Beyond human security — Astra Taylor on The Age of Insecurity (Massey Lecture 4)
Jan 25, 2024
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Astra Taylor, a multifaceted individual, discusses the manufactured insecurity in society, urging solidarity with all species. She explores the erosion of human security, future scenarios amidst climate crisis, Anishinaabe principles, legal rights to nature, crucial role of beavers in conservation, conservation ethics instilled by her grandmother, and the interconnectedness of life for future solutions.
Global Trends Report highlights escalating insecurity due to climate change and environmental degradation.
Legal frameworks recognizing rights of nature challenge Western legal paradigms for ecological democracy.
Eleanor Ostrom's research supports sustainable commons management through community-based governance structures.
Deep dives
The Global Trends Report on Climate Change and Rising Insecurity
The Global Trends Report anticipates the challenges threatening humanity, primarily focusing on expanding uncertainty and human security erosion. The report highlights the intersection of challenges such as extreme weather events, water misuse, geoengineering, and societal changes contributing to escalating insecurity. The authors warn that the effects of climate change and environmental degradation will exacerbate food and water insecurity, migration, and biodiversity losses, particularly impacting the most vulnerable populations globally.
Evaluating Imagined Scenarios for the Future
The Global Trends Report presents five imagined scenarios depicting potential trajectories for the uncertain future. These scenarios range from a dystopian world with broken globalization to a hopeful vision of a global revolution leading to a Human Security Council. The report underscores the urgent need for transformative actions to avert the bleak outcomes outlined, emphasizing the critical role of bold systemic changes in addressing environmental, public health, and poverty challenges.
The Rights-based Approach and Environmental Activism
Environmental activists are increasingly leveraging legal frameworks to advocate for the rights of children, future generations, and the more than human world. This rights-based approach has led to significant victories globally, symbolized by legal personhood granted to natural entities like rivers and ancestral forests. By recognizing the rights of nature, this movement challenges Western legal paradigms and calls for a shift towards fostering ecological democracy and protecting biodiversity.
Challenging the Tragedy of the Commons Narrative
Eleanor Ostrom's research challenges Garrett Hardin's 'Tragedy of the Commons' narrative by showcasing successful long-term communal resource management practices worldwide. Ostrom's work debunks the notion that common resources are doomed to destruction by selfish individuals and highlights the effectiveness of community-based governance structures in sustaining scarce resources. By emphasizing the potential for sustainable commons management, Ostrom advocates for cooperative and participatory approaches to ecological security.
Reflecting on Historical Lessons and Reimagining Security
Reflecting on historical ecological mismanagement and colonial legacies, the narrative emphasizes the interconnectedness between human actions and environmental consequences. A critical examination of private property notions, the tragedy of overpopulation, and modern challenges like pandemics and extinction underscores the need for a redefined approach to security. Proposals for a 'solidarity state' that integrates ecological considerations and prioritizes shared responsibilities reflect a call for transformative societal and political shifts towards sustainability and interdependence.
An appeal for solidarity with species other than our own, in this fourth Massey lecture by renowned Canadian-American filmmaker, writer, political organiser, rock musician and self-described 'feral intellectual' Astra Taylor. We, Them, Us, our stories and actions are all intimately intertwined across space, place, and time. In her thought-provoking CBC Massey lectures, Astra explores how our society now runs on heightened sense of manufactured insecurity. Can that be unmade?
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