The Dilemma of the Anthropocene as a Time-Defined Disaster - by Nathan Crossan

The Dilemma of the Anthropocene as a Time-Defined Disaster: Scott Gabriel Knowles on the Past, Present, and Future of Climate Change

Climate change is the hallmark of society’s rapid ingenuity and consequential decay of modern civilization. A disaster that is inching to the extremes slowly and surely. And whenever this increasing disaster is examined, there is a vague, agreed-upon statement of facts that obscure a larger understanding of how this disaster came to be. On the spectrum of disaster in the age of the Anthropocene, where catastrophic events aren’t in the advent of breaking points, the global threat of climate change becomes the unconventional definition of every time-defined disaster. This is the impetus of Scott Gabriel Knowles’ essay “Slow Disaster in the Anthropocene.”

In its syntactical architecture, the essay strives to dissect the social, political, and temporally difficult navigations of climate change on the scale of disaster. Knowles uses rhetoric through academically informed narratives on relevant historical periods, with the imperative of a historian’s responsibility and professional ethical approach, and by citing of relevant texts supporting logical arguments, to create a stream of coherent arguments that support a solution on the climate disaster. Altogether, ‘Slow Disaster in the Anthropocene’ is a careful piecing of important ideas and factual considerations to propose a methodical approach on accounting for the temporally ambiguous history of climate change, to better understand the entirety of its mechanisms.

One of Knowles’ main arguments is that a historian can offer something to the table in the conversations on climate change. He tackles this with an in-depth look into how disasters are defined in such a way that is antithetical to the disaster of climate change. To establish this, he brings forth his experience as a historian with a specialization in technology and modern disasters. With his work on fires destroying American cities, a book about the many factors that played a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the much more recent focus on climate change, Knowles establishes his credibility through his experience as a historian. He informs the readers of the importance of a historian’s perspective on analyzing the entirety of climate change. He writes, “disasters aren’t events that float freely in history, unmoored from politics. They are processes, playing out in uneven temporalities, and always with deep histories. Understanding the everyday politics of the Anthropocene requires the work of historians” (Knowles).

In his time in South Korea, Knowles reflects on the historical context of the East-Asian peninsula while narrating on the present condition of the country with the threat of war and climate change radiating through the heat wave. This anecdote becomes an interesting case study on how climate change is very much an existing disaster. He cites the recent spike in heat wave related deaths, and the increasing temperatures in Seoul that is set to rise to 32.3 days per year by the end of the century (Knowles). He also sets a more personal perspective in this part, which creates a dynamic read of history, scientific facts, and a layer of humanity in the writing that ultimately gives the readers a three-dimensional experience on the matter of climate change. With his two kids in a park in Seoul, Knowles gets an alert from his phone written in Korean, he deduces that it might be a nuclear emergency, with the heightened friction between North Korea and the US. But soon after, he learns that the message is a warning on the heat wave they’re experiencing. Through this, he attempts to make the Anthropocene’s presence as physical as the political tensions between nuclear-warhead states. “The reality of climate change is every bit as ominous as the threat of war, it’s just unfolding at a pace that makes it harder for us to keep it in the front of our minds” (Knowles).

On the scene of North and South Korea’s Demilitarized Zone, Knowles juxtaposes the pristine wildlife of land separating both countries. He creates an example of how it can be foretelling of a future more active on the climate crisis, or one set in the perils of political achievement. Though both countries envision reunification, divided by their means, the breathing nature of the four hundred square mile border is a peaceful scene that is a symbol for a nonviolent reunification of both countries. But Knowles describes the border as a symbol of the history that can be excavated from its layers, uncovering the temporal markings of the Anthropocene. In its entirety, he tells the history of the land as a mark of human progress, industrialization, war, nuclear advancement, and the ultimate actor in the Anthropocene, human agency. And it seems the outcome of this climate-critical epoch will be defined by the social and political forces of our present. But a peaceful accord between the North and South does not necessarily promise the DMZ to be an oasis of peaceful nature, Knowles warns. From the history of the North and South in terms of their unification, intensified industrialization has been the strategy. Knowles quotes sociologist Ulrich Beck, “industrialization can be authoritarian, or it can be democratic; pollution is pollution, and it doesn’t respect boundaries” (Knowles). This is then outlook Knowles gives in his essay. It poses the existential threat of climate change as the main determinant of our future. Dynamically, he uses the DMZ to create a history of the Anthropocene and its adverse implications on the climate crisis.

The important decisions will depend on the roles of world leaders and adaptive lifestyles we implement as a society to reduce carbon emissions. This solution to climate change is predisposed to our fixed understanding of what a disaster is. Ultimately, Knowles attributes perspective as a main factor to a solution in this crisis. And his prelude to a solution are the difficulties of understanding climate change with a definition of disaster devoid of the sociological and temporally ambiguous characteristics that the Anthropocene should naturally be regarded with. He writes that the social scientific definitions of disaster, framed in the early years of the Cold War, were modeled for the societal impacts of nuclear war. But how can the Anthropocene be defined as such, Knowles emphasizes. “The traditional definition of disaster describes an overwhelming event delimited by spatiotemporal limits that are tightly bounded with clear cause-and-effect relationships” (Knowles). By setting this predicament through logical reasoning, Knowles gives the audience the setting stones on how the Anthropocene should be seen: as an anomaly that is defined by its unconventional temporal logic. Seen as such, it becomes clearer, “disaster history is a useful tool in filling the erased moments in the record, slowing down the disaster and analyzing its complete temporality (Knowles).

Knowles states that every climate change summit going back into the 1990’s frame climate change as a forward-looking problem. And in these discussions, the past is almost silenced (Knowles). Through a historian’s perspective, there is a deep, detailed history of climate change. And diving into these roots might uncover an understanding that can help the world move towards a solution. In this dynamic essay involving Knowles’ activist stance on climate change, while expounding on scientific facts and logical reasoning, he writes to an audience that acknowledges the reality of our present. And gives deep insight into the many factors that need considering when tackling the climate crisis. “Slow Disaster in the Anthropocene” is a persuasion on the active threat of human-induced warming, and Knowles’ rhetorical techniques give readers a fresh perspective on the discussion of climate change.

Works Cited

Knowles, Scott Gabriel. "Slow Disaster in the Anthropocene: A Historian Witnesses Climate Change on the Korean Peninsula." 1 Oct. 2020. Writing 102. Pima Online.