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Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 7–13

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Global Environmental Change

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Earth governmentality Reflections on science in the

Eva Lo¨vbrand a,*, Johannes Stripple b,c, Bo Wiman d a Centre for Science and Policy Research, The Tema Institute, Linko¨ping University, 601 74 Norrko¨ping, Sweden b Department of Political Science, Lund University, Box 52, 221 00 Lund, Sweden c Lund University Centre for Studies, Sweden d School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences, Kalmar University, 39182 Kalmar, Sweden

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history: This paper examines as a novel approach to global environmental change research. Received 27 May 2008 Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s governmentality concept, the paper opens up the Earth System Received in revised form 13 October 2008 metaphor to political analysis and asks what it does to our understanding of nature and society as a Accepted 20 October 2008 governable domain. We trace the scientific practices that have produced the Earth System as a thinkable analytical category back to the International Geophysical Year in 1957. We also identify ‘the Keywords: Anthropocene’ as a central and yet ambiguous system of thought for Earth System Science that Earth System Science harbours different strategies for sustainability in terms of (1) the persons over whom government is to be Governmentality Anthropocene exercised; (2) the distribution of tasks and actions between authorities; and (3) contrasting ideals or The coupled human and ecological system principles for how government should be directed. Global environmental change research ß 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction been described as a striving to perceive the big picture; to map, monitor and manage the ‘coupled human and ecological system’ Since the late 1980s when NASA launched Earth System Science (Steffen et al., 2004; Schellnhuber et al., 2005; Kotchen and Yong, as a structuring concept for its future research activities (see 2007; Moore III, 2000). Johnson et al., 1997), a seemingly new way of understanding and This paper aims to initiate a discussion on what this new studying the Earth and environmental change has gained ground approach to global environmental change research does to our among scientific institutions around the world. Building upon a understanding of nature and society as a governable domain. We view from space provided by remote sensing technology, global base the analysis on a number of programmatic writings for Earth and sophisticated models, Earth System System Science published in the years prior to and after the official Science is now emerging as a holistic super-discipline that tries launch of the Earth System Partnership in Amsterdam in July 2001. to embrace all processes in nature and society as one interlinked In line with studies of Earth System , we approach the system (Steffen and Tyson, 2001; Clifford and Richards, 2005). practices of science as one of many rule and actor- According to Schellnhuber (1999), one of the main advocates of networks that shape the ‘co-evolution of human and natural this new scientific approach, the Earth System consists of two main systems’ (Biermann, 2007, p. 4). However, rather than accepting components; the ‘ecosphere’ and its subsystems such as the the Earth System metaphor as a given starting point for our , and , and the ‘Anthroposphere’ analysis, this paper sets out to critically examine its basic that accounts for all human activity. Instead of studying each assumptions and political implications. Hence, in contrast to subsystem as a self-contained entity, this new ‘science of recent celebrations of the ‘coupled human and ecological systems’ integration’ (Steffen and Tyson, 2001, p. 23) seeks to put the approach to global environmental change research (Kotchen and pieces together and to understand the planetary -support Yong, 2007; Biermann, 2007; Moore III, 2000), we take a step back system as an integrated whole. Hence, Earth System Science has and ask what ways of seeing and acting upon nature and society this new research agenda makes possible. Methodologically, we do so by advancing the concept ‘Earth System governmentality’. * Corresponding author. Tel.: + 46 11 363393. Since first introduced by Michel Foucault in the late 1970s, E-mail address: [email protected] (E. Lo¨vbrand). governmentality studies have evolved across numerous disciplines

