64 EMMA O’KANE
the ecomodernist theory, this paper will move on to criticise the problematic nature of
accepting the combining of ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ in the Anthropocene. Arguably,
humanity has touched and affected everything we commonly consider to be ‘natural’
and so the distinction between the natural and artificial is in fact irrelevant. Rather,
the necessity of social equality and justice in the Anthropocene presents a more
relevant conversation. The Ecomodernist Manifesto, McKibben’s works grounded in
humanity’s relationship with nature and recent international approaches to the topic –
including Pope Francis’ Laudato Si2 -will provide the theoretical framework for this
essay.
In line with Crutzen’s understanding of the Anthropocene, human activity and
artificial resources should – as Mike Ellis, head of climate change at the British
Geological Survey argues - be placed under the same definition as natural resources:
The principal process of change on the planet is us, so the name of our
epoch should reflect that...the human process is as much a natural
process as any other natural processes we are used to thinking about,
such as volcanoes and earthquakes (Ellis in Sample 2014).
Alternatively, the ecocentric position is “ecology-centred” and dictates that the nonhuman world is intrinsically valuable (Barry and Frankland, 2001: 18-19, 142-144).
Between these theories lies the ecomodernist’s point of view. The ecomodernist
recognises humanity’s injurious impact and accepts it must lesson its dependency on
the environment as a means for development, but denies the need for the
harmonization of human society and nature.
Over the course of the two centuries, industrialisation caused huge environmental
degradation. The ecomodernist puts faith in humanity’s capacity to become more
technologically proficient in order to decouple environmental impact and human
development: “both human prosperity and an ecologically vibrant planet are not only
2
Laudato Si is an encyclical letter on the environment and human ecology written by Pope Francis in
2015.