NATURE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 67
value of nature. Virginia Burkett – a chief scientist for global change at the US
geological survey – pointed to how climate change becomes “more relevant to the
man on the street” as the threat to global food supply becomes fully recognised as a
human security risk (Burkett in Goldenberg 2014). When such links are made
between humanity and nature’s mutual survival, nature is forced to be considered
anthropocentrically.
Though his arguments are often considered hyperbolic, McKibben has provided a
useful study of the immorality and impracticality of placing humanity in a superior
position to nature. He questions the morality of separating ourselves from the natural
world – a distance he deems a “mistake” we have sadly come to realise from within
the “greenhouse” as illustrated below (McKibben 1989: 80-84).
Figure 1.
Source: (Review of Do the Maths -350.org n.d.).
Central to his lament is humanity’s capacity to ignore its brutal impact on the Earth to
facilitate the artificial. Our desire for material wealth is driven by consumerism which