scholarly journals Taming Gaia 2.0: Earth system law in the ruptured Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
pp. 205301962110267
Author(s):  
Rakhyun E Kim
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Tipping Points ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Earth System ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Planetary Scale ◽  
Earth System Governance ◽  
The Earth

If the Anthropocene is a rupture in planetary history, what does it mean for international environmental law? When the Earth System crosses irreversible tipping points and begins a forceful, nonlinear transformation into a hostile state which I call the ruptured Anthropocene, the concept of protecting the global environment from humans would lose its meaning. Not only the dichotomy between humans and nature becomes irrelevant, but the environment itself will no longer exist as an object for protection. I argue that, for international environmental law to stay relevant in the ruptured Anthropocene, it needs to shift away from its traditional focus on restoring the planetary past, and instead play an active role in the making of planetary futures. Its new purpose will need to be active planetary stewardship, whereby humans add self-awareness for deliberate self-regulation of the Earth System. Such an attempt at ‘taming’ the so-called Gaia 2.0 will, however, create winners and losers, and the new form of law will have to address fundamental questions of justice on a planetary scale. Building on the concept of earth system law emerging in the earth system governance literature, I draw the contours of international environmental law 2.0 for the ruptured Anthropocene and discuss the challenges of instituting active planetary stewardship.

New Dimensions of the Earth System Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Louis J. Kotzé ◽  
Rakhyun E. Kim
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Present Form ◽  
Earth System ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Ecological Justice ◽  
Governance Challenges

It seems international environmental law cannot continue to exist in its present form for the purpose of the Anthropocene. Analytically, international environmental law and its lawyers appear not to fully understand and respond to the complex governance challenges arising from a complex Earth system. Thus, normatively, international environmental law seems to have failed to provide appropriate norms to prevent humans from encroaching on Earth system limits. In a transformative sense, international environmental law has not been sufficiently ambitious to achieve the type of radical transformations that may be necessary to ensure planetary integrity and socio-ecological justice. It calls for a new legal paradigm suitable for the purpose of the Anthropocene and could address international environmental law’s analytical, normative and transformative concerns. This new paradigm may be called the ‘Earth system law’. This chapter seeks to provide some preliminary thoughts about the analytical, normative, and transformative dimensions of earth system law could entail. Why they would be more appropriate for the purpose of governing a complex Earth system in the Anthropocene?

scholarly journals Politics of Strata

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 211-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Clark
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Power Source ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
The Third ◽  
Earth System Governance ◽  
The Earth

Modern western political thought revolves around globality, focusing on the partitioning and the connecting up of the earth’s surface. But climate change and the Anthropocene thesis raise pressing questions about human interchange with the geological and temporal depths of the earth. Drawing on contemporary earth science and the geophilosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, this article explores how geological strata are emerging as provocations for political issue formation. The first section reviews the emergence – and eventual turn away from – concern with ‘revolutions of the earth’ during the 18th- and 19th-century discovery of ‘geohistory’. The second section looks at the subterranean world both as an object of ‘downward’ looking territorial imperatives and as the ultimate power source of all socio-political life. The third section weighs up the prospects of ‘earth system governance’. The paper concludes with some general thoughts about the possibilities of ‘negotiating strata’ in more generative and judicious ways.

The role of the Microbial Conveyor Belt on Earth´s system resilience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mireia Mestre ◽  
Juan Höfer
Keyword(s):  
Human Impacts ◽  
Conveyor Belt ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Planetary Scale ◽  
Microbial Biogeography ◽  
The Earth ◽  
System Resilience ◽  
Global Biogeochemical Cycles

<p>Despite being major players on the global biogeochemical cycles, microorganisms are generally not included in holistic views of Earth’s system. The Microbial Conveyor Belt is a conceptual framework that represents a recurrent and cyclical flux of microorganisms across the globe, connecting distant ecosystems and Earth compartments. This long-range dispersion of microorganisms directly influences the microbial biogeography, the global cycling of inorganic and organic matter, and thus the Earth system’s functioning and long-term resilience. Planetary-scale human impacts disrupting the natural flux of microorganisms pose a major threat to the Microbial Conveyor Belt, thus compromising microbial ecosystem services. Perturbations that modify the natural dispersion of microorganisms are, for example, the modification of the intensity/direction of air fluxes and ocean currents due to climate change, the vanishing of certain dispersion vectors (e.g., species extinction or drying rivers) or the introduction of new ones (e.g., microplastics, wildfires). Transdisciplinary approaches are needed to disentangle the Microbial Conveyor Belt, its major threats and their consequences for Earth´s system resilience.</p>

scholarly journals Deep-time organizations: Learning institutional longevity from history

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederic Hanusch ◽  
Frank Biermann
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Design Principles ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Initial Design ◽  
Earth System Governance ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Temporal Interdependencies

The Anthropocene as a new planetary epoch has brought to the foreground the deep-time interconnections of human agency with the earth system. Yet despite this recognition of strong temporal interdependencies, we still lack understanding of how societal and political organizations can manage interconnections that span several centuries and dozens of generations. This study pioneers the analysis of what we call “deep-time organizations.” We provide detailed comparative historical analyses of some of the oldest existing organizations worldwide from a variety of sectors, from the world’s oldest bank (Sveriges Riksbank) to the world’s oldest university (University of Al Quaraouiyine) and the world’s oldest dynasty (Imperial House of Japan). Based on our analysis, we formulate 12 initial design principles that could lay, if supported by further empirical research along similar lines, the basis for the construction and design of “deep-time organizations” for long-term challenges of earth system governance and planetary stewardship.

