Race In The Anthropocene

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Modern day ecology has been nothing short of vocal in regards to illuminating the fact that human beings are the crux of the Earth’s current environmental crisis. Mankind, for some time now, has dwelled in a period of time coined as the anthropocene, in which humans are the alpha and omega of the Earth and all it has to offer. With that being said, man’s dominance over the planet’s resources has negatively impacted all aspects of the environment, from climate change and ever-rising sea levels, to deforestation and animal extinction. The concept of the anthropocene, in all of its vagueness, does little to pinpoint the historical source of the planet’s ecological crisis, or more specifically, does not explicitly address the racial undertones of human dominion over the earth. In fact, it generalizes human fault in a rather …show more content…
The consideration of race in the anthropocene unveils a commonly unconsidered layer to ecology and its intersections with society.
One of the most critical ideas concerning the anthropocene in regards to human involvement is the fact that it alludes to dominion. With that being said, the word dominion can be used broadly, considering that in the grand scheme of nature, a man of any race, economic class, etc., could have the ability to be a shepherd to a flock of livestock. However, the anthropocene indirectly points to humans that have the influence to change the composition of the Earth on a large scale, or in smaller terms, the West. Where race is concerned, Western dominance is an entity that was established long before the progression towards modern life as we know it. Through the acquisition of technological advancements and scientific knowledge in the Middle Ages, the West inched its way to global dominance, as mentioned in Lynn White’s The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. Nonetheless, these two factors were merely the
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