UC San Diego

Global scale ecological crises are often interpreted as a fundamentally 'new' problematic. This perceived novelty has important effects on how we politically interpret the urgency these crises produce and the kind of solutions, whether cultural, institutional, or technological, that we consider appropriate or ethically defensible. This project, as a whole, responds to this perceived novelty by insisting two basic things: First, any critical theory of ecological politics in this new era must see past the seeming novelty of the Anthropocene and understand that there have been eras of history in which the actors also perceived themselves as new. In particular I will draw parallels between debates over nuclear weapons and population, both global in nature and containing green premises, and show how some of the lessons embedded there regarding humility, irreversibility, agency, and universality can benefit critical theories of 'new' eras like the Anthropocene today. Second, any political theorist seriously approaching global ecological politics must begin by expanding the existing debate beyond the technologically advanced industrial nations, which are both the principal causes of environmental degradation and the chief, and at times only, voices in the global narrative. The second half of this project follows intuitions about simultaneity and subsidiarity to assess the practical politics of localization and cultural decolonization in the context of institutional decentralization. I look at specific examples, including wildfire in California, local theories of environmental governance in the divided region of Tijuana and San Diego, and finally forest governance and municipal autonomy in Oaxaca, Mexico.