Humility in the Anthropocene

The last 50 years have witnessed a set of changes in the scale of humankind's ecological imagination toward 'thinking globally'. Developments in earth and planetary sciences have elaborated a creation story that dethroned humans from a position of claimed supremacy to a status on a par with other systemic forces that have shaped the planet. So marked is the human imprint that it has earned its own name in the annals of geology, environmental history, and geopolitics: the anthropocene. The scientific refutation of human exceptionalism has not elicited either instant humility or greater self-awareness in the uses of expert knowledge to combat global problems such as climate change. This paper looks at sites of struggle between a persistent human imperialism, expressed through the continued commodification of nature, and more humble ways of knowing and guiding humanity's planetary future from standpoints in ethics, politics and law.

Automated summary

In the past 50 years, there has been a shift in humankind's ecological imagination towards thinking globally. Developments in earth and planetary sciences have challenged human exceptionalism and placed humans on equal footing with other systemic forces shaping the planet in the creation story. The impact of humans has been so significant that it has been recognized and named as the Anthropocene in geology, environmental history, and geopolitics.