Chapter 16 - Climate and the Environmental Humanities

Summary

The success of the Anthropocene concept relies on the esthetic of the sublime. It rejuvenates old cultural tropes – the geological sublime, the sublime of the fall, technological sublime, and the sublime of the scientific discovery. What is the function of this anthropocenic sublime? As liberal intellectuals converted to environmental concerns and proclaimed the end of grand narratives, the Anthropocene provided a new grandiose narrative. Theorizing the movement of humanity as a telluric force seems much more exciting than reflecting on modes of production, energy transition, or degrowth. But for contemporary political ecology, the Anthropocene esthetic is problematic: It sublimates capitalism whose strength is now compared to geological forces; it tends to erase inequalities and the politics of environmental harm for a depoliticized fascination for planetary collapse; it fuels the dream of a conscious geological agent, gearing the destiny of the planet under the guidance of an international scientific elite. Geoengineering lurks behind the sublime of the Anthropocene.