0959-3780/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.10.002 8 E. Lo¨vbrand et al. / Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 7–13 such as , criminology, science and technology studies, . It also points to the need for a critical human and cultural studies (Rose et al., 2006). As research agenda that opens up the practices of science to political indicated by the semantic linking of the words governing and analysis. Rather than accepting the Earth System metaphor as a mentality, governmentality deals with how we think about taken-for-granted starting point for future global environmental governing. It is a field of enquiry that problematises the collective change research, we invite more scholars to critically reflect upon and often taken-for-granted systems of thought that make which political spaces it renders thinkable and governable. governing strategies appear natural and given at certain times in history (Dean, 2004, p. 16; MacKinnon, 2000; Lemke, 2002). 2. What is a Foucauldian analytics of government? Governmentality studies are therefore often empirical and historical in their orientation. By ‘tracing the history of the The governmentality concept was first introduced by Michel present’ (Miller and Rose, 2008), this perspective aims to ‘open a Foucault in a series of lectures at Colle`ge de France in Paris in the space for critical thought’ (Rose, 2004, p. 19) without advancing a late 1970s. While Foucault used the concept to trace a number of normative agenda of its own. Furthermore, governmentality historically specific rationalities of forms of rule tied to the modern scholars tend to approach government in a broad and dispersed European state (see Foucault’s lectures in Burchell et al., 1991; sense. Rather than reducing political power to the actions of a state, Foucault et al., 2007), his neologism has today emerged as a new this analytical perspective recognises that a whole variety of mode of analysis. Governmentality as an analytical concept authorities govern at different sites, in the light of different combines two aspects of governing: (1) the representation and principles, knowledges and practices (Rose et al., 2006). This focus knowing of a phenomenon, and (2) the acting upon the same on heterogeneous forms of governing resonates with studies of phenomenon so as to transform it. Miller and Rose (2008, p.15) . However, while the governance concept is have called the former aspect ‘rationalities of government’, and the concerned with the loci and modes of governing, the govern- latter ‘technologies of government’. Rationalities of government mentality concept draws attention to the systematic thinking that specify the distribution of tasks and actions between authorities renders different governing strategies possible. (e.g. political, spiritual, military, familial) and articulate which This paper draws upon the emerging field of governmentality ideals or principles that should direct government (e.g. freedom, studies to explore how the seemingly neutral practices of Earth justice, responsibility, growth). Such systems of thought also System Science are tied to the governing of nature and society. Our identify the nature of the objects to be governed (e.g. society, the analysis is organised as follows. After a brief introduction to the nation, the , the economy) and express an account of the governmentality concept, we begin by examining the practical persons over whom government is to be exercised (e.g. a flock to be aspects of Earth System Science. Attention is here drawn to the led, legal subjects with rights, a resource to be exploited) (Rose and advanced ‘Earth System toolkit’ (Steffen and Tyson, 2001)of Miller, 1992, p. 178–179). Whereas rationalities of government modelling, remote sensing and in situ methods and techniques that hereby render reality into the domain of thought, technologies of has produced the ‘coupled human and ecological system’ as a government translate thought into the domain of reality (Miller thinkable and governable domain. We trace this scientific and Rose, 2008, p. 32). approach back to the International Geophysical Year in 1957 Hence, government technologies refer to the complex of and its path-breaking international coordination of geophysical techniques, procedures, mechanisms and documents through studies and data. We also draw on early 20th Century writings in which the government of persons and is accomplished and biogeochemistry, as well as historical accounts of the (Dean, 1996). While this technological aspect of government can ‘world modelling’ of the early 1970s. Secondly, we ask ourselves be conceived instrumentally as a means for action and interven- what mentality or political rationality that underpins this new tion, Dean (1996, p. 61) has suggested that it is better understood research agenda. We identify ‘the Anthropocene’ (Crutzen and as a disparate and heterogeneous set of practices that, in a more or Stoermer, 2000) as a central and yet ambiguous system of thought less systematic manner, structures the field of possible action for for Earth System Science that both challenges and reproduces the individuals. Governmentality studies tell us that such practices Enlightenment promise of human self-, autonomy and always are tied to political rationalities that make the exercise of control. While the Anthropocene imagery rests upon the daunting power seem rational and natural (Lemke, 2002, p. 55). Hence, human transformations of the Earth’s land surface, and thought and intervention are closely linked. Problems have to be atmosphere, our analysis suggests that this imagery