L.I.S.A.: Planetary thinking inevitably means to take humans out of the centre of things, or even provincialize them in their relationship to the planet. Accordingly, humans make up just one of many forms of life and nature on this planet. There needs to be some levelling, say the advocates of planetary thinking. On the other hand, a turnaround towards saving the planet – with the key ideas here being climate change, species extinction, overpopulation, etc. – should come from human beings, which would once again put them front and centre. And all this is still against the background that human beings are now perceived as a geological and geophysical force. How can we reconcile these – on the one hand a kind of self-renunciation, a withdrawal of man, and on the other the attribution of an active “rescue agenda” in times of the Anthropocene?
Dr. Hanusch: The Anthropocene would be misunderstood if it were to recognize human impacts on Planet Earth and derive anthropocentric solution strategies from it. Planetary constellations are always two-sided and multidimensional: Planetary forces affect human societies, and these conversely affect planetary forces. Allow me therefore to clarify: First, the challenge often headlined as overpopulation is not overpopulation of the planet at all, but rather the resource-intensive lifestyle of a rich minority, which includes us. Second, the partial state of emergency due to the Corona pandemic and also climate change and species extinction do not jeopardize the “survival” of the planet; however, they do demand that we set new priorities with regard to the generations living today and those to come. Precisely for the development of these things, planetary thinking lays the foundations for a theory of knowledge by exploring new perspectives and asking the big questions again. However, it neither provides a rescue agenda nor does it call for retreat.
At this point, it’s worth taking a step back and naming a few of these fundamentals. In planetary thinking, the planet-human relationships take centre stage, to which the following characteristics are attributed: Firstly, they are metabolic, since they involve flows of matter between planets and people without equating the two spheres and lapsing into material relativism. Secondly, they are re-centring, since they relieve human of some special position without thereby releasing them from their responsibilities. Thirdly, they are transversal, since things and concepts like nature and culture become connected without dissolving into each other.
So what does that mean when it comes to humans assuming responsibility? An anthropology that is neither anthropocentric nor planetocentric would have to define responsibility in terms of how it includes or excludes which knowing and which being. In practical terms, that means, for example, the inclusion of “companion species”: Hence, in New Zealand experiments are being conducted into recognizing rivers, mountains, or forests as legal entities and electing human spokespersons to represent their interests as in stock corporations, homeowners’ associations, or unions. In other words: Humans themselves take responsibility for themselves as humans through institutions, because despite all the effective power we ascribe to trees and mountains, their intentional agency is not equal to that of humans.