I would like them to rethink nature for the Anthropocene. It’s not my job to say what nature should mean in a world shaped primarily by humans–I’m still working it out, myself–but I know others feel this is a discussion we should be having. I’m also not the only one who thinks environmental discourse and policy should stop being dominated by “horror stories.”

...The nature/human dichotomy that has animated environmentalism since its inception no longer applies. This is a point that I made recently to Jon Christensen’s UCLA class, Environmental Communications in the Anthropocene, when I visited there several weeks ago.

What this entails is something that I think environmentally-minded people are grappling with at the moment. There’s an ambivalence about the Anthropocene that is palpable. I saw it in Jon’s class when the subject of my controversial Slate essay came up and he asked students if they considered themselves modernist or traditionalist-minded greens. The ratio was split roughly 50-50.

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Published: Wednesday, January 30, 2013