paradoxically made thinkable in order to be operable. For example, as Rose (2004, mediates the very mentality that has brought about these p. 22) points out, it was only in the 19th Century that we started to transformations in the first place. conceive of and talk about ‘the economy’ as a domain with its own Finally, we outline possible implications for sustainability. We characteristics (e.g. rate of growth) about which knowledge could find that Earth System Science is involved in the making of a new be gained. Once ‘the economy’ was delineated, it became the object kind of population, namely humankind for the first time under- and target of political programmes. As another example: to stood as a major geological force. While this ‘new science of diagnose the ills of the individual in terms of maladjustment integration’ hereby contributes to a reinvention of the boundaries requires both the forming of distinct disciplines and the forming of between nature and society and the political space for government tools for intervening in the domain in question (Miller and Rose, intervention, it does not pave the way for one homogeneous 2008, p. 32). government programme for sustainability. Rather, the ambiguity In this paper we use a Foucauldian analytics of government to of the Anthropocene imagery points to inconsistencies and explore the political rationalities mediated by the practices of ruptures within the emerging Earth System governmentality. Earth System Science. Rather than approaching the work of science We exemplify these inconsistencies by contrasting calls for expert- as a detached reflection of reality, the governmentality concept driven Earth System management and geoengineering with visions helps us to think of science as a socially embedded practice of a decentralised and deliberative Anthropocene ethics. Although interwoven into the fabric of rule and authority. When approach- both approaches draw upon the Earth System thinking, they ing government as a domain of cognition, the forms of knowledge implicate very different ways of being and acting in the that conceptualise the objects to be governed are central to the Anthropocene era. This finding does not only suggest that the analysis. By taming the natural reality and making certain aspects work of Earth System Science is closely tied to the processes of of it visible, scientific knowledge can be said to represent E. Lo¨vbrand et al. / Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 7–13 9 important ‘‘intellectual machinery’’ for governments (Rose and ical, and biogeophysical systems such as grasslands, forests, lakes, Miller, 1992, p. 182). Miller (2007) refers to the scientific the tundra, oceans, , and climate (see e.g. Patten, 1971; classification of the world as ‘kind-making’ and suggests that this Shugart and O’Neill, 1979; Golley, 1993; Manabe, 1997). The epistemological activity is central for the constitution of social International Geophysical Year (IGY), jointly sponsored by the order. ‘Through their day-to-day conceptual and practical work, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the International scientists classify and reclassify the subjects and objects of nature Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU) from July 1957 to December and society, carving up the world into distinct ontological types 1958, fed empirical data into models of this kind. During these 16 and occasionally creating entirely new taxonomic categories’ months of international scientific coordination, more than 20 000 (Miller, 2007, p. 338). In this paper we are interested in the many scientists from 67 nations studied solar activity, cosmic rays, methods, instruments and computations that have brought the geomagnetism, currents and polar ice at 4000 scientific ‘coupled human and ecological system’ into being and established stations spanning the globe from North to South (Odishaw, 1958a; it as a ‘natural kind’. However, our study does not seek to affirm the Sullivan, 1961). At this point in time, new research technologies naturalness of the Earth System. Rather, in line with a Foucauldian such as cosmic ray recorders, spectroscopes, radio-sonde balloons analytics of government, we examine how thought produces the and advances in computer technology allowed scientists to collect governed reality and hereby directs the ways we act upon it. and process increasingly large data-sets on atmospheric, terrestrial and hydrological processes (Fraser, 1957). The Soviet launch of the 3. The making of the Earth System as a natural kind Sputnik in October 1957, and the following 18 U.S. and two Soviet Earth satellite launches during the coming year, undoubtedly In the Amsterdam Declaration on from July represented the most spectacular step towards what Schellnhuber 2001,1 the chairs of four global change research programmes – the (1999) has called the ‘birds-eye’ principle of Earth System Science; International -Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the Inter- i.e. the ability to obtain a panoramic view of the Earth by observing national Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental