Introduction
Every parent envisions a future where their children and grandchildren live in a rich and resourceful environment that essentially provides them with everything that they need to survive. However, what if parents were informed of a pending doom where their children will live in an extremely toxic environment where there aren't enough basic resources such as fresh drinking water or where the climate is comprised of harsh conditions that threaten their lives on a daily basis? What if they were informed that by the time their children are adults, a diverse range of the existing species of animals will have become extinct, and these children will not be able to see them live and will perhaps only get to study about them in textbooks? Such revelation would ultimately hugely influence the desire of parents to bring children into this world. Some would, however, dismiss such suggestions as a pure fallacy and would therefore not even take them seriously. However, this is a reality that the world is facing today. There is a looming mass extinction of the world’s resources and living life in this geological age known as Anthropocene; an age whereby human activity has had an accentuated effect on the environment as well as global climate.
This phenomenon is already observable even though some people may choose to deny it. A person perusing current news is likely to come across reports that suggest the dwindling nature of the world’s current environment and ecosystem. This includes reports of increasing bad weather patterns in certain areas of the world, food and water crisis in different parts of the globe due to droughts, extinction of some plant and animal life and generally decreasing biodiversity. Those who have not been directly affected by some of these occurrences may deny their existence, and this obviously poses a huge danger to any efforts to reverse this phenomenon. Everybody basically needs to understand that the earth is currently in the Anthropocene period and if caution is not taken, the next few decades could result in an irreversible environmental and ecosystem degradation that will hugely affect the lives of future generations.
Jamieson and Nadzam go on to give more details about the Anthropocene. In particular, they explore the concept of love and ask how it will arise in a word where nature has almost become entirely an artifact due to human actions. The writers take the reader through a journey of an imagined future world that has been remade and managed by human action. Lakes, rivers, forests and oceans have been affected hugely by human activities, both in a positive and negative way. Some of these features are currently planned and technologically maintained by humans. The weather is also affected by inadvertent consequences of human activities and actions as well as through clumsy attempts to correct or reverse some of these actions and bring them under control (11).
According to Jamieson and Nadzam, nearly all of terrestrial biosphere has been transformed by human action. The oceans have been affected too. Currently, most of the seafood consumed people in the globe is actually produced via aquaculture rather than through actual fishing. There are more than 20 million of human trash in the current world’s oceans (Jamieson and Nadzam 12). Much of this trash is currently concentrated in an area comprised of several hundred thousand square miles that is known as the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ (Jamieson and Nadzam 13). In addition, there are millions of debris from rocket boosters, satellites as well as lost equipment that are currently orbiting the planet.
Jamieson and Nadzam go on to claim that fuel-driven climate change is currently opening new regions of the earth such as the Arctic to gas and oil exploration and they may foster even greater fuel driven climate change (12).
The human transformation of the earth is also fed by technology. Unfortunately many do not realize the true implications of technology and other human developments. Many are unaware of what current human actions in this Anthropocene age may mean for future generations. According to Jamieson and Nadzam, awareness of what is going on with the planet currently can lead us to change course (Jamieson and Nadzam 14). They give an example of chlorofluorocarbons which for a long time were marketed under deceptive brand names such as Freon (15). For a large part of the 20th century, these chemicals were used as solvents, refrigerants, and propellants. Not many regular people had any idea about their effect on the environment. If it were not for brilliant scientists who went on to alert us about the consequences of using things like spray cans and air conditioners that utilized these chemicals, the planet's ozone layer would have been destroyed eventually, and the planet would have been rendered lifeless.
The main driver of environmental change today is not shifts in tectonic plates, variations in solar radiation or even volcanic activity, it is the increasing human population accompanied by its demand for food, energy, information services and disposal for waste products (18). In the last 250 years, humans have not only caused or fostered climate change, but they have also fostered desertification, species’ extinction, ozone depletion, ocean acidification, pollution among others.
