{"id":8778,"date":"2015-06-03T19:11:02","date_gmt":"2015-06-04T00:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8778"},"modified":"2015-06-03T19:11:02","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T00:11:02","slug":"does-anthropocene-science-blame-all-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8778","title":{"rendered":"Does Anthropocene science blame all humanity?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"post-title entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2015\/05\/31\/does-anthropocene-science-blame-all-humanity\/\">Does Anthropocene science blame all humanity?<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><em><strong>The charge that Anthropocene scholars blame all of humanity for the actions of a small minority simply doesn\u2019t hold water. Ecosocialists need to be positive contributors to Anthropocene discussions, not critics sniping from the sidelines.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>by Ian Angus<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to Earth System scientists, the Earth has entered a new geological epoch that will be less stable and less hospitable to human life. Because the change is driven by human activity, the proposed name for the new epoch is Anthropocene \u2013 from the Greek<em>anthropos,\u00a0<\/em>human being.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, some critics have charged that the \u201cAnthropocene narrative\u201d blames humanity as a whole for these changes, ignoring major differences in the nature and extent of environmental change caused by different groups of people. Such concerns are understandable, but overstated \u2013 to a considerable degree, they seem to reflect preconceptions about what the Anthropocene concept\u00a0<em>might\u00a0<\/em>mean, rather than serious engagement with the work of the scientists who have defined it.<\/p>\n<p>+ + + + +<\/p>\n<p>It is no secret that some green theorists blame environmental problems on human beings as such. Our species has been labelled a plague, a virus, and a cancer; we\u2019ve been compared to a swarm of locusts, voraciously consuming everything we see; we\u2019re told that people are nature\u2019s enemy, so only radical population reduction can prevent disaster. As\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/dwardmac.pitzer.edu\/Anarchist_Archives\/bookchin\/socecovdeepeco.html\">Murray Bookchin<\/a>\u00a0wrote, Malthusian greens blame environmental crises on \u201ca vague species called humanity \u2013 as though people of color were equatable with whites, women with men, the Third World with the First, the poor with the rich, and the exploited with their exploiters.\u201d[1]<\/p>\n<p>Given the strength of \u201cblame people\u201d views among some greens, it not surprising that some writers\u00a0have reacted with suspicion to an epoch named for the\u00a0<em>anthropos<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does Anthropocene science blame all humanity? The charge that Anthropocene scholars blame all of humanity for the actions of a small minority simply doesn\u2019t hold water. Ecosocialists need to be positive contributors to Anthropocene discussions, not critics sniping from the sidelines. by Ian Angus According to Earth System scientists, the Earth has entered a new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1208,2648,6043,6045,6044],"class_list":["post-8778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-anthropocene","tag-anthropogenic-climate-change","tag-earth-system","tag-ecosocialists","tag-malthus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8779,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778\/revisions\/8779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}