The Problem with the Anthropocene: Kainos, Not Anthropos

Almost immediately after it was mooted as a descriptor for our current geological age, the Anthropocene came under sustained criticism. It was said the label projected unearned heroism onto humanity as master of the natural world, while downplaying the culpability of the Global North for unlocking the ruinous potential of industrialism and technology (Bonneuil & Fressoz, 2016; Haraway, 2015; Malm, 2015; Moore, 2015). Numerous alternatives have been suggested to diagnose those self-destructive tendencies more precisely: Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Urbanocene, Necrocene, etc. But while the human-centric prefix of the Anthropocene continues to draw the most scrutiny, I will focus upon its latinized suffix, cænus—or rather its original Greek equivalent, kainos (“new,” “novel,” “innovative”). My concern is with the way “innovation” and “novelty” are imbued with a sense of qualitative superiority, so that the pursuit of innovation becomes an indispensable part of any strategy to ameliorate climate crisis. I argue that developing more robust responses to the Anthropocene necessitates our reckoning with the myopia of innovation—not just the inevitable uncertainties of implementing new technologies, but also the valorization of possessive ingenuity that inhibits any social utility.