Anthropocene futures: People,resources and sustainability

Introduction

Although the Anthropocene is widely acknowledged as a new epoch of both Earth’s geologic history and in the ongoing narrative of humankind’s relationship with the Earth (Zalasiewicz et al., 2011), there are significant problems in the ways in which these relationships can be framed and then evaluated. In part this is because different types of human activity intersect with different components of Earth’s wider system, and in different ways, which yields complex spatial and temporal patterns with significant feedbacks (Knight and Harrison, 2012; Rosenzweig et al., 2008). It is also due in part to the different ways in which different institutions and communities, termed societal actors, develop and enact policies that deal with the use and management of different types of environmental resources (Kim and Oki, 2011; Miller et al., 2014). Often, these societal actors use inappropriate methods or unfounded assumptions in the evaluation of environmental resources, and in identifying the best ways to sustainably develop these resources (Haasnoot et al., 2011; Springett, 2013).

These uncertainties mean that there are significant limitations in the extent to which societal actors can respond to the challenges of environment resource management and sustainability in the Anthropocene. For example, Berkhout (2014) argues that societal actors and international structures and institutions can respond adequately to these challenges through capacity-building and increasing resilience. However, whilst people by definition are at the heart of the Anthropocene, the viewpoint that capacity-building by present societal structures is outdated in its approach and conservative in its framing of the future (e.g. Benessia et al., 2012; Lozano, 2014). This is because this viewpoint does not consider in an integrated way the likely changes taking place in the physical and human environments over coming decades. For example, predicted futures patterns of water resource availability and use is dependent on climate, hydrological and ecological model outputs; yet this is seldom matched with predicted future patterns of population growth, socio-economic changes, geopolitical context and land-use change (cf. Bhullar, 2013; Haasnoot et al., 2011; Haie and Keller, 2012). As a consequence, this viewpoint of societal capacity-building does not effectively frame the future contexts of both sustainable development and international governance, or present alternative viewpoints of the future trajectory and management of the Anthropocene world. Framing the future through the scientific and political norms of the past (Benessia et al., 2012) may therefore not offer the best way of understanding and managing this future Anthropocene world.

This present commentary takes a different approach to considering Anthropocene futures, by (1) critiquing the viewpoint that sustainability and existing governance structures are capable of framing such futures, and (2) by proposing alternative ways by which to frame the organization of society(ies) in the Anthropocene and thus who future ‘societal actors’ may be.

Sustainability and Earth Systems

The concept of sustainability is central to many viewpoints of human–environment relationships and in the context of emerging climate adaptation strategies in the Anthropocene (Hirvilammi and Helne, 2014; Jerneck et al., 2011; Springett, 2013). This concept is based on the assumption that resources used directly or indirectly by humans are knowable, quantifiable and finite; that resource use (i.e. the rate of resource depletion) is quantifiable; and that the mechanisms by which resources are used are capable of management or regulation. In practice, none of these things is true (Zaccai, 2012). As a result, the application of the concept of sustainability to issues of resource use and management is fundamentally flawed (Arias-Maldonado, 2013; Benson and Craig, 2014). Despite this, sustainability science still lies at the heart of issues of resource use in the Anthropocene (e.g. Jerneck et al., 2011; Miller et al., 2014; Springett, 2013), in particular within the context of adaptation to changing resource patterns under climate change (Eakin and Patt, 2011; Wise et al., 2014).

The science of sustainability (as opposed to sustainability science) must be grounded in the workings of the physical world, which can be conceptualized most usefully in the context of Earth Systems. This latter term refers to the organizational structure and processes through which different component systems of Earth’s physical world work (Knight and Harrison, 2012; von Elderfeldt, 2012). These component systems include the water (hydrological) cycle, weather and climate system, biogeochemical cycles (including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur), biosphere and sediment system (Rockström et al., 2009). All of these components are driven through the movement of mass and energy over different spatial and temporal scales, and the net result of this movement can be measured and monitored indirectly though the biological, chemical and physical changes that take place in the environment. A complicating factor is the set of properties that characterizes all types of systems and the ways in which systems operate. These properties include equifinality, equilibrium, feedback, hysteresis, relaxation time and thresholds (defined in Knight and Harrison, 2014). These properties are important because they help account for why individual Earth Systems, such as those named above, are characterized by nonlinearity and complexity (i.e. have low predictability), which make them inherently difficult to manage, either individually or in combination. This is relevant to the issue of sustainability because it means that we cannot be sure that any one way of managing a resource, such as water flow in a river, is inherently ‘better’ than any other way. For example, although rates of groundwater depletion can be calculated with some precision, calculating the rate at which extraction can take place ‘sustainably’ is more difficult because there are multiple variables involved which have different spatial and temporal contexts (e.g. Liebminger et al., 2007). In other cases, such as with soil erosion, management options are clearer to identify, their impacts can be better measured, and thus over some scales ‘sustainability’ of these resources can be achieved (Montgomery, 2007).

