The Unconstructable Earth

In chapter 13 Neyrat summarizes a variety of conceptions of of the Earth conceived from various actors, from the early founding thinkers of the environmental and ecology movements in the United States such as Aldo Lepold and John Muir to more recent scientific conceptions of the Earth as a cybernetic living organism proposed by the celebrated scientist James Lovelock and his Gaia theory or Carolyn Merchant’s conception that each part of the ecosystem contributes to the health of the entire ecosystem as a whole. Neyrat goes on to show that what he terms minoritarian discourses refuse to consider the Earth as something that is mechanical in any way and that it is a living organism in its own right. These minoritarian discourses are in complete contrast to the variety of geo-constructivist discourses that today see the Earth as something technologically manageable.

Denaturing Nature

For Neyrat, in order for us to grasp this quasi-ungraspable part of nature, there must be something residing in nature that pits itself against nature, that is natural and anti-natural. In chapter 12, Neyrat seeks to sketch out what this something is in the form of the concept of anti-production. He will call this part of nature denatura naturans—that which from within nature is opposed to nature as a simple, finite object or product. Neyrat makes use of the work of Schelling in regard to the idea that nature is always in a transitional position. In this sense, nature is always lagging behind itself and because of this infinite movement, nothing would be considered as finite.

The Technological Fervor of Eco-Constructivism

After developing the conception of the anaturalist drive prominent behind a myriad of constructive, postenvironmental discourses in the West, Neyrat begins to provide a definition for the discourses and types of thought that would fall under this rubric of eco-constructivism. During the course of this chapter he outlines the similarities between eco-constructivism and geo-constructivism and highlights the important differences that distinguish them from each other. After providing a nice summary of the currents of the movement known as Accelerationism and the Accelerationist Manifesto as well as currents in transhumanism, the chapter ends by calling into question what all these various discourses falling into positions of ecomodernism or postenvironmentalism seem to blindly adhere to: an ecology that wholly embraces technological advancement and its fervor for continual construction.

Terraforming

In this chapter, Neyrat continues to explore and trace a bit more in depth what he calls the genealogy of the fantasy of geo-constructivism as it has begun to develop within the era of the grand narrative of the Anthropocene. To do this, Neyrat situates a number of current theoretical discussions such as those of controlling and managing the climate by way of terraformation or novel research in synthetic biology within the larger imaginary of the Space Age.

Turbulence, Resilience, Distance

On August 15, 1971, the gold standard, the conversion of the dollar into gold, was suspended. Two years later, the currency exchange became “floating,” which meant that from now on, the rate of exchange would be determined by the state of market fluctuations. And it was in this manner that the Bretton Woods Agreement, which had regulated the international financial system since 1944, came to an end. What happened at that time with regard to important economic data is something that obviously has an important bearing on how we largely structure our present—such a fluctuation of the exchange rate has largely favored speculation on currency and a disconnection of the speculative sphere, its autonomization from the so-called “real” economy. However, we shouldn’t convert this economic data too quickly into a hastily formed explanation for what should be more properly described as a major epistemic change, even a change in civilization, a major upheaval in the way we think about science, politics, the economy, as well as ecology and the environment....

Object, Subject, Traject

Throughout the first two parts of this book, we have examined the price to be paid for getting rid of any idea of something we call nature. This price is exorbitant, in the proper sense of the term: We have to get ourselves to exit any orbit, propelling ourselves into a stratosphere, one that is indeed much more imaginary than real, of an unbridled construction where humans are agents of mastery, into a stratosphere of limitless developments and technological monsters that should deserve our unconditional love. The absence of nature legitimizes the fantastic possibility of remaking the world in order to steer it, to be its pilot, to manage it; but the world, inevitably, withdraws from the human setting, leaving the latter alone—without nature and without a world....

The Extraplanetary Environment of the Ecomodernists

In chapter 6, Neyrat moves to describing the new ecologists and environmentalists of the twenty-first century: the ecomodernists. Neyrat provides the origins of this new capitalist and industrialist friendly environmentalism that promised to take into account all environmental concerns within its mode of development and growth. In taking on a seemingly pragmatist position outside of ideological frameworks and offering a positive vision of our environmental future whereby technologies such as nuclear power, GMOs, and fracking, as well as rejecting the division between nature and technology, ecomodernists completely reject the environmentalism and ecology of their twentieth-century forebears. Neyrat provides an introduction to these ecomodernists who have a very different conception of the current era, where striving to comprehend some ideal or old environmental state of nature was always already impossible due to the inherent perpetual instability of the turbulence of ecosystems.

Introduction

In the introduction to his book, Frederic Neyrat provides an overview of his ambitious attempt of not only striving to articulate the various philosophical theories and ecological practices that have been developing over the past 20 years or so in response to climate change and what has been named the Anthropocene, but he also lays the ground work for his own ecological theory of an ecology of separation which he will develop in the third part of his book. What makes Neyrat’s work interesting is how he posits very clearly that unlike the post-modern conception of an arrival to an era where there is no longer any grand narratives is that there is indeed a new grand narrative that has emerged in relation to the environment: the narrative of the Anthropocene. With this narrative and emergence of the Anthropocene, what is also uncovered or discovered is the Earth itself. Bur for Neyrat, if we begin to look closely at this new “Earth,” what we discover is that it’s not as an object or a subject, but as an ever ungraspable traject: a trajectory in becoming for millions of years.

The Copenhagen Chiasm

“This evening, the city of Copenhagen is a crime scene, with those responsible fleeing for the airport.” It was in this manner that John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace for the United Kingdom, expressed himself following the Copenhagen summit on climate change.1 A crime? What sort of crime? What exactly happened during this summit? More than likely, no kind of event that would be capable of immediately changing the history of the world. But nevertheless, there was a noticeable turning point in relation to how societies were discussing the management of climate change; there was a revelatory moment in regard to what we have taken to calling the ...

Conclusion

In the conclusion, Neyrat sets about re-iterating the political goals of an ecology of separation. While numerous actors continue with either the conceptions of continual growth through fossil fuels or more extreme energy sources, and others believe technological advancements are to be adhered to in order to simply continue the management of the Earth and capitalism in the era of the Anthropocene, Neyrat describes all of these intentions and forces under the rubric of geo-power. The question for Neyrat and his ecology is not one of continual geo-construction, or production, but an attentive prudence to what can perhaps be unmade. Neyrat cites the dilemma that many minoritarian groups face, in the midst of losing their home territories when faced with powerful entities coming to extract resources from their lands, as having to decide between kneeling down or confronting them.