3:48 PM - 4:03 PM
[U04-02] Humanities Earth System Agency as Historical Outcome
★Invited Papers
Keywords:Earth System Agency, History, Great Acceleration
The Anthropocene as defined by Earth System science challenges historians to think differently about human agency. Since the inception of the discipline, historians have investigated the decisions, forces, and contingencies molding individual lives and societies. We have long thought in terms of individual agency and social agency with the goal of explaining change over time. Now we are called upon to address a distinctive new mode of agency--Earth System agency--and a different question--not just what caused change over time but what caused the abrupt transformation of the planetary system in the mid-twentieth century. The Anthropocene as confirmed by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP)'s "great acceleration" graphs is a new object of study requiring new historical questions about how human systems came to overwhelm the natural system of the Holocene.
This brief paper will outline (a) the ideas and practices that contributed to the global growth of population, production, and consumption resulting in the Anthropocene and (b) the histories "against the grain" that show societies capable, at least for a time, of creating stable or semi-stable states. The former histories reveal multiple factors (many deemed good such as better sanitation, better health, and the rise of middle class prosperity and democracy) contributing to our capacity to overwhelm the Earth System. The latter histories are useful today because they uncover how people created mutualistic societies in the past, and how we might be able to do so in the future. Circular economies, lower populations, and values at odds with growth are key to mitigating the Anthropocene by striving for stable state societies. Japanese history will be the source of many of my examples.
This brief paper will outline (a) the ideas and practices that contributed to the global growth of population, production, and consumption resulting in the Anthropocene and (b) the histories "against the grain" that show societies capable, at least for a time, of creating stable or semi-stable states. The former histories reveal multiple factors (many deemed good such as better sanitation, better health, and the rise of middle class prosperity and democracy) contributing to our capacity to overwhelm the Earth System. The latter histories are useful today because they uncover how people created mutualistic societies in the past, and how we might be able to do so in the future. Circular economies, lower populations, and values at odds with growth are key to mitigating the Anthropocene by striving for stable state societies. Japanese history will be the source of many of my examples.