Into the Anthropocene: Environmental history and the morality of climate change

Eric Pawson
2020 International Review of Environmental History  
This article argues that the nature of landscape 'improvement' as understood in the colonial period reflected a strong sense of common purpose and collective good, and the desire to use this as the basis of modern prosperity and growth. But these are not sentiments that have been uncritically accepted for some decades as the modernist conception of the rural landscape and resource use has come under increasing attack. The central questions posed here are then: what has happened to this moral
more » ... monality, and how might we rediscover some workable elements of collective value to guide us in today's much less certain and restless Anthropocene times? This applies particularly to the issue of climate change, which is often treated as a scientific or technical problem rather than one of moral urgency. The concept of terrestrial dwelling is offered as a means of exploring where we might now find a place to stand, on an Earth that is revealing itself to be both acutely vulnerable and inconveniently active. This article discusses some incipient examples of terrestrial dwelling in Aotearoa New Zealand.
doi:10.22459/ireh.06.02.2020.04 fatcat:fbrnbitjbvftfezpe7mijt6d2m