“we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction in the history of the planet, in which 25 to 40 percent of all species are expected to disappear by 2050.”
“Which leads to the question that Ashley Dawson’s slim and forceful book, Extinction: A Radical History, aims to answer: how can we stem the tide? By identifying capitalism as the primary culprit, and placing the current mass extinction in the context of ongoing struggles for social and environmental justice, Dawson points the way toward appropriate forms of conservation for an era of devastating loss.”
“Why has half the planet’s wildlife disappeared over the last 40 years? Why are we losing approximately 100 species every day? The answer, Dawson argues, lies not in the proximate drivers of extinction (deforestation, habitat fragmentation, poaching, overfishing, and climate change) but in the nature of capitalism itself.”
“Whereas recent popular works on extinction (such as Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History) and climate change (such as Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate) have shied away from calling for an explicitly anticapitalist environmental politics, Extinction makes a compelling case for its urgent necessity.”
“It does so through an “etiology of the present catastrophe” that combines deft historical synthesis with a careful attention to economic and racial inequality and the legacies of imperialism.”
“Because of its demand for ceaseless expansion and its emphasis on anthropocentric utility as the sole criterion of value, capitalism tends to degrade the conditions of its own material reproduction.”
“In this light, the exploitative features of modern capitalism become “particularly starkly evident when seen through the lens of extinction.””
“Dawson’s training in postcolonial literature makes him keenly aware of the importance of cultural narratives, and he begins with one of the oldest surviving human stories, The Epic of Gilgamesh, which he reads as a legitimizing myth of the deforestation practiced by the ancient Sumerian city-state of Uruk.”
“Population pressures and unsustainable agricultural practices had disastrous consequences for Uruk and the region: the surrounding forest and its creatures, which the god Humbaba had protected, were transformed into desert remarkably quickly.”
“Dawson follows this narrative up to the present day, describing the shifting cultural norms regarding animals and nature from ancient Rome through European colonization.”
“Colonialism had dramatic environmental consequences that scholars have only recently appreciated: colonists transported countless invasive species, forced indigenous peoples into integration in destructive market economies (such as the fur trade), and decimated native cultures that were efficient environmental managers.”
“In addition, Europeans carried with them and attempted to impose cultural beliefs that inspired and permitted their conquest. The ideology of dominating and mastering a passive (feminine) nature was “intended to justify European expropriation of indigenous people and their land” but also “established an exploitative attitude toward flora and fauna” that continues to the present day.”
“Echoing many scholars in the environmental humanities, Dawson argues that much of the proliferating discourse on the Anthropocene (the current era in which humans act as a geologic force) falsely portrays a monolithic “humanity” as a natural architect of mass extinction.”
“Dawson rightly refuses to see a propensity for environmental degradation as a core element of human nature (if such a thing can be said to exist), noting that cultures and practices of relative sustainability were developed and maintained by indigenous peoples and inhabitants of the global South for millennia.”
“Since our diagnosis of the causes of the contemporary mass extinction necessarily frames our response to it, the question of whether contemporary rapacity equals that of prehistoric homo sapiens sapiens is critical. Dawson points out that this equivalence is not only “historically inaccurate” but “politically disempowering.””
“such a Jurassic Park approach constitutes a form of “neoliberal disaster biocapitalism,” in which mass extinction becomes an opportunity for new forms of property, accumulation, and control.”
“(As McKenzie Funk showed in his book Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming, climate change presents similar opportunities for eco-profiteering.)”
“What must be constructed instead, Dawson forcefully argues, is a form of “radical conservation.” This would require recognizing that “the extinction crisis is at once an environmental issue and a social justice issue, one that is linked to long histories of capitalist domination over specific people, animals, and plants.””
“Dawson’s prescriptions build on initiatives from the global climate justice movement, including the adoption of “degrowth” (minimizing economic growth and consumption), the seizing of assets of major fossil-fuel corporations, and a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions, which would fund renewable energy generation, technology transfer to vulnerable nations, and compensation for eco-victims.”
“It is here that Extinction disappoints in its brevity: a fuller explanation of these measures would have offered a useful contribution to the emerging literature on environmental politics in the Anthropocene.”
““we cannot let the present state of affairs determine our horizon of hope and sense of possibility.””
“desire to inspire appropriate collective action. While its candor may remind readers of recent eco-apocalyptic meditations (such as Roy Scranton’s Learning to Die in the Anthropocene), Extinction provides an implicit rebuke to their contention that “we’re fucked” and can only accommodate ourselves — philosophically, culturally, psychologically — to a now-inevitable collapse.”
“Though undeniably cathartic, such potentially self-fulfilling claims hide more than they reveal. In particular, they obfuscate historical and present responsibilities for contemporary environmental crises, the buffer provided by wealth, power, and privilege (for nations and individuals), and our ability to mitigate and adapt to whatever changes lie in store.”
“Extinction — and the environmental justice movement that inspires it — seeks to shift our perspective from the beneficiaries of “civilization” to the human and nonhuman victims of its exploitation and ecological destruction.”
“Extinction is intended as a primer, and it builds on and points readers toward more detailed and nuanced treatments.”
“On the affective dimensions of extinction, readers might consult Thomas van Dooren’s elegant Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction, which demonstrates the entanglement and mutual constitution of humans and nonhumans through six heartbreaking stories of avian extinction.”
“On the historical and current relationship between capitalism and that thing we call “the environment,” Jason W. Moore’s Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital seems poised to become a foundational text, synthesizing environmentalist and Marxist perspectives to argue that capitalism has always been a fundamentally ecological project.”
“Sadly, these and many other innovative and important works in the environmental humanities are aimed primarily at academic readers.”
“Extinction: A Radical History makes a case for being the most accessible and politically engaged examination of the current mass extinction, and is therefore a welcome contribution to the growing literature on this slow-motion calamity.”
“Matthew Schneider-Mayerson is assistant professor of social sciences (environmental studies) at Yale-NUS College. He is the author of Peak Oil: Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2015).”