it from a distance. However, the ‘world picture’ of the IGY (Sullivan, Change (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) 1961, p. 26) was also spurred by the wealth of in situ data stored in and the international programme – voice three World Data Centres operated by the United States, the Soviet concern over the ever-increasing human modification of the Union and a number of western European states in cooperation planetary life-support system. In order to come to terms with the with the Pacific (Odishaw, 1958b). effects of human-driven changes to the Earth’s interlinked The systematic and global-scale collection of geophysical data terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric systems, the declaration initiated during this year, and the growing technological capacity contains a discipline-transcending research agenda for the of storing and processing such data, paved the way for global expanding field of global change research. The Earth System biogeochemical and biogeophyscial models and their visual metaphor emerges as the centrepiece of this joint effort formally representation of an integrated planetary environmental system labelled ‘the Earth System Science Partnership’. The declaration (see e.g., The Report of the Study of Man’s Impact on Climate (SMIC, defines the Earth System as a single, self-regulating system 1971)). It also inspired the build-up of numerical models comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human compo- attempting to capture, on a grand-scale level, basic nents. This ‘coupled human and ecological system’ is said to be between human society and the global environment. (In)famous characterised by complex and multiple-scale feedbacks, critical ‘world models’ from the early 1970s such as ‘World Dynamics’ thresholds, abrupt changes and large temporal and spatial (Forrester, 1971) or ‘Limits to Growth’ (LTG) (Meadows et al., 1972) variability. generated a great deal of debate and controversy when linking From where does this seemingly new way of seeing and human variables such as demography and industrial throughputs conceptualising the relationship between nature and society with natural resource stocks and environmental pollution levels. stem? Governmentality studies tell us that there are close links These coupled human-ecological models were widely criticised for between organised thought and knowledge about a domain of oversimplifying their system characteristics and dynamics human conduct, and the many practices, techniques and mechan- (Colombo, 2001), but, in retrospect, clearly had a formative role isms that shape the conduct within such a domain (Dean, 1996,p. in framing environmental challenges as global. As seen by Bell 50). Hence, the following section is an attempt to trace the making (2001), the LTG model ‘encouraged long-term thinking; focused on of the Earth System as a natural kind by exploring the historical holistic analysis, both by taking a global perspective and by heritage of the Earth System research agenda. We begin by noting investigating the interaction and simultaneous effects of many that the Earth System metaphor draws heavily upon sophisticated variables; introduced a technique of dynamic trend analysis and mathematical representations – i.e. models – of ecological projection, including loops; incorporated counter-factual processes. When first developed in the late 19th Century, assumptions; advanced computer modelling and simulation’. simulation models contained a relatively low number of compo- The world models of the 1970s thus laid the groundwork for the nents. These models, based on emerging and more sophisticated and complex Earth System models of today (see e.g. Wiener, 1961), the well known Lotka-Volterra (see Claussen et al., 2000). In these recent ‘Earth simulation equations (Volterra, 1926), and several derivatives thereof, machines’ (Schellnhuber, 1999, p. 20) the anthropogenic forcing represented early attempts to provide decision support for resulting from human , fossil fuel use, land cover resource management and control. However, over time the natural changes and dispersal of chemicals, is directly integrated into the systems chosen for scientific enquiry became increasingly larger numerical representations of atmospheric, hydrological and and complex (see e.g. Golley, 1993). Already in the early 20th terrestrial processes (Crutzen and Steffen, 2003). In an age of Century attempts were made to represent global-scale cycling of human influence on the Earth’s biogeochemical and biogeophy- elements such as carbon (Lotka, 1924, 1956). sical cycles, representations of the ‘Anthropocene’ are seen as During the following decades this modelling tradition, assisted necessary in order to fully understand and predict the ‘ecosphere’s’ by the build-up of analogue as well as digital computer technology, complex cycling of carbon, nutrients and chemicals (Dearing, was further developed for applications on ecological, biogeochem- 2007). Following the legacy of the IGY, the contemporary Earth System models rest upon input from a worldwide infrastructure of 1 See: www.sciconf.igbp.kva.se/Amsterdam_Declaration.html). in situ measurement stations, Earth observation satellites and 10 E. Lo¨vbrand et al. / Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 7–13 paleoenvironmental data archives. Since the late 1980s this global- human fossil fuel use (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000). Since this scale data collection has been coordinated by international science early phase of industrialisation, human exploitation of the Earth’s programmes such as the IGBP, WCRP and IHDP. Following the end resources has increased dramatically and is now, according to the of the Cold War, the space-based capacity of this scientific Anthropocene logic, so pervasive and profound in its consequences infrastructure has also become increasingly internationalised. that it is influencing the very dynamics and functioning of Earth When the Soviet Union in 1957 was declared ‘the first winner in itself. this grand cooperative race to enrich geophysical knowledge by The idea that we live on ‘a human-dominated planet’ (Vitousek means of earth satellites’ (Sydney Chapman cited in Sullivan, 1961, et al., 1997) is hard to separate from the range of methods and p. 69), scientific earth observations were closely tied to matters of techniques used to detect the environmental consequences of national security and military surveillance. Although concerns human activity. As explained by Lubchenko (1998), the Anthro- over state sovereignty by no means eroded with the end of the Cold pocene concept is the result of a long series of empirical War, the U.S. decision to ‘take the pulse of the planet’ via NASA’s investigations into human transformations of land and sea Mission to Planet Earth programme in the mid 1990s (King and (through land clearing, forestry, grazing, mining, trawling), Birk, 2004) marks a shift towards a new ‘sovereignty bargain’ alterations of biogeochemical cycles (i.e. carbon, nitrogen, water whereby states sacrifice some degree of autonomy and control for and synthetic chemicals), and biodiversity loss via pollution, the benefit of space collaboration (Litfin, 1998, p. 206). At the Third hunting, fishing and human habitat destruction. These analyses of Earth Observation Summit in Brussels in 2005, a voluntary the human impress on the natural environment build upon the partnership was formed between 72 governments and 46 legacy of environmental scholars such as naturalist George Perkins intergovernmental and national organisations. The aim of this Marsh (1874), biogeochemists Alfred J. Lotka (1924, 1956) and international partnership is to build a ‘Global Earth Observation Vladimir Vernadsky (1945), ecologists Eugene and Howard Odum System of Systems’ (GEOSS) that will exchange and coordinate the (see e.g., Odum E.P, 1987; Odum H.T, 1987), and geographer Denis data obtained from all Earth observation satellites orbiting the Cosgrove (2001) who all carried the image of mankind as a planet. Through a systematic tracking of changes in all physical, ‘planetary geological agent’ into the 20th Century (Samson and chemical and biological systems, this international space effort Pitt, 1999). Since the growing scale of the human enterprise sets out to monitor the entire Earth, to provide ‘the full picture’ currently seems to change Earth more rapidly than we are (GEO, 2007). understanding it (Vitousek et al., 1997), advocates of Earth System A Foucauldian analytics of government does not seek to explain Science call for more comprehensive studies of the global life- which national interests that are served by this internationally support system. In order to safely steer the planet through the coordinated space programme, nor how it plays into the balance- Anthropocene crisis, detailed studies of the various components of of-power among states in the post Cold War era. Rather, in this the Earth System are perceived as necessary in combination with a paper we ask how the ‘world picture’ provided by satellite imagery, systemic approach that maps their many inter-linkages and Earth System models and internationally coordinated data-sets feedbacks (Moore III, 2000). acts upon human identities and interests and hereby renders new In this planetary monitoring project, the Anthropocene logic is political arrangements thinkable. When analysing the legacy of the not challenged as such. In line with the Enlightenment’s scientific IGY from this perspective, the making of the Earth System as a episteme (cf. Reith, 2004), Earth System Science harbours an natural kind emerges as one of its most path-breaking achieve- inherent confidence that a better understanding of the effects of ments. Apart from being depicted as the ‘single most peaceful the ‘human plundering of the Earth’s resources’ (Crutzen and activity of mankind since the Renaissance and the Copernican Steffen, 2003) will lift veils of ignorance and allow mankind to Revolution’ (Hugh Odishaw cited in Sullivan, 1961, p. 4), the enter a more mature stage of the Anthropocene (Schellnhuber, systematic tracking of geophysical data incepted in 1957 also 1999; Schellnhuber et al., 2005). Mechanistic