Tag Archives: anthropocene

Cover of Geez magazine issue 54, Climate Justice. In the foreground is a set table, with a chair leaning back precariously. The table's legs are almost completely submerged; water surrounds it to the horizon, over which the title of the issue, Climate Justice, is hovering.

Faulty Indictment in a Man-Made Era

This is an article that I wrote back in the spring of 2019 for publication in Geez 54, an issue dedicated to climate justice. It came out of my research and thinking at the time, much of which was informed by solarpunk. This is a slightly unedited version – the one that appeared in the magazine was edited, of course. I feel obligated to apologize for the title; it’s not my best work. Gets the point across, though.

Every time that I say “the Anthropocene” outside of academia, I cringe inwardly. The word carries a story implicit in it: “anthropos” = (hu)Man; -cene = recent era. The world we live in – of overpollution, extreme economic disparity, ecological injustice, dwindling biodiversity – is the world that humans have shaped and are shaping even now with every decision. It is a story that is too moralistic for my liking: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of David Suzuki.” Yet this is a faulty narrative – unjust and unreflective of reality, and subscribing to it is making the problem worse, not better.

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White tile with blue embellishments, and text in blue reading "God jowt de fugels de kost, mar hja moatte der om fleane"

Saviour Syndrome: thoughts-in-process

I’ve noticed a trend, lately, in a lot of the circles I move in or at least brush against, and it’s something I’m starting to label, since I’m coming across it so often. Help me think through this?

I’m calling it “saviour syndrome” because I’m coming across a lot of religious language and mythos from sources I would expect to be fully secular, or atheist, or at least agnostic or pagan or heavily critical of the Christian narrative. It’s frankly pretty puzzling at first, but given more thought and what I know about the origins of settler society on Turtle Island, it comes clear after a bit of thought. At least, to me. I want to know if I’m off-base or what I haven’t thought about, since this is grounded in my own experience as a cis, white, 3rd-gen Dutch settler woman who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church ethnoreligious community. So there’s a lot I might not be seeing. But this is what I have seen.

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Community & Grieving

Eco-grieving, and eco-community, more specifically. I received a notification today on Facebook from The Edmonton Eco-Grief Support Circle that I am part of, and I wondered if there were such communities for region where I have just moved to. I did a quick search, and it turns out that no, there don’t seem to be. However, there are some general eco-grief groups, and I wanted to put them here for posterity and also so that I have links to go back to and research when I have the time for it if I can (some are private).

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Well well

It’s hard, when you’re in graduate school, to prioritize your physical health. Mental health awareness campaigns, resources, all that good stuff is made available (at least at my institution) in what on good days I think is evidence of the way that society is changing to recognize the holistic nature of our ontological health, and on bad days merely a response to the fact that students keep trying to kill themselves because Anthropocene.

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