A Home Under Threat A new role for human agency in the context of climate change

Renata Rîmbu

For most people, thinking of home brings feelings of comfort and of the familiar. There is a security and certainty in one’s well-known environment, a consolation of shared memories, relationships and a sense of belonging. What happens when one feels those certainties slipping away? The climate crisis ensures that the planet we call home is becoming no longer identifiable with any of the terms or sensations listed above. The only natural response to a world rapidly changing for the worse? Fear.

“Half of Earth’s glaciers could melt even if key warming goal is met, study says”

“Climate change is leaving African elephants desperate for water”

“2022 was officially the U.K.’s hottest year on record — and human-caused climate change made it 160 times more likely”

These headlines sound frightening – and they should, since we find ourselves in a thoroughly frightening situation. We stop reading and seemingly get on with our day, trying to put it at the back of our minds. Is it working? Can we really turn off our brains and ignore the negativity? Or are we left with an underlying feeling of anxiety and helplessness that is simply not addressed? Psychologists have coined a new term: eco-anxiety, or “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations”. While it affects people at different intensities, a lingering fear which cannot be ignored forever undoubtedly exists. The sensible response is to turn to our own lives and think of what can be changed – so we recycle, cut down on meat, use a reusable bag for groceries, and tell ourselves that we are doing our best. In the end, one individual alone cannot produce visible change, and it is up to the bigger players and companies to change their behaviours and ways of thinking. Our instincts indicate there is something wrong with such a complacent mindset, though – but what would more on our part look like? Perhaps that is equally scary, because it would mean fully altering our lives and habits. Refusing to fly? Going out into the streets to protest? Becoming activists? These are not convenient, comfortable choices, and they are most definitely not choices for everyone. It seems as if a standstill has been reached. One encouraging perspective, and a potential step in the right direction, is to fully reimagine what we can do as active agents based on a new definition of human agency itself: the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene is a proposed geological period starting from the moment human beings have been capable of altering the environment around them. Rapid technological advancements and population growth meant that humans turned from biological agents, simply being part of and interacting with the environment, into geological agents who are capable of changing and influencing it. The idea of the Anthropocene is prevalent within the environmental humanities and has been famously linked to new definitions of human agency and freedom by Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty. What we are capable of producing as humans and our impact reaches a new scale if one takes into account that through our own decisions and increased freedom, we have reached a point where the planet itself is being altered as a result of our actions. Do human agency and freedom then become associated with guilt? Are we carrying the burden of these choices from the past centuries? I would argue that in the context of the climate crisis, the answer is yes. With this new view in mind, it seems like anxiety and fear would only increase and become even more paralysing as a result of our culpability. We are guilty of climate change, and that guilt is doubled by the fear that we are not doing enough to atone for the mistakes of previous generations. Humans as a species are capable of damage on such a large scale – then mere individuals truly are incapable of producing change. However, I wish to argue that awareness of the idea of the Anthropocene brings the exact opposite: if we are capable of triggering a new geological period, and changing the environment to an incredible degree, this also means that we have the power and agency to put a stop to it. In other words, I propose we reimagine this villainous grandeur and give it new meaning by channelling human agency into positive change.

Easier said than done. We are surrounded by different reactions and alternative solutions: the battle scenes of important people, such as COPs, and the work of activists such as Greta Thunberg, whose courage and influence almost seem too far removed from us – to be admired from a distance. Perhaps that distance is not as far as one might think. Conscious voting, urging governments to take action, signing petitions, donating to environmental causes, investing in renewable energy – these are all more or less achievable, practical actions which bridge the gap between us and the people making a difference whom we look up to.

It seems like the conclusion is one we have already heard before: live sensible and environmentally-conscious lives, become more active; in other words, keep doing the things we are already doing and struggling with. Nonetheless, perhaps being aware of where our anxiety springs from can help reduce it, or at least make us understand it more. The impact of such conversations should not be ignored either – they encourage the ball to keep rolling. The more we write and talk about climate change, the more it can call to action. Will we ever feel guilt-free? Probably not. Through our guilt, fear, and anxiety, let us try to use the human agency which is on its way to destroying the home around us, and channel it towards collective action.