Mike Davis – “Who Will Build the Ark”
This article focuses on the impact of urban environments and their excessive toll on the ecological health of our planet. Davis begins by explaining that the massive portion of our world’s pollution that comes from cities and the prospect of a society mostly focused on cities will destroy an ecological niche. He proceeds to outline the paradox of cities: the aspects of urban environments that make them the most unsustainable are the ones that are distinctly “anti-urban” or “sub-urban.” These environments lead to disturbingly large environmental footprints that continue to grow with additional traffic and pollution. The dichotomy of urban and suburban environments doesn’t end with harm to the earth, there are also social implications. Because most of the control of the urban falls in the hands of suburban power brokers, democratic control is bypassed with poverty and violence as the results. The solution to this problem is to create well-defined boundaries between cities and countryside. By making this clear definition of landscape, cities become more consolidated, allowing for better government and public services and diminishing the social strife and environmental harm that can come from a distinct urban center with vast surrounding suburbs. Because cities play a large role in the development of the anthropocene, Davis’ opinions about urbanization are a key part of understanding this new geological age.
Hans Jonas – Excerpt from his book, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age
Jonas’ begins by stating that nuclear disaster is considered to be the most alarming possibility for apocalypse in our time, even though it is not. Nuclear warfare won’t begin without human action, so it may be avoidable. Jonas deems as the most likely downfall of humanity is the “apocalypse threatening from the nature of the unintended dynamics of technical civilization.” By this Jonas means that the most likely end to civilization will stem from our vast and unrestrained use of technology, or as Jonas puts it, the apocalypse of the “too much.” As we continue to pollute and use resources, we move toward the destruction of civilization. This will be much harder to prevent than nuclear disaster because instead of being the decision of one, stopping our destructive technological society will take mass cultural action. Jonas’ article is important to the idea of the anthropocene because it suggests that our main enemy is our own inactivity–if we don’t take action we will destroy ourselves.
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Jared Diamond’s Article “Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions”
Jared Diamond’s article focuses on the mechanisms of poor decision making. Across all sizes and types of decision-making units–from the single person, to a large sovereign society–similar failures are made that result in their downfall. He explains that these failures in problem solving can be explained in four distinct ways: A group may fail to anticipate a problem before the problem actually arrives, a society may fail to recognize a problem even though it has arrived. If they do perceive the problem, they may still fail to take action against it. Finally, in the event that a society perceives and acts on a problem, they may take the wrong action or begin too late, resulting in the same destruction that would have occurred had they done nothing. By understanding the ways in which a society can fail, we can better predict the failures of the anthropocene and how they are affecting our world.
The Anthropocene 