EMPOWERING MARGINS: FROM CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS AND TECHNOLOGIES OF AGGREGATE STATES TO PLACE BASED HUMAN CONTRIBUTIONS

Ernst Halbmayer

doi:10.18542/rmi.v18i30.17103

Home

About

Current

EMPOWERING MARGINS: FROM CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS AND TECHNOLOGIES OF AGGREGATE STATES TO PLACE BASED HUMAN CONTRIBUTIONS

Ernst Halbmayer

Abstract

As conventional mitigation efforts seem insufficient to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement, the use of alternative pathways seems inevitable. This paper argues for an empowerment of the conceptual and spatial margins of climate change. This means pluralizing ontologies of climate change, securing and developing existing low-emission practices and recognizing and promoting place-based adaptation strategies. Placing the human and cultural contributions and resilience strategies of the low-emitting half of humanity at the conceptual center of climate action provides an essential and necessary complement to established climate change policies and promises to secure and promote biocultural diversity and low-emitting ways of life.

Keywords: Climate change ontology. Mitigation politics, Carbon inequality; Human and cultural contributions; Conceptual and spatial margins

Full Text:

PDF

References

AHRENS, J.; HALBMAYER, E. Climate Change Epistemologies in Southern Africa. Social and Cultural Dimensions. 1 ed. London: Routledge, 2023.

ALBUQUERQUE, U. P.; GONÇALVES, P. H. S.; FERREIRA JÚNIOR, W. S.; CHAVES, L. S.; DA OLIVEIRA, R. C. S.; DA SILVA, T. L. L. Humans as niche constructors: Revisiting the concept of chronic anthropogenic disturbances in ecology. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, v. 16, n.1, p. 1-11, 2018.

BHAMBRA, G. K.; NEWELL, P. More than a metaphor: ‘climate colonialism’ in perspective. Global Social Challenges Journal, v. 2, n. 2, p. 179-187, 2023.

BLASER, M. Life projects: indigenous peoples’ agency and development. In: BLASER, Mario; MCRAE, Glenn; FEIT, Harvey (Ed.). In the Way of Development. Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects, and Globalization, London: Zed Books, 2004, p. 23-43.

BLASER, M. On the properly political (disposition for the) Anthropocene. Anthropological Theory, v. 19, n. 1, p. 74-94, 2019.

BMBF (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) (17.1.2023) Nationale Wasserstoffstrategie: Grüner Wasserstoff als Energieträger der Zukunft. Disponível em: https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/de/forschung/energiewende-und-nachhaltiges-wirtschaften/nationale-wasserstoffstrategie/ Acesso em:10.5.2023.

BOUDREAU, C. The world is one step closer to making a business out of vacuuming carbon dioxide from the sky. Business Insider 23.1.2023. Disponível em: https://www.businessinsider.com/carbon-dioxide-removal-air-sky-machine-climate-change-climeworks-2023-1. Last access 5.5.2024, Acesso em: 12.5.2023.

BRIGHTMAN, M.; LEWIS, J. (Ed.). The anthropology of sustainability. Beyond development and progress. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

BRONDÍZIO, E. S.; AUMEERUDDY-THOMAS, Y.; BATES, P.; CARINO, J.; FERNÁNDEZ-LLAMAZARES, Á.; FERRARI, M F. Locally Based, Regionally Manifested, and Globally Relevant: Indigenous and Local Knowledge, Values, and Practices for Nature. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., v. 46, n. 1, p. 481-509, 2021.

BROMLEY, B.; KHAN, S. H.; KENYON, S. J. Dust as a solar shield. PLOS Climate, v. 2, n. 2, e0000133, 2023.

CARNEIRO DA CUNHA, M. Traditional people, collectors of diversity. In: BRIGHTMAN, Marc; LEWIS, Jerome (Ed.). The anthropology of sustainability. Beyond development and progress, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, p.257-272.

CHANCEL, L.; PIKETTY, T.; SAEZ, E.; ZUCMAN, G. (Ed.). World inequality report 2022. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2022.

CREUTZIG, F.; NIAMIR, L.; BAI, X.; et al. Demand-side solutions to climate change mitigation consistent with high levels of well-being. Nature Climate Change, v. 12, p. 36–46, 2022.

CRUTZEN, P. J. The “anthropocene”. Journal de physique IV France, v. 12, n. 10, p. 1-5, 2002.

DALBY, S. Rethinking environmental security. Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022.

DE WIT, S.; HAINES, S. Climate change reception studies in anthropology. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, v. 13, n. 1, e742, 2022.

DER SPIEGEL. Geoengineering gegen Klimawandel. Forscher wollen Sonnenstrahlung mit Mondstaub dimmen. Der Spiegel, 09.02.2023.

DESCOLA, P. Beyond Nature and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

ESCOBAR, A. Designs for the pluriverse. Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2018.

FAIRHEAD, J.; LEACH, M.; SCOONES, I. Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature? Journal of Peasant Studies, v. 39, n. 2, p. 237–261, 2012.

FAWZY, S.; OSMAN, A. I.; DORAN, W. J.; ROONEY, D. W. Strategies for mitigation of climate change: a review. Environmental Chemistry Letters, v. 18, p. 2069-2094, 2020.