metaphors such as paved the way for what has been described as a complete Earth the ‘planetary machinery’ (Steffen et al., 2004, p. 9), or ‘the engine reconnaissance, a second Copernican revolution (Schellnhuber, room of the Earth System’ (Schellnhuber, 1999, p. 21), tap into 1999; cf. also WCED, 1987, p.1). The planetary monitoring systems nature concepts born during the scientific revolution when set in motion during the IGY, and epitomised by the contemporary machines became the symbol for the order, certainty and Earth System Science Partnership, ‘enable us to look back on our predictability generated by physical laws. According to the planet to perceive one single, complex, dissipative, dynamic entity, managerial mentality of this early modern period, nature can be far from the thermodynamic equilibrium – the ‘Earth System’’ controlled by its human operator when fully described and (Schellnhuber, 1999, p. 20). predicted by science (Merchant, 1983, p. 230). The optimistic view of human control and self-determination embedded in this 4. The Anthropocene imagery ‘Enlightenment programme of science’ (Sarewitz, 2000) is closely tied to modernity’s break with tradition and the unfolding of As highlighted above, governmentality studies insist that the political ideals such as individual autonomy and self-realisation, technologies, procedures, calculations and instruments humans reason and popular sovereignty. Habermas (1998) views the use to engage with the world embody forms of truth or an French Revolution in the late 18th Century as the symbolic cradle underlying mentality. By making certain aspects of reality visible, for this emancipated individual called to be the author of his/her diagnosed and stable, these material conditions enable thought to destiny. work upon an object and thus (re)produce systems of meaning When steering ‘spaceship Earth’ (Boulding, 1971) through the (Rose and Miller, 1992). In the following section we examine ‘the Anthropocene era, advocates of Earth System Science draw upon Anthropocene’ as a central system of thought mediated by Earth this revolutionary mentality. Acting as an agent of ‘humanity as a System Science. According to Crutzen’s and Stoermer’s (2000) self-conscious control force that has conquered the planet’ original definition, the Anthropocene represents a new geological (Schellnhuber, 1999, p. 22), Earth System Science seeks to foster e´poque dominated by human activity. Following data retrieved rational and responsible choices on the system’s level. Paradoxi- from glacial ice cores, the Anthropocene era is traced back to cally, the Anthropocene imagery is at the same time deeply the latter part of the 18th Century when global atmospheric embedded in widespread uncertainty and the retreat of the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane began to rise due to Absolute. Representations of the Earth System do not only E. Lo¨vbrand et al. / Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 7–13 11 reproduce perceptions of nature as a predictable and machine-like ‘nature’ and ‘society’ as distinct domains stems from the Enlight- object, stabilising after disturbance (cf. Bodin and Wiman, 2007). enment era when nature became knowable through the inter- Tapping into theories of complex systems, Earth System Science is mediary of modern science and society turned into a vehicle for also concerned with non-linearity, the existence of bifurcations, human emancipation. In a time when the human impress is flips between multiple unstable equilibriums, and physically everywhere, this distinction breaks down and human attachments chaotic behaviour (cf. Wiman, 1991). This thought tradition is are rendered explicit (Latour, 2007). Everything becomes social far less visible in modern science until formulated by Edward and the ‘natural order of things’ is challenged. Lorenz in the 1960s, in terms of mathematics and fluid dynamics By advancing the ‘coupled human and ecological system’ as a (Lorenz, 1963), and, in the 1970s, by Robert May in ecology (May, new analytical category, Earth System Science is not only offering a 1976). It emphasises the difficulties (as implied in physical chaos novel way of seeing and conceptualising the interplay between theory; cf. Mason et al., 1986) with predicting systemic responses nature and society. A new political space for government to impact and manipulation. intervention is also in the making. In governmentality studies This parallel heritage of the Anthropocene mentality departs the representation of and acting upon a phenomenon constitutes from the certitude of the Enlightenment era and places the Earth two sides of the same coin. Objects can only be governed when System enterprise in a phase of modernity when, according to Beck they are represented and conceptualised in a way that can enter (1992), the undesired side effects of modernisation challenge the the sphere of conscious political calculation. It is only very recently, very foundations of human rationality and progress. This reflexive however, that Earth System Science has raised questions about dimension of the Anthropocene is