According to Roston, humans are currently the most crucial geomorphic agents on the surface of the planet (44). He suggests that the decisions that the current humans together with their children make are likely to have a greater influence over the shape of evolution in the near future than physical events (44).
One of the devastating effects on the environment that has been observed in this Anthropocene age is global warming. According to Roston, global warming is a threat to the global earth, and at the same time, it presents a moral conundrum (210). He goes to state that global activity is one of the occurrences that might make everything on earth unnatural (211). According to Roston, upsetting the climate essentially upsets everything else including water, air, soils, fauna and flora, forests, ocean currents, agriculture shorelines, international relations, property values among others (211). This is because it comprises of a ‘systemic upset to the elemental givens on earth’ (211). In the past, climate changes have in fact disrupted and even destroyed some societies with the Mayan society perhaps being the perfect example. The issue is so complicated that even careful thinking and effective action is always seeming swamped out (211). According to Roston, each individual’s lifestyle whether at work or at home has an ecological footprint (211). The effects of different human activities are globally dispersed.
Global warming is a result of a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect. The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affects climate. Fluctuations in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been observed in the last few decades due to human activities. The most common greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. It makes about 64.3% of all the greenhouse gases that are currently in the earth’s atmosphere. The other greenhouse gases include methane, fluorinated gases, and nitrous oxides. Increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are currently attributable to human activities. These activities include burning fossil fuels, wood products, and solid waste. Others include deforestation and soil degradation through harmful farming practices. The other greenhouse gases responsible for global warming are also released through various human activities. Methane, for instance, is released during the production as well as transport of natural gas, oil, and coal. It is also emitted through the anaerobic decay of organic waste and also from various agricultural practices. Nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas is also emitted from various human-related activities. These include industrial and agricultural practices as well as the combustion of fossil fuels and solid waste. Fluorinated gases are also associated with human-related activities; especially those industrial processes that utilize fluorine as an element. It is also an effluent of various household activities as well as various commercial activities.
The impact of this phenomenon is huge. First, it affects people and whole communities. Individuals are exposed to global warming via weather patterns that include increased temperatures, rising sea level, and heat waves. The quality of air, as well as water, is also affected, and these have an adverse effect on the health of people. Global warming which results in climate change also affects activities such as agriculture. In particular, it is bound to result in lower farm yields. Global warming also leads to floods which can prompt the spread of destructive diseases such as malaria.
The effect of global warming on the environment is also clear. First, it brings about a rise in the global surface air temperatures. An increase in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere leads to increased retention of solar radiation. The result is increased temperature on the earth. This a phenomenon that has been observed over the years and is further evidence of the Anthropocene age. For example, since the 1920s, an average increase of temperature by 0.17 degrees has been observed in the world.
The other effect is observable through increased levels of carbon dioxide. Some of this carbon dioxide is dissolved in the world’s oceans. Carbon dioxide should ideally be taken by natural sinks such as forests, but due to their destruction, oceans are forced to take up some of this carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, this is a process that has detrimental effects. The dissolution of carbon dioxide into oceans results in the formation of carbonic acid. This affects the life of organisms in the oceans.
Global warming also affects the level of oceans due to thermal expansion as well as the melting of ice. In addition, temperature surges due to global warming increases the intensity of extreme weather conditions such as droughts, heat waves, tornadoes and floods.
The Anthropocene that spells doom for the earth’s future has prompted many scientists to revisit some of the current understandings of agency, governance, environmental ethics and human-environment interactions across a series of disciplines such as economics, anthropology, political science, and geography. These efforts are aimed at finding a common cause with reflections or considerations of what the Anthropocene age essentially implies for law, labor, history and humanities.
