New political age?

Perhaps one of the most frightening aspects that came out of the G7 Summit in Biarritz was Trump’s answer to the question on climate change. “I want the cleanest water on Earth. I want the cleanest air on Earth. And that’s what we’re doing. And I’m an environmentalist,” he claimed. This prescient comment, in itself, articulates more than its obvious meaning. It emanates a whole new brand of politics. In an era where politicians have now become political celebrities, Trump has managed to keep the world at the edge through his witty remarks and bizarre, sometimes absurd, statements. However, the dismal picture, of an empty chair, taken during the G7 climate change session says it all. It is evident that for many decades, in a world drugged with hyper-capitalism, politics has majorly been driven by economic incentives.

However, we have already entered an epoch that is unlike any in human history – The Anthropocene, an age where human activity has a direct impact on the geological sphere. It is no longer nature, rather man that is shaping the geological structures of the earth, putting in play a whole new political evolution. Rather than rethinking institutions, practices and principles on the basis of challenges in the Anthropocene, Trump wants the best of all worlds — imagining America as a Shangri-La, which can be brought about through geological and environmental restructuring. One cannot help but imagine an extremely polarised world — a utopia bordered by a dystopia.

Trump’s statement hints at a new factor, geology, which will govern politics. The foreshadowing of another great extinction event should shatter the idea of the Cartesian man — one that separates itself from nature — rather, people like Trump are reaffirming it. One needs to look beyond the aesthetical and commercial significations of nature and acknowledge the world as charnel ground. Politically we should emphasise the concept of co-existence that has long been forgotten.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2019.

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