetary and everyday life in ethical, sustainable, and ecologically just ways.” Based on this conclusion, Houston sees an opportunity to highlight the ongoing work and struggles of the environmental justice movement, one that is “firmly embedded in the choices and consequences of the anthropocene.” Houston sees environmental justice as framework for understanding and acting upon socio-ecological issues.

Posing a challenge to the western notion of nature as being “pristine wilderness”. The EJ definintion of nature expands it to include such things as urban disinvestment, homes, communities, racism, jobs, etc. She elaborates by stating:

“For environmental justice activists and scholars, the separation of nature from culture in maninstream environmental movements is a source of environmental inequity and erasure. ‘Pristine nature’ devoid of human work and action is an exclusionary discourse that ignores the interwoven contexts of eco-social realities in and of an altered and damaged world.”

Houston credits Rachel Carson for being able to give voice to “affective legacies” of pain and anger resulting form the “destructive practices of industrial modernity”, specifically in how communities have responded to the placement of pollution and unwanted land uses in low income communities of color. Houston explores how aspects of the legacy of environmental justice connects with the anthropocene in the article:
 * 1) 1. EJ represents decades of work related to environmental degradation and change and 2. EJ’s contribution to the anthropocene is to conceptualize environmental crisis in an everyday context as something that is lived with and is trying to be changed.

The anthropocene, according to Houston, is similarly interested in “reimagining the inhabited contexts of non-pristine and transformed nature. It differs, however, in that it “registers a different awareness of the scale and temporality of environmental crisis and introduces new terms” to the often locally focused EJ field. Some of these include planetary life, geological time, and species being. Houston uses the concept of “anticipatory histories” as a way to imagine future possibilities in the anthropocene age.

Houston is wary of apocalyptic imagery surrounding environmental discourse. She feels it leads to “public disenchantment when the imminent collapse does not occur” and diverts people’s attention away from needed long-term political goals requiring gradual changes. She advocates as seeing ourselves as integrated into the web of life rather than using linear “running off a cliff” type language. Such metaphors imply a linear angle of time and progress that will result either in technological enlightenment or collapse.

“The environmental consequences of the anthropocene require collective action that takes uncertain futures seriously, not as an end point or some utopian ideal, but as a matter of everyday life. Part of this challenge is to develop new understandings of how embodied, everyday, and planetary realities are being reimagined in environmentally just and sustainable ways .”

In this way, Houston sees EJ as “disordering the linear consequences of environmental crisis”, creating opportunities to engage with multiple aspects of the reality of the anthropocene.

Houston goes on to discuss the role that anthropogenic environments play in environmental justice thinking. She is concerned about the tendency to write off occurrences such as hurricanes and flooding as “natural”, and therefor removed from the historical and socio-political relationships that have made it more than a “natural” disaster. To Houston, the EJ framing of anthropogenic phenomena has more is useful for rethinking socio-ecological relationships in the age of the anthropocene. To her, the movement has more in common with civil rights and social justice.

“Environmental justice activism focuses on the struggles for survival and justice in polluted and non-pristine environments. Yet, it is often the non-pristine ecologies that environmental justice movements inhabit that produce its ‘anthropogenic’ associations, rather than the question of how individuals and collectives frame environmental justice issues.”

Houston goes on to give the examples of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans and Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as examples of where “anticipatory histories” are created based on how environmental justice and environmental crisis comes together. Houston describes this well be quoting Rebecca Solnit as saying “How we remember Hurricane Katrina is also how we’ll prepare for future disasters so getting the story right matters for survival as well as for justice and history.” (Solnit, 2010).

In conclusion, Houston goes on to say that EJ “is in practice an expansive community framework that is particularly suited to working in altered and damaged ecologies – and connecting the realities of environmental degradation to the lived contexts of everyday life.”

Finally, she states “In the anthropocene epoch, we need to tell stories about environmental justice and the kinds of work-in-the-world that is performed in the articulation and framing of its concerns and relationships. This is important, because when new ideas and concepts (such as the anthropocene) manifest and gain political traction, it is easy to get caught up in the calls for new forms of sociality around eco-social problems and gloss over actions and dialogues that are already underway.”

It was helpful for me to reads this article as a reminder of how much of the ongoing work in the EJ field creates a context and framework for discussing the anthropocene and other anthropogenic phenomena. Its emphasis on the experiences of underrepresented populations and focus on justice provides an essential counterbalance to the “dominate and control” and “geo-engineering, mastery of nature” inspired language that has a heavy influence in anthropocene discourse.


