Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene In Stock Now

Humans have become so powerful that we have disrupted the functioning of the Earth System as a whole, bringing on a new geological epoch --the Anthropocene-- one in which the serene and clement conditions that allowed civilisation to flourish are disappearing and we quail before 'the wakened giant'.

What does it mean to have arrived at this point, where human history and Earth history collide? For Clive Hamilton, the Anthropocene demands that we rethink everything. The modern belief in the free, reflexive being making its own future by taking control of its environment is now impossible because we have rendered the Earth more unpredictable and less controllable, a disobedient planet. At the same time, all attempts by progressives to cut humans down to size by attacking anthropocentrism come up against the insurmountable fact that human beings now possess enough power to change the Earth's course.