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Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System QUOTES

Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System QUOTES

1 " The fact that the countries with the highest birth rates generally have the lowest standard of living and produce the least pollution fatally undermines such claims - if the poorest 3 billion people on the planet somehow disappeared tomorrow, there would be virtually no reduction in ongoing environmental destruction. "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

2 " Our view of history . . . is first and foremost a guide to study, not a tool for constructing objects after the Hegelian model. The whole of history must be studied anew, and the existential conditions of the various social formations individually investigated before an attempt is made to deduce therefrom the political, legal, aesthetic, philosophical, religious, etc., standpoints that correspond to them.2 "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

3 " We know that something went wrong in the country after World War II, for most of our serious pollution problems either began in the postwar years or have greatly worsened since then. —BARRY COMMONER "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

4 " The tens of millions of dead in the two World Wars brought about tens of trillions of profitable investments in the huge reconstructions of destroyed homes and industries and ongoing rearmament: a million dollars or more per dead body. —DARKO SUVIN1 "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

5 " Stage 1: The Industrial Era, from the early 1800s to 1945, when atmospheric CO2 exceeded the upper limit of Holocene variation; and Stage 2: The Great Acceleration, from 1945 to the present, “when the most rapid and pervasive shift in the human-environment relationship began.” (They also—over-optimistically, I’d say—predicted that a third stage, “Stewards of the Earth,” would begin in 2015.) "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

6 " Today few can doubt that the system has crossed critical thresholds of ecological sustainability, raising questions about the vulnerability of the entire planet. "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

7 " We are coming to a fork in the road in human history, where the system of global capitalism is forcing an end to the Holocene Epoch of the last 12,000 years, the geological period within which human civilisation has developed, where we have to decide between ‘capitalism or the planet’. —DEL WESTON1 "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

8 " Where capital goes, emissions will immediately follow…. The stronger global capital has become the more rampant the growth of CO2 emissions. "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

9 " A particularly frightening observation: even if emission levels are reduced, by 2070 Earth will be the hottest it has been in 125,000 years, which means it will be “hotter than it has been for most, if not all, of the time since modern humans emerged as a species 200,000 years ago. "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

10 " Another basic contradiction of the capitalist system of control is that it cannot separate “advance” from destruction, nor “progress "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

11 " and there’s even a heavy metal album called The Anthropocene Extinction. "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

12 " On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces, which no epoch of the former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman Empire…. This antagonism between modern industry and science on the one hand, modern misery and dissolution on the other hand; this antagonism between the productive powers and the social relations of our epoch is a fact, palpable, overwhelming, and not to be controverted. "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

13 " Hansen et al. have made the case that we are no longer waiting for evidence of global warming. It is clearly here now, affecting a wide variety of weather and climate events, and it will continue to grow as we burn more fossil fuels…. Even the apparently normal distribution of temperature can display non-normal behavior, and this can lead to extremes of even greater magnitude than might otherwise be expected.8 "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

14 " Without identifying the overall destination of the journey, together with the strategic direction and the necessary compass adopted for reaching it, there can be no hope of success.”8 "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System

15 " Engels suggested that “real human freedom” can be achieved only in a society that exists “in harmony with the laws of nature. "

― , Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System