Anarchism

Saying that “humans” are responsible for ecological devastation is a continuation of colonial racism, and it is an insult to the peoples who have fought against obliteration to preserve their way of life and their relationship with their territory. It is also an insult to the many people who, despite growing up in a culture totally infused with the values of capitalism, have risked their lives and freedom to defend the land and halt destructive development projects. And it is an insult to the hundreds of millions who are subjected to extreme poverty or absolute precarity by the very same economic order that profits from ecocide, who have to worry about their personal survival and that of their family and community, and do not have the luxury of choosing between different job opportunities and consumer products based on how “ecological” they might be.

As Kathryn Yusoff argues in A Billion Black Anthropocenes, the framework of the Anthropocene is racist, and it also serves to obscure our view, to hide the actual system at the heart of the problem.95 People in the Global South—people dehumanized by Western slavery, colonialism, and racism—finally get included in the category “human,” just in time to share the blame for the devastation caused by a social system that has ravaged them far more than they have profited from it.

-- Peter Gelderloos