characterised by ambivalence. governance. In 2002, the Global Analysis, Interpretation and As argued by Reith (2004, p. 393), ‘the profound uncertainty Modelling Task Force (GAIM) of the IGBP outlined a series of generated within a globalized, indeterministic world erodes the questions anticipating the advent of a unified Earth System Science basis for decision making, freezes action, and ultimately blocks the that encompasses ‘the natural and the socioeconomic dimensions possibility of forward movement into the future. Indeed, the future in a balanced way’ (GAIM, 2002, p. 1). The 23 questions were no longer exists as something that is open to ‘colonization’ by divided into analytical, operational, normative and strategic issues. confident, rational action, but rather as a site of anxiety, full of The last category contains questions about biosphere governance unknowns, that is not amenable to human intervention’. Some such as: ‘what are the options and caveats for technological fixes Earth System scientists have responded to the challenge of like geoengineering and genetic modification?’; ‘what is the indeterminacy and risk in the Anthropocene era by proclaiming structure of an effective and efficient system of global environment a new social contract for science (Lubchenko, 1998; Kates et al., & development institutions?’ While brief, these questions beg us to 2001; Ja¨ger, 2006). Acknowledging the limits to scientific reflect upon the political rationalities through which the Earth prediction and control, this contract departs from the hubris of System may be governed. the Enlightenment era and opens up for a sense of scientific Our analysis does not point to the existence of one homo- humility. geneous political rationality. Rather, the ambiguous Anthropocene As suggested by Walker (1999), the study of the Earth System imagery opens up for a range of possible government programmes takes science out of the controlled environment of the laboratory for sustainability. At the extreme ends of this imagery we identify into a more complex and less predictable reality where repeatable two programmes that we here call ‘management first’ and ‘ethics experimentation is no longer possible. Rather than aiming to first’. The ‘management first’ approach draws upon the optimistic provide straightforward solutions in this complex environment, view of human control and self-determination embedded in Earth Kates et al. (2001) point to the needs for a science of sustainability System thinking and focuses on options and caveats for that connects the estranged scientific enterprise with lay technological fixes and geoengineering. Geoengineering2 involves experiences and practical knowledge. ‘(I)n a world put at risk by direct control and manipulation of the Earth System and invokes the unintended consequences of scientific progress, participatory notions of hierarchical steering and expert management. Accord- procedures involving scientists, stakeholders, advocates, active ing to Crutzen (2002), in the Anthro- citizens, and users of knowledge are critically needed’ (Kates et al., pocene ‘will require appropriate human behaviour at all scales, and 2001, p. 641). In contrast to the planetary outlook of Earth System may well involve internationally accepted, large-scale geo- Science, emerges as a more place-based engineering projects, for instance to ‘optimize’ climate’. Among research agenda (Ja¨ger, 2006). Although this ‘softer’ version of a wide range of propositions – dating back several decades – are Earth System Science reinterprets the role of science in the schemes for curbing global (tropospheric) warming through Anthropocene, it neither contests the urgency and accuracy the injecting dust (aerosols) into the stratosphere (see Wiman, Anthropocene imagery nor doubts the necessity of a coupled 1995; Crutzen, 2006; Kintisch, 2007). Although widely debated human-ecological systems approach. within the climate science community (see, for instance, Kellogg and Schneider, 1974; Crutzen, 2006; Bengtsson, 2006; Hulme, 5. Implications: where does Earth System Science take us? 2008), such proposals often lack a sense of their historical place, political content and practical implications (cf. Ashley, 1983). We have in this paper argued that Earth System Science offers a As a political rationality, efforts to monitor and manage the new interpretation of the relationship between nature and society. Earth System share characteristics with Jeremy Bentham’s design Through the achievements of this new ‘science of integration’, in the 1780s of a prison (the Panopticon) that enforces the commenced during the International Geophysical Year in 1957 and expectation of a singular ‘eye of power’ (Ashley, 1983, p. 529). As epitomised by the Amsterdam Declaration in 2001, humankind is perceived by Litfin (1997), such a ‘global gaze’ may become a today understood as an aggregate entity comprising not just the totalising perspective that omits human agency and privileges the activities of those who happen to live on Earth right now. In the Anthopocene era ‘men’ make more than history — they make 2 geological history. One implication of the understanding of The term ‘geoengineering’ was perhaps used first by IIASA scientist Marchetti in 1971; see Wiman B.L.B., 2002. Climate Engineering. Concepts, Examples, and Risks. humanity as a geological agent is the dissolution of the nature- In: Yotova A. (Ed.), Natural Resources System Challenge: Climate Change, Humans society divide and a transformation of what counts as social Systems and Policy, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, Eloss Publishers Co., connections. According to Latour (2004), the understanding of Oxford, UK [http://www.eolss.net]. 