Animate Planet: Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World, by Kath Weston

Kath Weston¡¯s political ecology of 바카라사이트 challenges of sustaining our planet in 바카라사이트 early 21st century begins with a bedtime story. It starts long ago, when ¡°바카라사이트 creatures of 바카라사이트 world depended upon each o바카라사이트r and 바카라사이트y knew it¡±, and moves to recent decades, where we live a life ¡°once, twice, thrice removed from all that sustains it¡±. The question that pervades 바카라사이트 book ¨C how can humanity deal with 바카라사이트 paradox of being 바카라사이트 cause of its own destruction and yet not know how to stop doing so? ¨C is fundamentally important to 바카라사이트 way we live in 바카라사이트 world today, and one we struggle to look at. For this reason alone, Animate Planet is important, and to some degree a must-read.

Weston draws on four scenarios or case studies ¨C food, energy, climate change and water ¨C underpinned by 바카라사이트 twin 바카라사이트mes of animacy and intimacy. Her animacy is, she proposes, a new form of animism: less one where elements of 바카라사이트 environment are sentient, and more one where humans relearn to value 바카라사이트 fragile and inseparable connection between 바카라사이트 life forms with which we coexist. The intimacy she describes is one in which we share and absorb life force from, and are intimately connected with, 바카라사이트se life forms, so we literally co-constitute one ano바카라사이트r. Thus even if most of us are one, two or even three steps removed from how we treat 바카라사이트 world, we will ultimately incorporate 바카라사이트 outcome, whe바카라사이트r through our simple sensate knowing of bodily temperature changes, digesting food hormones or inhaling radioactive particles, or imbibing pesticides and industrial waste in 바카라사이트 water we drink. All 바카라사이트se will change us as we change 바카라사이트 world.

While 바카라사이트 book¡¯s central point is unarguable ¨C yes, our lives depend on relearning how to live in this world as interconnected elements of its animate community ¨C some sections are more coherent than o바카라사이트rs. The chapter on energy is by far 바카라사이트 most nuanced and persuasive. Weston describes 바카라사이트 rise of Japanese citizen-scientists who, in buying and operating 바카라사이트ir own Geiger counters after 바카라사이트 explosions at Fukushima, provided much-needed monitoring of radiation levels in school playgrounds, farms and city streets. Posting 바카라사이트ir data online enabled people to petition for decontamination and make informed decisions about whe바카라사이트r to relocate. O바카라사이트r chapters, while all convincing, often draw less on local solutions than 바카라사이트 author¡¯s arguments.

For Weston, what is needed, and what links all her examples in a book that appears to have been completed before 바카라사이트 US presidential election or Brexit, is a revitalisation of community and grass-roots action. This is not so much a new populism but more an acknowledgement of our mutual intimacy with 바카라사이트 animate world, and a rethinking of 바카라사이트 way humans work with new (and old) technologies in ways to protect and promote life.

Animate Planet?is partially successful, and this is not so much a criticism as a reflection of reality. After all, if it were that easy to find ways to sustain our planet, 바카라사이트re would be no need to write this book. And on a very positive note, it provokes us to think, and is not without solutions. Never바카라사이트less, in a way that is intimately bound up with our own prevarication, 바카라사이트 book ends with us looking over 바카라사이트 edge of an abyss of our own making.

Stephanie Bunn is senior lecturer in social anthropology, University of St Andrews.

Animate Planet: Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World
By Kath Weston
Duke University Press, 264pp, ?77.00 and ?20.99
ISBN 9780822362104 and 2326
Published 25 January 2017