 * Genealogy: ** Donna Houston has a Ph.D. in geography from UCLA, and is a lecturer in the department of geography and planning at the University of Macquarie in Sydney.

Solnit, Rebecca. //A paradise built in hell: The extraordinary communities that arise in disaster//. Penguin, 2010.


 * Week 6: **
 * Paradigm Dressed as Epoch: The Ideology of the Anthropocene **

Baskin, Jeremy. "Paradigm dressed as epoch: The ideology of the Anthropocene." //Environmental Values// 24.1 (2015): 9-29.

Jeremy Baskin begin this article by looking at the concept of the Anthropocene from a broad perspective. He discussed how the idea has proliferated in academia, and has scientific credibility despite not being a scientific concept. In August 2013, according to Baskin, there non academic journals dedicated to the topic, by April 2014, there were four. Despite the broad use of the concept, Baskin feels there has been little critical reflection upon it.

Baskin sees the Anthropocene as a troubling concept that challenges the philosophical grounds on which both the natural and social sciences are built upon. He frames this by saying “and yet in the scientific versions, the empirical observations are so enmeshed in value-laden assumptions and prescriptions that ‘the Anthropocene’ reveals itself as something beyond, or other than, a scientific concept.”

Baskin argues that the Anthropocene represents an ideology and a paradigm more than it does a “neutral characteristic of a new geological epoch”. It provides an “ideational underpinning for a particular view of the world, which it, in turn helps to legitimate.”

Baskin’s primary concerns with the concept of the Anthropocene are:


 * 1) 1. It “universalizes and normalizes” a certain group of humans as the humans of the Anthropocene.
 * 2) 2. It puts “man back into nature” only to raise him above it
 * 3) 3. It embraces technology uncritically
 * 4) 4. By creating an “ecological state of emergency”, planetary management and geo-engineering practices are made legitimate.

Baskin proceeds to have a discussion around the debate over the beginning of the Anthropocene. For him, the accuracy of the dating is of less importance as is the implications of an early or later dating period. An early dating that accounts for the significant changes made by humans on the planet through agricultural processes and would imply that the Anthropocene is nothing new. A newer dating, on the other hand, draws attention to the recentness of the phenomenon, rates of acceleration, and the crossing of thresholds and tipping points. This fits with the idea that “we are in an exceptional time, needing exceptional, emergency responses.”

Through this lens, I can see pros and cons from approaching it at either angle. It is important to understand that humans have long had impacts on the global ecosystem, yet not use this as a justification for ongoing abuses. Likewise, attention needs to be paid to situations such as “the great acceleration” and potentially irreversible tipping points being crossed without advocating for potentially catastrophic geo-engineering approaches.

Crutzen, the originator of the term, thought of it less as a marker of geological time, but rather as a warning for humanity. Baskin points out that the quest for scientific accepting of the Anthropocene concept has little to do with making a topic of academic discussion. More importantly, he argues, is that “it does need to be contemporary. It has to be novel, it has to be now.”

Making the point that political and cultural time has then become interwoven with geological time, Baskin feels that such concepts as “late capitalism” or “neoliberalism” just as accurately frame the interwoven mix of politics, economics, nature and culture as the label of the “Anthropocene”.

Baskin feels that predominantly, the normative claims attached to the Anthropocene lend to framing global environmental issues in terms of “problems” requiring “solutions”, frequently of a sophisticated and broad-scale technical nature.

Quoting a segment from a film entitled ‘Welcome to the Anthropocene’ Baskin captures this sentiment. “The Age of Humans does not have to be an era of hardship and misery for other species; we can nurture and protect as well as dominate and conquer. But in any case, the first responsibility of a conquering army is to govern.”

(no citation given).

Others, on the contrary, advocate for returning to the Holocene, stressing planetary limits. These all fall along a continuum, however, described by Baskin as “post-natural” and as being “technophilic and planetary-managerialist in orientation. The argument that the science shows us to have entered a new geological epoch is generally packaged with a set of debatable, conventional and undoubtedly extra-scientific values.” To summarize, Baskin states that the Anthropocene represents a framework more than a geological epoch, and the debates surrounding it are more about adopting a particular worldview than a scientific concept. It is a “paradigm dressed as epoch.”

