HOW TO GET DOWN TO EARTH? ANTHROPOCENE, GAIA, AND GEOPHILOSOPHY
HOW TO GET DOWN TO EARTH? ANTHROPOCENE, GAIA, AND GEOPHILOSOPHY

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses different ways to conceptualise the crisis of climate change. Drawing on the ideas of Dipesh Chakrabarty and Bruno Latour, the article aims to demonstrate the oppositions between modernity and the Anthropocene, globalisation and planetization, and human history and deep Earth history. Globalisation and planetization convey distinct concepts of temporality – globalisation represents human time, whereas planetization encompasses “deep time,” both geological and biological. At the same time, these are different concepts of space: seeing the Earth from Sputnik allowed us to understand that the Earth is a planet existing alongside other planets; however, with the emergence of Earth System Science (ESS), we can analyse the planetary interaction of various systems, in which humans appear as a harmful but insignificant factor. The planet is what James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis named Gaia – a force that is completely indifferent towards humans. But who is the subject of planetization? And is it possible to conceptualise the Earth by creating a new geophilosophy?

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