The Anthropocene according to some experts necessitate a revision of the current ethics especially those that relate to human action and the environment. For example, modes of thought that are premised on a human/nature dualism are currently beyond redemption. One reason for this is that some of these modes of thought assisted in facilitating and legitimizing the Anthropocene in various ways that produced great social inequities via the appropriation of nature (Schmidt et al., 190). In addition, these schools of thoughts have been rendered useless because the Anthropocene is in reality not just a powerful combination of humans, human action, and nature but is rather a novel formulation of how human beings are understood in relation to the earth system. The Anthropocene has occurred primarily because there has not been any cultural transmission or learning or any biological adaption to prepare the current generation for the kind of geological and environmental changes that are looming. In the current Anthropocene era, the convention ethics that seek universal maxims for correct or right action (commonly known as deontology) and even those that make human welfare calculations (consequentialism) make use of old normative categories that are not applicable in this new era; an era that actually demands new conceptual foundations and underpinnings for achieving or fostering human dignity.
It is not simply enough in the Anthropocene age to describe as ‘unethical’ some of the human actions that are essentially fostering mass extinction (Schmidt et al., 189). The existing ethical precepts legitimize the appropriation of land as well labor via economic systems that only render more harm to both humans and the environment and they therefore only add more to the problem (Schmidt et al., 189). A new ethical direction is required in regards to this new Anthropocene age.
The Anthropocene forces us to question how human histories have interacted with the history of the earth (Schmidt et al., 192). This age challenges the spatial and temporal horizons of ethical action especially when it comes to short-term thinking by various factors. Ethics in the Anthropocene need to acknowledge as well as grapple with how organizations and individuals conceive and take action when it comes to long-term environmental problems and challenges such as climate change. The existing ethical norms must be reassessed. One of the ways that this can perhaps be facilitated is improving empathy. This is a concept that is advocated by Lori Gruen. She brings into focus a concept that she refers to as ‘entangled empathy’ which in reality is a process that involves ‘integrating a range of feelings and thoughts to attempt to get an accurate take or understanding on the situation of another and then figure out if there anything we as humans are called upon to do and what this action is’ (77). Gruen goes to state that once we as humans have honed our skills in regards to this aspect, then we can empathetically engage with others including those who we have contact with and those who we are unfamiliar with. This entangled empathy plays a huge role when it comes to animals. As it was seen earlier, the Anthropocene has been accompanied by a lot of human action that is essentially destroying biodiversity. This poses a huge danger to some animal species, and there is no doubt that some will become extinct in the near future. Human beings must develop entangled empathy for animals in order to cease from activities and actions that threaten their existence. Most humans tend to suppress their empathy for animals in order to engage in activities that harm them including eating them. Empathy comprises of intrinsic motivation as well as essential information that can help us as humans not only figure out what we basically need to do but also gives us the energy to it (80). It makes us aware of the deep entanglement of human action and nature and offer us information as well as motivation that will propel and guide out actions. Lack of empathy is also responsible for the deprivation of social justice, an aspect that is itself entangled with environmental degradation and lack of concern for it.
In conclusion, it is clear that the earth is currently heading towards a very dangerous age. In fact, some argue that we are already in that age. This is the Anthropocene age, an age whereby human activity has had an accentuated effect on the environment as well as global climate. There is a looming mass extinction of the world’s resources and species in this age if corrective action is not taken immediately. Some of the effects of human activity in this age include global warming, a phenomenon whose destructive effects are well documented and some have been discussed in this paper. The Anthropocene dictates a revision of environmental ethics because as observed, the old ones have been responsible for facilitating and legitimizing it. New tactics need to be developed, and this includes entangled empathy that involves integrating a range of feelings and thoughts in order to acquire an accurate take or understanding on the situation of another (including animals that face extinction due to human action) and then deducing proper ways of acting.
Works Cited
Gruen, Lori. Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals. New York: Lantern Books, 2015. Print.
Jamieson, Dale, and Bonnie Nadzam. Love in the Anthropocene. New York: OR Books, 2015.
Rolston, Holmes. A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Schmidt, Jeremy J., Peter G. Brown, and Christopher J. Orr. "Ethics in the Anthropocene: A research agenda." The Anthropocene Review 3.3 (2016): 188-200.
