Geopolitics in the Age of the Anthropocene

Our entry into the Anthropocene, this new geological epoch which follows the Holocene, and in which humans are the main forces of change on the planet, requires a profound renewal of the social sciences, and geopolitics is primarily concerned by this revolution. It is now becoming impossible to distinguish between the Earth and the world, which would only be the political and social organization of the planet. Il devient désormais impossible de distinguer la Terre et le monde, qui ne serait que l’organisation politique et sociale de la planète.

For a long time, environmental issues were kept out of politics: the Earth was ruled by physical and biological laws, while the world was ruled by political and economic laws. This separation has notably led to the current ecological crisis, which has made many geologists say that we have now changed geological epochs. In the Anthropocene, the laws of nature overtook those of human history and geography. Cette séparation a notamment conduit à la crise écologique actuelle, qui fait dire à de nombreux géologues que nous avons désormais changé d’époque géologique. Dans l’Anthropocène, les lois de la nature ont rattrapé celles de l’histoire et de la géographie humaines.

And this transformation of human relations with the Earth requires, in order to think about this new Earth, to invent a new geopolitics, or – to use an expression of Bruno Latour – a Gaïapolitics: literally, an Earth policy.