An Anthropocene species of trouble? Negative synergies between earth system change and geological destratification

Abstract

It is already well understood that unbinding materials and energy from their lithic reservoirs impacts upon Earth systems. But that is just the first stage of a cycle of ‘Anthropocene trouble’. This paper tracks the multiple ways in which subsequent Earth system change reacts back upon the social infrastructures of subsurface exploitation and the landscapes they produce. Shifting fire regimes, intensifying hydrometeorological events and sea level rise impact upon the infrastructures of hydrocarbon extraction, hydroclimatic change impacts upon infrastructures and landscapes of mineral extraction, and both pyroclimatic and hydroclimatic change impact upon nuclear infrastructures and on landscapes already contaminated by radioactive materials. To make sense of these ‘negative synergies’ we draw upon social science diagnoses of late modern hazards as well Anthropocene science’s deepening collaboration between ‘hard rock’ geology and Earth system science.

Rifted subjects, fractured Earth: ‘Progress’ as learning to live on a self-transforming planet

“…The hominin ‘capture’ of fire dramatically increases the capacity of our genus to ride out climatic fluctuations and threshold transitions, even more so when human flame finds its way to vast stocks of concentrated subterranean biomass (Clark & Yusoff, 2014). But as the return to circulation of sequestered energy transforms global climate, shifting wildfire regimes react back upon the very infrastructures of fossil-fuelled social life: forest fire is both sparked by and destroys electrical networks in California, bushfires in New South Wales ignite coal seams in open-cast mines (Clark & Rickards, in press). And as small woodland fires spiral into uncontrollable megafires, even the metropolitan authorities who once sought to prohibit open-field cultural burning increasingly recognize the need for skilled application of fire to living landscapes.…”

Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination in Beach Sediments of Eastern St. Martin’s Island, Bangladesh: Implications for Environmental and Human Health Risks

“…The island's development efforts in response to rising visitor numbers could manifest in greater concentrations of contaminants like heavy metals in the water [18]. As a result, the island's aquatic ecosystem has been getting worse due to the constant infiltration of heavy metals from both anthropogenic and natural sources [19]. Heavy metals and other contaminants were discovered by [15] in the sediment and water of Saint Martin's Island.…”

Géographicité, material agency and the thickness of the Earth: rediscovering Eric Dardel beyond ‘nature/culture’ dualisms

“…17 They problematise irenic views of human/ nonhuman relationalities and affects, in the light of the numerous conflicts and negative interactions between human and non-human actions, including violence embedded in class, gender and race oppression. 18 Dardel's work can speak to current scholarship that discusses genealogies of 'geosocial formations' underlining Anthropocene anxieties. According to Clark and Yosuff: 'For at least two centuries most social thought has taken the Earth to be the stable platform upon which dynamic social processes play out.…”