In addition, anthropogenic intervention in the workings of different Earth Systems, and the feedbacks between and within these systems and with human activity, show that not all systems work in the same way, and that some systems are inherently more sensitive to be affected by human pressure and/or climate change in the Anthropocene epoch than others (Rockström et al., 2009; Rosenzweig et al., 2008). Although this provides the justification for why sustainable management of Earth resources is needed, it also shows why ‘sustainable management’ is flawed in practice.

Several recent studies have argued that (un)sustainable development in the exploitation of environmental resources poses issues with respect to how such resources are managed by societal actors (Berkhout, 2014; Chin et al., 2014; Miller et al., 2014). Whilst it is true that many different societal actors can impact on the ways in which environmental resources are managed and on different scales, these management frameworks can only be as good as our knowledge of the entity that is being managed. Thus, a poor conception of what sustainability means in different environmental contexts is likely to result in inappropriate management practices being applied, irrespective of how efficient or organized those practices are (Fiksel, 2012; Springett, 2013). This shows that achieving sustainability and/or sustainable development in the Anthropocene requires two separate but related components: (1) a scientific understanding of the dynamics and behaviour of individual Earth Systems from which can be derived an evaluation of what ‘sustainability’ means in different environmental contexts; and (2) a management framework that is appropriate to the ‘systems’ context of the resource being managed. Only when these two elements have been achieved and integrated together can it be said that societal actors are managing resources sustainably.

Managing future change: People, politics and a new world order

Managing future change in order to achieve the sustainable use of environmental resources requires both a better understanding of Earth Systems and societal structures that can manage these resources. Today’s political, administrative and sociocultural structures are already struggling to respond to the challenges of climate change (Jerneck, 2014). It is likely that these institutional structures will be increasingly unfit for purpose when faced with a combination of (1) future climatic conditions, including increased frequency and/or magnitude of climatic hazards (e.g. Jongman et al., 2012); and (2) increased urbanization, increased vulnerability, increased food and water insecurity, and geopolitical instability. A possible consequence of climate change over coming decades could be geopolitical crises driven by the collapse of civil order and mass migration in societies with severe water stress and food insecurity. Such events are already happening (O’Loughlin et al., 2012). Geopolitical problems as a consequence of trans-boundary water flows and water trading are also taking place (Haasnoot et al., 2011; Hoekstra, 2011). These issues will significantly hinder any move towards greater sustainable practices, which require greater international collaboration, not fragmented decision-making (Zaccai, 2012). Today, institutional structures charged with managing future change from regional to global scales are top-down, hierarchical and difficult to adapt to changing circumstances (Berman et al., 2012). For the same reasons, these structures significantly limit the extent to which international climate (e.g. Kyoto Protocol) and environmental agreements (e.g. Ramsar sites) can be effective, irrespective of intent. Thus, existing political, administrative and sociocultural structures and today’s social actors are becoming increasingly inappropriate to the needs of the Anthropocene (Johnson and Morehouse, 2014; Karlsson, 2013; Lozano, 2014).

This paper argues that managing future change requires a different kind of global socio-politics. This socio-political context can be framed in two ways. (1) Sustainability is a powerful socio-political metaphor in the Anthropocene (Benson and Craig, 2014; Jerneck, 2014), notwithstanding its limitations discussed above, but its narrative context should be widened to include impacts on human wellbeing and environmental and social justice (Arias-Maldonado, 2013; Hirvilammi and Helne, 2014; Houston, 2013; Mauerhofer, 2013; Sessa and Ricci, 2014). This can also be achieved through considering the extent to which human pressure has been exerted on different elements that make up Earth’s global system (Dearing et al., 2014; Rockström et al., 2009). These developments can also be facilitated by improved use of technologies in social media, telecommunications, distributed systems and citizen science, all of which can help engage stakeholders and the public, increase transparency and democratic engagement. By such means, today’s rigid and hierarchical social and organizational structures may in future become more flexible, fluid in structure (Andersson et al., 2014) and may potentially exhibit greater adaptive capacity. (2) The role of technologies in the areas of gene modification and food production; bioremediation; environmental monitoring through telemetric networks; satellite remote sensing; and climate modelling all have potential to increase future climate resilience. Increased production and/or supply-chain efficiency of environmental resources, aided by technology, can also increase sustainability (Benessia et al., 2012; Zaccai, 2012).

This paper argues that future societal actors and their roles cannot be easily identified, but these are likely to reflect changing economic patterns, community structures and geopolitical contexts over coming decades. The role of these actors in developing future sustainable practices is dependent on both the workings of socio-political systems, as well as an understanding of the physical environment, in combination. For example, management of future global warming through carbon emissions trading and carbon budgeting is as much shaped by geopolitics as by biogeochemical cycling (Knight and Harrison, 2013). Thus, the science of sustainability can be translated into practice only through the mediation of societal and governance frameworks, which often prove not up to task. As such, the future Anthropocene world, whilst controlled by the decisions of societal actors, is dependent on the critical role of science in increasing resource availability and societal resilience to future climatic hazards.