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10 J. Hum. Rts. & Env't. 1 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/jhre10 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Vol. 10 No. 1, March 2019, pp. 1 6 Editorial Coloniality, neoliberalism and the Anthropocene In only a relatively short span of planetary time humans have emerged as the domi- nant species on Earth. This dominance has occurred through a remarkably effective transformative process that propelled humanity from being only a few localized dwellers foraging for food and living in makeshift shelters, to a global population of approximately 7.5 billion people inhabiting virtually every corner of the Earth;1 all fighting, with variously different degrees of relentless tenacity, for survival amidst increasingly limited resources that sustain life.2 While we are still officially in the Holocene epoch (its third and most recent age was recently confirmed as the Late Holocene Meghalayan Age),3 geologists now sug- gest (not altogether uncontroversially),4 that we might be entering the Anthropocene; a new human-dominated geological epoch in which Earth's carrying capacity is being breached in a time characterized by profound and increasing uncertainty:5 It takes no stretch of the imagination to see that the human species is now an agent of change of geologic proportions. We literally move mountains to mine the earth's minerals, redirect rivers to build cities in the desert, torch forests to make way for crops and cattle, and alter the chemistry of the atmosphere in disposing of our wastes. At humanity's hand, the earth is undergoing a profound transformation one with consequences we cannot fully grasp.6 Of all the many drivers that have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the Anthropocene's signatures, two stand out as being particularly troubling: coloniality and neoliberalism. There is little disputing the suggestion that 'industrialisation - the origins of the Anthropocene on the dominant account - was fundamentally capitalist in ambition 1. <http://theconversation.com/7-5-billion-and-counting-how-many-humans-can-the-earth- support-98797>. 2. K Arrow et al., 'Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity, and the Environment' (1995) 268 Science 520 21. 3. International Commission on Stratigraphy, 'Collapse of Civilizations Worldwide Defines Youngest Unit of the Geologic Time Scale'. Available at <http://www.stratigraphy.org/index. php/ics-news-and-meetings/ 19-collapse-of-civilizations-worldwide-defines-youngest-unit-of- the-geologic-time-scale>. 4. See, for example, J Barber, Disciplinarity, Epistemic Friction and the 'Anthropocene' (PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 2018); A Malm and A Hornborg, 'The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene Narrative' (2014) 1(1) Anthropocene Review 62 9. 5. J Zalasiewicz et al., 'The Working Group on the Anthropocene: Summary of Evidence and Interim Recommendations' (2017) 19 Anthropocene 55 60. 6. S Postel, 'Carrying Capacity: Earth's Bottom Line' (1994) Challenge 4-12 at 4. © 2019 The Author Journal compilation © 2019 Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd The Lypiatts, 15 Lansdown Road, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 2JA, UK and The William Pratt House, 9 Dewey Court, Northampton MA 01060-3815, USA

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