Baskin goes on to criticize particular elements of the Anthropocene concept. First among them is the question of “who is the human in the Anthropocene?” According to him, the Anthropocene concept provides a transhistorical treatment to humanity, failing to “distinguish between different societies, either spatially or temporally.” Also, by assigning a biological “humanness” to the Anthropocene, it allows to avoid questioning its association with capitalism and industrialism, and our attachment to those modes of production. Any other term for describing the era would require a different set of normative solutions.

This feeling is captured in the following quote:

“ By labeling the epoch ‘Anthropocene’, and the driver – the cause of the massive impacts on the biosphere – as humanity, a particular dynamic is invoked. Impacts which have been driven by (and largely for the benefit of) a minority are attributed to all of humanity.”

Next discussed is the relationship that the Anthropocene has with nature. Baskin comments that many proponents of the Anthropocene concept have chosen to disregard many years of thought regarding human/nature relationships carried out in the humanities and social sciences. Baskin claims that Crutzen would argue that nature is now in the care of humanity, and is dependent on our care and good management.

He goes on to discuss ecologist Erle Ellis’ concept of ‘anthromes’ or ‘anthropogenic biomes’. “He largely sidesteps the question of nature and its value, whilst nevertheless holding implicit views. He is skeptical of talk about ‘limits’ and ‘planetary boundaries’.” Ellis again states that humans are the stewards and creators of a sustainable human culture.

Baskin is surprised by what he considers to be an idea influenced by modernism, believing it to be contrary to most recent ecological findings that call for a “multi-natural” approach that falls in between mastery or harmony with nature. He argues that Anthropocene proponents recognize the existence of nature, but see it as being a colonial subject of culture.

Baskin counter by stating, “Artifice and wildness are only the extreme ends of a long spectrum, such that ‘[n]ature in a rainforest or a coral reef, even with the marks of humanity, reveals elements of complexity and dynamism not seen in plastic pink flamingoes and jumbo jets’ (Worthy, 2013:76). Nature retains its exteriority, otherness and agency.”

Baskin refers to a trinity of techniques called upon for the global management of planetary systems. They are clear management of earth systems, guided by experts, and using of advanced technology. This is all framed by a sense of emergency, which adds an imperative to the action. Even the conservative advocates of planetary change advocate returning to Holocene conditions, creating a “safe operating space” for humanity. Baskin is troubled by the idea of scientist as exerts and informers. “Whilst policy needs to be informed by science, experience teaches we should remain wary of the idea that policy can and should be guided by the science.” Most Anthropocene advocates call for the use or enhancement of geo-engineering processes.

Baskin concludes by questioning whether it’s possible to create “another Anthropocene?” He states “It is on e thing to acknowledge that the natural world cannot be studied independently of the social that helps to construct it. It is another to engage with the potentially radical implications of this insight for the scientific method and the authority of science. By bringing in the social, on brings in values, social systems, institutions, contestations and so on – including contestations of ‘facts’, or at least of which ‘facts’ might count. It also involves recognizing that it is problematic to frame the environment as an object largely of natural science…Perhaps the Anthropocene is paradoxically, the reverse of what its originators imagined: not the end of nature, but the end of science, or at least of a certain idea of what constitutes science?”

From this, Baskin asks if the concept can, or should, be recovered. Latour asks the same question by saying the Anthropocene is “the most decisive philosophical, religious, anthropological and … political concept yet produced as an alternative to the very notions of ‘modern’ and ‘modernity’ (Latour, 2013). Bskincomments that by bringing Gaia, as opposed to humanity ,to the forefront, an important counter-narrative is created to that of the dominant sciences. Finally, Baskin advocates holding on to the important insights given by the Anthropocene, exploring its radical potential by recognizing its tensions and questions and not assuming answers will “flow from the science”.

I believe this was an excellent article, expertly framing the discourse surrounding the Anthropocene from a critical perspective. As Baskin points out, use of the concept is racing forward, and it is essential that we pull back and ask questions pertaining to who the Anthropocene applies to and for what purposes.


 * Genealogy: ** Jeremy Baskin is member of the department of the school of social and political sciences at the University of Melbourne.

Latour, Bruno. "Facing Gaia." //Six lectures on the political theology of nature', Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion// (2013): 18-28.

Worthy, Kenneth. //Invisible nature: healing the destructive divide between people and the environment//. Prometheus Books,