Published June 27, 2008
by iris_author
Bestselling author and public intellectual Mike Davis reports in his recent epic essay, "Farewell to the Holocene", that the Geological Society of London has recently unanimously decided to declare the Holocene epoch over, accepting the increasingly popular view that the Anthropocene, marked by the emergence of a global urban-industrial society, has already commenced. Davis notes that:
They [GSL] adduce robust evidence that the Holocene epoch -- the interglacial span of unusually stable climate that has allowed the rapid evolution of agriculture and urban civilization -- has ended and that the Earth has entered "a stratigraphic interval without close parallel in the last several million years." In addition to the buildup of greenhouse gases, the stratigraphers cite human landscape transformation which "now exceeds [annual] natural sediment production by an order of magnitude," the ominous acidification of the oceans, and the relentless destruction of biota.
In fact, the GSL argues that the heating trend that marks the birth of the Anthropocene will have a permanent impact on the course of evolution, putting to paid the sunny optimists' view that the biosphere will somehow escape unscathed our planetary civilization's eclipsing of biophysical processes as the chief power governing the planet's fate.
Davis' article is extremely sombre reading, as he takes apart many of the climate solutions that have gained currency in recent years. He particularly warns against strains of eco-corporatism or even eco-fascism that might prove popular amongst the wealthy as they strive to insulate themselves from the suffering caused by their own oversized ecological footprint. Davis returns to the central question of human solidarity and whether it might fail altogether under the strains of an unprecedented planetary emergency that will accompany even the rosiest climate predictions. Unfortunately, his "apocalyptic" vision has few if any caveats.
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