“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” – Albert Einstein
In even attempting to enter discussion around global warming, we are immediately confronted with multiple contending arguments and perspectives. At the baseline, we can generally agree that global warming exists, presenting the actual existential threat to human civilization that terrorism is alleged to as an article of moral panic (Debney 2017a). From there, we are confronted with multiple challenges – first, to identify the root causes and, second, to find solutions that, in addressing the root causes of global warming, reflect the truism articulated by Albert Einstein that ‘we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them’. 1 To do otherwise would be to reproduce the destructive dynamics we oppose through inad-equate assessments of the root causes and the ine ff ective responses that derive from them, but which some find preferable perhaps due to their complicity with them. As a matter of characterization, trying to solve global warming with the thinking that created it is the best way to guarantee that the problem worsens, ever diminishing our chances of avoiding worst-case scenarios.
Energies Beyond the State
Anarchist Political Ecology and the Liberation of Nature
Edited by Jennifer Mateer; Simon Springer; Martin Locret-Collet and Maleea Acker
Resource and environmental management generally entail an attempt by governing authorities to dominate, reroute, and tame the natural flows of water, the growth of forests, manage the populations of non-human bodies, and control nature more generally. Often this is done under the mantle of conservation, economic development, and sustainable management, but still involves a quest to “civilize” and control all aspects of nature for a specific purpose.
The results of this form of environmental management and governance are many, but by and large, across the globe, it has meant governments construct a specific idea regarding nature and the environment. These forms of control also extend beyond the natural environment, allowing for particular methods of managing human and non-human populations in order to maintain power and enact sovereignty.
This volume contributes to advancing an ‘ecology of freedom,’ which can critique current anthropocentric environmental destruction, as well as focusing on environmental justice and decentralized ecological governance. While concentrating on these areas of anarchist political ecology, three major themes emerged from the chapters: the legacies of colonialism that continue to echo in current resource management and governance practices, the necessity of overcoming human/nature dualisms for environmental justice and sustainability, and finally discussions and critiques of extractivism as a governing and economic mentality.