FERNÁNDEZ-LLAMAZARES, Á.; VIRTANEN, P. K. Game masters and Amazonian Indigenous views on sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, v. 43, p. 21-27, 2020.

GOLDMAN, M. J.; TURNER, M. D.; DALY, M. A critical political ecology of human dimensions of climate change: Epistemology, ontology, and ethics. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, v. 9, n. 4, e526, 2018.

GOLETZ, A. The Maize Bringer’s Creative Potentials. How People and Maize Coactively Ensure the Continuous Existence of Maize in the Yukpa Territory of Sokorpa, Northern Colombia. In: HALBMAYER, Ernst; GOLETZ Anne (Ed.). Creation and creativity in indigenous lowland South America. Anthropological perspectives, New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2023, p. 49-73.

HALBMAYER, E. Seguir las transformaciones del espacio y de los lugares: Complejidad espacial intensa y la etnografía de las prácticas del espacio. In: RIBEIRO, Joyce Otânia Seixas; RODRIGUES, E. T.; HALBMAYER, E. (Ed.). Identidades: Novas configurações em territórios múltiplos, Curitiba/PR: Editora CRV, 2018 [2012], p.27-45.

HARAWAY, D. Anthropocene, capitalocene, plantationocene, chthulucene: Making kin. Environmental humanities, v. 6, n. 1, p. 159-165, 2015.

HARAWAY, D. Staying with the trouble. Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, London: Duke University Press, 2016.

HORNBORG, A. The political ecology of the Technocene. Uncovering ecologically unequal exchange in the world-system. In: HAMILTON, Clive; GEMENNE, François; BONNEUIL, Christophe (Ed.). The Anthropocene and the global environmental crisis. Rethinking modernity in a new epoch, London, New York: Routledge, 2015, p. 57-69.

HUBACEK, K.; BAIOCCHI, G.; FENG, K.; et al. Global carbon inequality. Energy, Ecology, and Environ, v. 2, p. 361–369, 2017. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40974-017-0072-9

IPCC - INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Climate Change: a glossary by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1995. Disponível em: https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/glossary/ar4-wg2.pdf, Acesso em: 8.7.2024.

KAPPAS, M. Klimatologie. Klimaforschung im 21. Jahrhundert; Herausforderung für Natur- und Sozialwissenschaften, Heidelberg: Spektrum, Akademischer Verlag, 2009.

KENNER, D. Carbon inequality: The role of the richest in climate change. London, New York: Routledge, 2019.

LAMB, W. F.; STEINBERGER, J. K. Human well‐being and climate change mitigation. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, v. 8, n. 6, e485, 2017.

LATOUR, B. Facing Gaia. Eight lectures on the new climatic regime. First published. Cambridge, UK, Medford, MA: Polity, 2017.

LATOUR, B. Onde Aterrar? Como Se Orientar Politicamente No Antropoceno. Rio de Janeiro: Bazar Do Tempo, 2020.

LEONARD, M.; PISANI-FERRY, J.; SHAPIRO, J.; TAGLIAPIETRA, S.; WOLFF, G. B. The geopolitics of the European Green Deal. Bruegel, Brussels (Bruegel Policy Contribution, 4, 2021. Disponível em: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/237660

LEVIS, C.; FLORES, B. M.; CAMPOS-SILVA, J. V.; PERONI, N. STAAL, A.; PADGURSCHI, Maíra C.G.; et al. Contributions of human cultures to biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. Nature Ecology & Evolution, v.8, p. 866-879, 2024.

MAHONY, M.; ENDFIELD, G. Climate and colonialism. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, v. 9, n. 2, e510, 2018.

MALM, A.; HORNBORG, A. The geology of mankind? A critique of the Anthropocene narrative. The Anthropocene Review, v. 1, n. 1, p. 62-69, 2014.

MILNE, S.; MAHANTY, S.; TO, P.; DRESSLER, W.; KANOWSKI, P.; THAVAT, M. Learning From 'Actually Existing' REDD+: A Synthesis of Ethnographic Findings. Conservation & Society, v. 17, n. 1, pp. 84-95, 2019.

MINISTERIO DE MINAS Y ENERGÍA. Colombia y Alemania crean el Comité Directivo del Grupo de Alto Nivel de Hidrógeno Verde para impulsar energías limpias. 2024, Disponível em: https://www.minenergia.gov.co/es/sala-de-prensa/noticias-index/colombia-y-alemania-crean-el-comit%C3%A9-directivo-del-grupo-de-alto-nivel-de-hidr%C3%B3geno-verde-para-impulsar-energ%C3%ADas-limpias/, Acesso em: 2.7.2024.

MOORE, H. What Can Sustainability Do for Anthropology? In: BRIGHTMAN, Marc; LEWIS, Jerome (Ed.). The anthropology of sustainability. Beyond development and progress. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 67-80, 2017.

MOORE, J. W. (Ed.). Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism. Oakland, CA: PM Press (Kairos), 2016.

NAUCKE, P.; HALBMAYER, E. Introduction: Security from the Margins. Conflict & Society, v. 10 (in print), 2024.