12 E. Lo¨vbrand et al. / Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 7–13 vantage point of a technical elite. It is only with a view from space project has extended the scope and role of science in the that (the illusion of) becomes possible Anthropocene era. However, so far this research agenda seems (Litfin, 1997). This extreme interpretation of the Anthropocene to accept the Earth System metaphor as a given starting point for challenge finds its counter-point in the ‘ethics first’ approach. its theoretical and empirical achievements. Humbled by the scale, complexity and vulnerability of the Earth We have here advanced Earth System governmentality as an System, this political programme highlights the need for a new alternative analytical concept. Earth System governmentality can ethical framework for Earth (cf. the Amsterdam be identified as a mode of analysis that resists the Earth System Declaration3 and Bologna, 2008). The political heritage of Earth metaphor as a natural point of departure for global environmental stewardship dates back at least to Immanuel Kant and his notion of change research and instead focuses on the range of practices that globus terraqueus—i.e. the natural right of all human beings to a have produced the ‘coupled human and ecological system’ as a share of the Earth that supersedes the juridical division of the thinkable and governable domain. By drawing attention to the planet into separate sovereign states. As put by Dalby (2004), the close links between thought and intervention, Earth System Anthropocene requires a new ethics since ‘ecology at the largest governmentality examines how the Anthropocene imagery works scale, that of the biosphere, is the required backdrop for upon our identities and enables new ways of being in and acting considerations of our interconnected fates’. Allenby (2006) upon nature and society. In this initial study we have identified exemplifies this line of thinking in the first issue of the journal ambiguities in the Anthopocene imagery in terms of (1) the ‘Sustainability Science’ where he calls for a new macro-ethical persons over whom government is to be exercised (autonomous competence that may replace existing ethical structures (at and rational individuals vs. ecologically embedded citizens); (2) individual and institutional levels). the distribution of tasks and actions between authorities (expert- Litfin (2005) takes a first step towards such an ethical driven, central government vs. deliberative, popular control); and framework when aligning human purposes with the ‘function (3) contrasting ideals or principles for how government should be of Gaia’. Her vision of ‘Gaian democracies’ on global scales implies directed (control and management vs. humility and reflexive- aclearbreakwithmoderninstitutionssuchasthesovereignstate ness). Considering these tensions in Earth System thinking, we and the autonomous and free individual. In Litfin’s (2005, p. 514) find it timely to complement contemporary Earth System studies framework, ‘(h)ierarchical structures of domination would give with a critical and self-reflective research component that way to participatory networks, and symbiosis would displace investigates the new forms of power, authority and subjectivity competition as the defining modality in economic exchange’. formed within the every-day practices of its own scholarship. Another ethical perspective that may gain renewed attention in Such a research agenda would initiate a critical discussion on the the Anthropocene era is that of eco-centric philosophy. Descrip- kind-making of contemporary global environmental change tions of the world as an intrinsically dynamic, interconnected research and thus examine the politics of science in the web of relations in which there are no dividing lines between the Anthropocene era. living and non-living, or the human and non-human (Eckersly, 1990, p. 749) resonate well with the Anthropocene imagery. Acknowledgements While the governmentality concept allows us to speculate on the political implications of Earth System thinking, it does not tell us The authors want to acknowledge the financial support which political rationality that is more desirable. Neither does it provided by the SPARC (Science Policy Assessment and Research imply that any of the two approaches outlined here represents on Climate) project at the University of Colorado, Boulder, the LiU given ends of government in the Anthropocene era. 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