In "Religion and the Anthropocene" today we mainly discussed Roy Scranton's Learning to Die in the Anthropocene and some of the interconnected processes synthesized in a recent article (sent me by my father!) on "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene." But we're also finding a way to talk about things of such scale and
gravity, circumstances Scranton thinks require that we learn to accept
that our civilization is not only doomed but already dead. (In fact, he
thinks we're as good as dead, too, in cadences we'll recognize when we
read one of the religious texts he quotes, next week, the Bhagavad Gita.) But we're also finding a way to talk about things of such awful scale
and gravity, circumstances Scranton thinks require that we learn to
accept that our civilization is not only doomed but already dead. (In
fact, he thinks we're as good as dead, too, in cadences we'll recognize when
we read one of the sacred texts he quotes next week, the Bhagavad Gita.)
As you know, I find his view constrained by a paleological view even of the not yet fossilized, lacking in solidarity with the living earth community of which we are a tiny part, and drew attention to the great toll anthropogenic changes to the earth system are having on other forms of life, such as the collapse of coral reef communities. (That was occasion also for a cautious endorsement of a good or at least reparative anthropocene in genetically modified coral which might survive warmer more acid seas.) On this planet, geology isn't separate from life, a point which made itself eloquently when we watched a clip from the new documentary "Anthropocene: The Human Epoch," with staggering footage of a massive mine which turns out to be Carrera, source of marble for over two thousand years. Where does marble - the stone of eternity - come from? Coral and their ancient marine fellows!
