Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
chapters helps us to consider how the forms of
environmental change associated in the Anthro-
pocene affects different places in different ways
and is caused by different sets of social, economic
and political processes. The
second part
of this
book -
Living in the Anthropocene
- considers
the challenges and opportunities that exist to
communities and individuals as they attempt
to live with and adapt to environmental change.
This part considers issues of environmental
governance (and the role of the state in the
Anthropocene), the nature of human environ-
mental behaviours and how it may be possible to
build societies that are better able to cope with
environmental transformations.
Most topics carry with them the very real
danger that they will be out of date as soon as they
are published. Given the rate of social, scientific
and environmental change associated with the
Anthropocene, this topic is in more danger than
most of being automatically out-dated. In order to
try and militate against this danger I have
developed a blog to complement this topic.
The
Placing the Anthropocene
blog reflects on
contemporary developments that have relevance
to the discussions covered in this volume. These
themes range from discussions of the contem-
porary degrowth movement, to domestic energy
use and the dangers of environmental league
tables. The blog is supported by a Twitter feed that
provides up-to-date links to relevant media stories.
Below is an example of a blog entry that reflects
upon the significance of explorations of Mars for
our discussions of the Anthropocene.
FROM THE BLOG
'There were once two planets' - Martian chronicles for the
Anthropocene
Posted on 12 June 2013
There were once two planets, new to the galaxy and inexperienced in life. Like fraternal twins
they were born at the same time, about four and a half billion years ago, and took roughly the
same shape . . . They were 'Goldilocks planets', our astronomers would say: just right for life
(Bilger, 2013: 65).
Quite by chance, I was recently reading two reflections on our nearest planetary neighbour. On
one day I commenced reading Ray Bradbury's melancholic, 1951 novel The Martian Chronicles. Set
in a distant future, when humanity has successfully established colonies on Mars, Bradbury's novel
reflects on the peculiar forms of human experience that emerge in this alien landscape. On the
following day I read Burkhard Bilger's Reporter at Large piece for the New Yorker, entitled 'The
Martian Chronicles: a new era of planetary exploration' (Bilger, 2013: 64-89). Bilger's piece offered
an in-depth account of NASA's successful Curiosity Mission to Mars. His highly engaging narrative
focused on two characters: Adam Stelzner (leader of Curiosity's entry, descent and landing team)
and John Grotzinger (chief scientist for the Curiosity Mission). As Bilger pointed out, '[O]ne man
wonders how to get to Mars, the other what we'll find there' (Bilger, 2013: 69). What I found most
fascinating about this article was the backstory it provided on human exploration of the red planet.
This is a history that encompasses Giovanni Schiaparelli's first astronomical mapping of Mars in
the nineteenth century; the grainy images of the planet that were sent back from NASA's Mariner
4 probe in 1965; and the 40-odd spacecraft that have since been sent to Mars in the hope of unlocking
its secrets.
