The Anthropocene: The Politics of a Changing Environment

A post this weekend on John McDonnell’s Facebook page (don’t judge my political views - I'm a UCL student after all!) revealed Labour’s plan to put “climate change at the centre of [their] economic policy”. Labour is clearly challenging the Conservative Party to move climate change issues higher on the agenda. Whether this is the proactive governance that I'll be focusing on throughout the blog or political chatter to gain a few points is yet to be seen. We can only hope that Wednesday’s budget responds to these calls for environmental protection and that UK politics continues to progress in matters of conservation.   John McDonnell | Tackling Climate Change Will Be Labour's Mora... In next week's Budget, the Conservatives could do what the next Labour Government will and put climate change at the very centre of economic policy making. Posted by John McDonnell on Saturday, 18 November 2017

The melting of Arctic sea ice is a phenomenon many of you will be familiar with. However, you may not be aware of the impact of these changes on international politics. The Arctic has long been a site of political contestation , being of key strategic importance during the Cold War. Its location between the (then) Soviet Union and the USA   led to an initial ‘battle’   over its control. However, as ice cover has receded in recent decades, the race for Arctic resources has taken off. Satellite images from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Figure 1 highlight how dramatic Arctic sea retreat has been since 1979, with an average 12% reduction per decade . Anthropogenically linked climate change is causing profound changes in Arctic ecosystems, a region more sensitive than most due to complex feedback mechanisms known as ‘polar amplification’ . Temperatures have risen 1.1°C within the last 50 years , twice the rate of the rest of the globe, and with up ...

In my first post, I spoke about the Paris Conference as the inspiration behind my focus on the relationship between politics and the environment. So when the debate surrounding President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Agreement re-emerged on my BBC News app last week, it seemed too important to ignore. In June, Trump  cited the threat to sovereignty, undermining of the economy and being taken advantage of as reasons to pull out. To me, Trump is portraying the Paris Agreement as an enemy attacking America, and by withdrawing he can achieve an easy ‘win’. President Trump’s famous words from that speech, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris” have stuck with me and I offer you US Astronaut Scott Kelly’s tweet in response. Withdrawing from the #ParisAgreement will be devastating to our planet. Paris and Pittsburgh share the same environment after all. pic.twitter.com/QNO5vHtmEF — Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) June 1, 2017 Over the co...

It was the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) that initially directed my attention to the politics of our environment. The notion that 195 countries, so often at odds or even at war with each other, could possibly sit down and come to an agreement that benefits perhaps not themselves but the planet as a whole, seemed, well…absurd. Add to this the complex histories of development that have unfairly advantaged certain countries over others and the divides deepen. However, central to all the discussions, debates and politics was the overriding necessity of an agreement that could help knock the Earth from its current trajectory. It was this necessity, one which transcended political borders, that centred my attention on the global politics of environmental change.   In recent years it has been suggested that humankind has become a major geophysical force, influencing the global climate and pushing our environment towards a point from which it may not recover; l...