Anthropocene and Phoenix

When thinking of the idea of the Anthropocene, it’s possible to divide human wrought changes to the environment as either fleeting or enduring.

The changes to the physical geography of the Netherlands are enduring. Flevoland, IJburg, and the polders well below sea-level are likely to exists for centuries.

I don’t think Phoenix, Arizona, where I was born and grew up, will exist in anything like its current form for that much longer: decades, maybe a century. Life there depends on cheap energy to for AC everywhere and pumping in essentially all of the water that makes a modern city function.

The urban design of Phoenix maximizes the urban heat island; going out to the desert proper is a very different experience than being in the city. In the desert, even the hottest days cool off at night. Not so in the city with its endless asphalt, cement, and cars.

But people move to Phoenix for a reason, which is often cheap housing and jobs. Until a more rational approach to providing more affordable housing in more hospitable parts of the US are enacted, I don’t expect the almost comically absurd cities of the Southwest to stop growing.

The carrying capacity of the land was enough to support smaller indigenous nations. Now they’ve lost their land and had the environment trashed beyond easy repair. There’s likely no going back to their traditional ways of life, even if the Anglo-American settlers largely leave.

I’ve been thinking a lot about collective responsibility lately. This is mostly in terms of how frustrating it is to be around Russians who don’t feel the least bit of compunction about the war they passively support. Well what about those of us who grew up in and hugely benefited from life in a place like Phoenix, Arizona? In some sense, I’ve done all I can by simply leaving.

But that’s also not satisfying. But I also can’t stand the eternal pessimist, nay-sayers, modern wearers of sackcloth and ash, who introduce themselves as being from the non-ceded territory of whatever people. And so yipping about the evils of Anglo-Americana while still reaping the benefits of it isn’t for me.

I don’t have an answer for what collective responsibility should look like, but mostly from the negative example of 99.9% of Russians, I can say what it shouldn’t be a glib, welt it ain’t my fault so we’re all good, right?

And lastly, the sword of Damocles is often invisible. After Phoenix, the city I’ve spent the most time living in is Kyiv. Despite constant misgivings about Russia, and my own grandparents forced to flee their country because of Russia, I never grasped how bad the situation could become. What I mean with this is that prediction is incredibly hard, and I suspected both the techno-utopians and doomers will be wrong about many things.