NORGAARD, R. B. The Econocene and the California delta. San Francisco Estuary & Watershed Science, v. 11, p. 1-5, 2013.

O'LEAR, S. Climate science and slow violence, Political Geography. A view from political geography and STS on mobilizing technoscientific ontologies of climate change. Political Geography, v. 52, p. 4-13, 2016.

PRESTELE, R.; ARNETH, A.; BONDEAU, A.; DE NOBLET-DUCOUDRÉ, N.; PUGH, T. A.; et al. Current challenges of implementing anthropogenic land-use and land-cover change in models contributing to climate change assessments. Earth System Dynamics, v. 8, n. 2, p. 369-386, 2017.

ROSENGREN, D. Science, knowledge and belief. On local understandings of weather and climate change in Amazonia. Ethnos, v. 83, n. 4, p. 607-623, 2018.

ROSENGREN, D.; PERMANTO, S.; BURMAN, A. The Anthropocene narrative and Amerindian lifeworlds: anthropos, agency, and personhood. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, v. 29, n. 4, p. 840-858, 2023.

ROSSBACH DE OLMOS, L. Del monólogo científico a las pluralidades culturales: dimensiones y contextos del cambio climático desde una perspectiva antropológica. In: ULLOA, Astrid (Ed.). Perspectivas culturales del clima. Bogotá: Centro Editorial de la Facultad de Ciencias Humanas de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2011, p. 55-82.

ROSSBACH DE OLMOSS, L.; HALBMAYER, E. Clima, atmósfera y ambiente: una pregunta más allá de las ciencias naturales. Revista Batey. Revista Cubana de Antropología Sociocultural, v. 6, p. 1-33, 2014.

RUDIAK-GOULD, P. Climate change and anthropology. The importance of reception studies. Anthropology Today, v. 27, n. 2, p. 9-12, 2011.

RUDIAK-GOULD, P. Climate change and accusation: Global warming and local blame in a small island state. Current Anthropology, v. 55, n. 4, p. 365-386, 2014.

SCHNEGG, M.; O’BRIAN, C. I.; SIEVERT, I. J. It’s our fault: A global comparison of different ways of explaining climate change. Human Ecology, v. 49, p. 327-339, 2021.

SCHNEGG, M. Ontologies of climate change: Reconciling indigenous and scientific explanations for the lack of rain in Namibia. American Ethnologist, v. 48, n. 3, p. 260-273, 2021.

SIEPEN, J. Kolumbien veröffentlicht Wasserstoff-Roadmap. Um die Wasserstoffnutzung im Land voranzutreiben, stellt die Regierung eine Roadmap vor. Unterstützung bekommt Kolumbien dabei auch aus Deutschland. GTAI Germany Trade and Invest. (23.11.2021). Disponível em: https://www.gtai.de/de/trade/kolumbien/branchen/kolumbien-veroeffentlicht-wasserstoff-roadmap-722642, Acesso em: 2.7.2024.

STONE JR, B. Land use as climate change mitigation. Environ. Sci. Technol., v. 43, n. 24, p. 9052–9056, 2009.

THE GUARDIAN. A solution to the climate crisis: mining the moon, researchers say. Astrophysicists propose geoengineering solution to climate warming, although skeptics still urge ‘massive’ fossil fuel cutback.” (8.2.2023), Disponível em: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/08/moon-dust-moonshot-geoengineering-climate-crisis

TSING, A. From the margins. Cultural Anthropology, v. 9, n. 3, p. 279-297, 1994.

TSING, A. L.; BUBANDT, N.; GAN, E.; SWANSON, H. A. (Ed). Arts of living on a damaged planet. Ghosts and monsters of the Anthropocene. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.

ULLOA, A. Indigenous Knowledge Regarding Climate in Colombia. Articulations and Complementarities among Different Knowledges. In: FEOLA, Giuseppe; GEOGHEGAN, Hilary; ARNALL, Alex (Ed.). Climate and culture. Multidisciplinary perspectives on a warming world, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, p. 68-92.

ULLOA, A. Aesthetics of green dispossession. From coal to wind extraction in La Guajira, Colombia. Journal of Political Ecology, v. 30, n. 1, 2023.

UNESCO/UNEP (Ed.). Cultural diversity and Biodiversity for sustainable Development. A jointly convened UNESCO and UNEP high-level Roundtable held on 3 September 2002 in Johannesburg during the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Nairobi: UNEP, 2002.

UPADHYAY, P. Climate change as ecological colonialism: Dilemma of innocent victims. Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, v. 7, p. 111-140, 2016.

WINKLER, K.; FUCHS, R.; ROUNSEVELL, M.; HEROLD, M. Global land use changes are four times greater than previously estimated. Nature communications, v. 12, n. 1, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22702-2, 2021.

VIRTANEN, P. K.; SIRAGUSA, L.; GUTTORM, H. Introduction. Toward more inclusive definitions of sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, v. 43, p. 77-82, 2020.

WORLD COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT (Ed.). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18542/rmi.v18i30.17103

Copyright (c) 2024 Ernst Halbmayer