Scientific Anesthetization in the Anthropocene
This chapter reviews the L'Aquila trial in a larger, socioecological context in which natural disaster has been reimagined as radically altered by human action. It talks about the Anthropocene, which confirms how the paradigmatic shift in understanding global ecology shapes how human agency and accountability are viewed in a single disaster. It also explains how society has reconceptualized natural disasters as resulting from human action, not natural force. The chapter evaluates the L'Aquila trial to reveal a newly emerging set of geological cosmologies and looks at millennial conspiracies about man-made natural disasters in Italy, which include giant warming machines that cause earthquakes and “chemtrails.” It argues that the growing rumors and conspiracy theories about deliberate and intentional disaster may offer a savvy critique of human complicity in natural disaster.