This is the end?
I know more than a few writers who are hard at work on books about the Anthropocene — the new geological epoch we’ve supposedly entered, in which the human impact on the planet has become so pervasive and dominant that we’ll leave an indelible mark in the fossil record. I imagine they’re pretty depressed right about now, not because the Anthropocene is a bummer — though truth be told, it certainly is for many people — but because one of the most celebrated science writers of our times, Diane Ackerman, has just stolen their thunder with a humdinger of a book celebrating the total human domination of Earth.
Ackerman’s 24th book is not coherent enough to constitute a manifesto. And it never really comes to grips with the controversy or the significance of naming a geological period after ourselves. So there will still be room for other books. No doubt, there will be many. But with her dizzying global tour of our narcissistic age, Ackerman kind of sucks the oxygen not just out of the proverbial room, where other writers toiling on books about the Anthropocene are probably gasping for air, but out of nearly the entire atmosphere. But enough about the planet; let’s talk about us.
Ackerman is optimistic, even exhilarated, and frequently giddy about the future of humanity as she explores the changes coming to our homes, computers, robots, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, ambient informatics, citizen science, our bodies and nature itself. This is a coming-of-age story. Ackerman portrays the human species as something of a “clever, headstrong, impulsive” teenager who is leaving behind a really, really The Human Age The World Shaped by Us By Diane Ackerman (Norton; 344 pages; $27.95) messy bedroom — “we’ve tattooed the planet with our doings” — and is now on her way to college to learn a lot of cool science, save the planet, then settle down and become a “responsible, caring” adult.
Ackerman’s message — that “we control our own legacy” — sounds a lot like a pep talk to the distracted teenager we have all become, with our thumbs glued to our mobile phones. “Our mistakes are legion, but our talent is immeasurable,” she says, cheering us on.
Ackerman is an entertaining conversationalist. If only the world — or even the occasional dinner party — were filled with such witty banter! One might tire a bit of Ackerman’s unrelenting, over-the-top descriptions, metaphors, similes and puns. “That’s a practical dream with pipes, not a pipe dream,” she quips of a small Swedish eco-city’s switch to renewable energy. And there is a relentless, TED Talk quality to the whole thing. “The lesson is: you don’t need bright sun if you have bright ideas and a culture that promotes them.” But, hey, I’m not complaining. There are worse things in this world, much worse.
And “The Human Age” has more important problems.
The first is that the species Homo sapiens is not a child who is growing up or is ever going to grow up. This is such a hopeful metaphor that I hate to argue against it. But history provides ample evidence that it’s wishful thinking, harmlessly self-congratulatory at best, dangerously delusional at worst. Nations, civilizations and species don’t have the same life histories as maturing individuals. I suspect a quick look around the world these days is enough to convince most people that the notion of a progressive trajectory might be a wee bit overly hopeful. Human history is contingent all the way down — stuff happens and it makes a hell of a difference.
The second problem is that Ackerman, like many other Anthropocene triumphalists, uses the unintended consequences of human history as evidence to assert that we now control our own destiny. But human beings did not intentionally set out to “befuddle the world’s weather,” “addle the chemistry of the oceans and the air” and set in motion “the planet’s sixth great extinction, losing between seventeen thousand and one hundred thousand species a year.” The fact that people now dominate Earth systems and will leave a mark in deep time shows just how badly out of control we are. Indeed, some scholars of the Anthropocene worry that the very idea of human agency, which is so central to how we think about history, is threatened if humanity as a whole has turned into an impersonal geological force roaring into the future like a runaway train.
The third problem is what we might call the “What you mean, ‘we,’ Kemo Sabe?” problem. Throughout “The Human Age,” Ackerman writes about “we” human beings in the past, present and future, and all over the world. It’s a common tic. I’ve fallen into it in places in this review. But anyone who is following the latest news on climate negotiations knows that “we” are not all in the same boat. There will be winners and losers in the Anthropocene. Some people’s homes will go underwater, literally.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m generally a pretty hopeful guy. But when Pollyanna comes to dinner, I get a little quarrelsome. I just hope other writers take “The Human Age” as a kick in the pants and finish the books we really need to see our way clearly through the Anthropocene.