Tipping Points in the Anthropocene: Crafting a Just and Sustainable Earth

2017 ◽  
Vol 04 (01) ◽  
pp. 1750004 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Eisenhauer
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Tipping Point ◽  
Tipping Points ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Critical Thresholds ◽  
The Earth

The arrival of the Anthropocene entails an evolutionary tipping point that challenges basic precepts of political theory and modern science. Within this paper, emerging scholarship in political science, science and technology studies, and sustainability science are brought together to sketch out an approach for crafting more just and sustainable pathways in response to the crossing of critical thresholds in the Earth system. Accomplishing this task requires responding to the emerging reality of possibility, irreversibility, entanglement, and novelty that the Anthropocene and tipping points entail. I argue that grounding political projects in recognition of the unfolding and unpredictable terrain tipping points present allows for the opening of novel pathways toward a still possible just and sustainable planet.

In Search of Global Law: The Significance of the Earth Charter

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Bosselmann
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Ecological Principles ◽  
Earth Charter ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable ◽  
Global Law ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable Development

AbstractWestern legal traditions are anthropocentric in character and largely hostile to ecological principles. However, domestic and international environmental law show signs of an ecocentric orientation. In the search for a legal framework for ecologically sustainable development the Earth Charter marks an important step forward. Among its ground-breaking principles are ecologically defined concepts of sustainability, justice and rights.

Regulation of Nanomaterials in the EU: Proposed Measures to Fill in the Gap

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Azoulay ◽  
Vito Buonsante
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
Hazard Risk ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Eu

This report discusses a proposal fromthe Center for International Environmental Law(CIEL), ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth Germany (Bund) on the regulation of nanomaterials in the European Union. It discusses in particular, the proposal for a horizontal regulation on nanomaterials (also referred to as a nano-patch for existing legislation) that would fill in the regulatory gap on nanomaterials. The proposal goes beyond a review of the REACH text and encompasses all EU legislation relevant to nanomaterials. The proposed instrument would amend the REACH text with delimitation in scope to all areas relevant to nanomaterials (on the model of Regulation 1272/2008 on the classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals). The main aim of the regulation is to ensure that hazard, risk and exposure assessments for all forms and uses of such materials are adequately carried out and taken into consideration.

scholarly journals Perspectives on tipping points in integrated models of the natural and human earth system: cascading effects and telecoupling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian L. E. Franzke ◽  
Alessio Ciullo ◽  
Elisabeth A. Gilmore ◽  
Denise Margaret Matias ◽  
Nidhi Nagabhatla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tipping Points ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Integrated Models ◽  
Cascading Effects ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Earth Systems ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Systematic Development ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract The Earth system and the human system are intrinsically linked. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have led to the climate crisis, which is causing unprecedented extreme events and could trigger Earth system tipping elements. Physical and social forces can lead to tipping points and cascading effects via feedbacks and telecoupling, but the current generation of climate-economy models do not generally take account of these interactions and feedbacks. Here, we show the importance of the interplay between human societies and Earth systems in creating tipping points and cascading effects and the way they in turn affect sustainability and security. The lack of modeling of these links can lead to an underestimation of climate and societal risks as well as how societal tipping points can be harnessed to moderate physical impacts. This calls for the systematic development of models for a better integration and understanding of Earth and human systems at different spatial and temporal scales, specifically those that enable decision-making to reduce the likelihood of crossing local or global tipping points.

scholarly journals Earth System Law for the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 6796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kotzé
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Earth System ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Fit For Purpose

Law has failed to address the ever-deepening socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene. In the light of, and as a response to, law’s failures in this respect, this paper argues in support of developing a new legal paradigm for the Anthropocene epoch called Earth system law. It does so first by briefly describing the Anthropocene trope and the extent and dimensions of its socio-ecological crisis. The paper then specifically focuses on international environmental law as an example of how and why law has become incapable of, and inappropriate for, addressing this crisis, and for being unable to respond to the Anthropocene’s regulatory demands. By drawing on three Earth system-related regulatory implications of the Anthropocene trope (i.e., inclusivity, interdependencies and complexity), the final part of the paper makes out a case in support of reforming law and creating a new Earth system oriented legal paradigm that is fit for purpose in the Anthropocene epoch.

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