The dark side of the Anthropocene | Letter

Dominant narratives tend to neutralise any risks, but the potential catastrophic consequences must be faced, says Leslie Sklair

Your extremely informative long read article (Is the Anthropocene upon us?, 30 May) sums up the complicated story of how the Anthropocene has morphed from a technical term of geological stratigraphy (about rocks) to a vehicle for practitioners in other branches of the Earth sciences, social sciences, environmental humanities and creative arts to generate ideas on human impacts on the planet (about us). What it does not do, however, is give any indication of what the potential catastrophic consequences of the Anthropocene might be for the survival of the human species on the planet (though the links she provides do deal with this to some extent).

It is quite possible that the assumption is that everyone who reads the Guardian and similar quality newspapers and magazines already knows about these “doom and gloom” predictions, but a research project I am coordinating, on how media all over the world in all the major languages report the Anthropocene, strongly suggests that the dominant Anthropocene narratives tend to neutralise the risks or to reassure us that science and technology will find ways to avert the worst, the so-called “good” Anthropocene. Even the Guardian, whose extensive coverage of the Anthropocene is cited and reproduced all over the world, generally relays these reassuring messages.
Leslie Sklair
Emeritus professor of sociology, London School of Economics

Continue reading...