"The distubring fact that the drama has been completed and the main revolutionary act is behind us."  

"How to understand the active role of human agency not only in the construction of facts, but also in the very existence of the phenomenon those facts are trying to denounce?"

"Our utter impotence when confronted with the ecologial threat"  ... "human actors may arrive too late on the stage to have any remedial role"

Latour says that the most crucial task is to "distribute agency as far and in as differential a way as possible", what does he mean by this and how can we achive this?

1. Humans have changed the earth even though we have lived here for a short time compared to the earth's long history

2. The real world and situations are not so dramatic than the stories that attract people in newspapers or medias. It is not sudden nor surprising.

3. We cannot see the earth separate from us anymore. 

Question: By writing this abstract essay, how does the author think that he can change the situation? It is not concrete. It is the observation or analysis of human and the earth. I think he is separating himself from the situation.

On Gendered Silence

1. What sort of agency this new Earth should be granted? (4)

In respect to subject and object relationship between nature and human

Earth has now taken back all the characteristics of a full-fledged actor. (3)

Earth as an agitated and sensitive being, full of actions and movements.

Human societies resigned themselves to playing the role of the dumb object, while the nature has unexpectedly taken on that of the active subject! (12)

2. How the different types of entities mobilized in geostory might be able to swap the various traits that define their agencies? (6)

In Agency at the Time of Anthropocene, by Bruno Latour, the three main ideas are:

·      The idea of “subject and object”. The human and the human actions are visible objects. However, human and human actions are at the same time subjective

1. We have reached a dangerous point where many of our actions are irreversible. We no longer have the option of establishing a cooperative relationship with the Earth but must instead try to mitigate what we have already done and what we are now doing (and what the Earth is doing to us.)

2. The Earth/nature is not a distinct and unresponsive entity; it is "moving" in response to human actions.

3. Understanding the effect we have on the Earth (and the effect it has on us) requires us to reexamine the objective, "scientific" way of thinking and bring back some of the older ways of looking at the Earth.

"Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene" by Bruno Latour

3 Main Ideas:

• The traditional sense of objectivity in natural science is gone because the problem is here and now and not some abstract idea.
• Just like how Galileo was ridiculed for saying the Earth moved, modern day climate scientists are not taken seriously for saying climate change is occuring. For Galileo the problem was religion for the modern day scientists, economics.
• The only way to stop climate change is to work together as a planet and yet thay may be impossible due to politics, economics, and war.

Question:

• In the article, what is animation?

Main Points: 

1. Humans cannot grasp the vast problem of climate change, and no certain group of humans can bear the responsibility. 

2. Autonomy is not possible, everyone and everything is connected. Even scientific reports that seem objective are connected to the larger environmental problems in the world. 

3. Humans think of action as being in the past, and creating current situations but what is happening now is animated and subjective, and needs to be thought of that way. 

Question: Is it possible to stop placing nature and the physical Earth environment in the past and think of it as currently active? Or are humans doomed to be stuck to their definitions and contexts from the past? 

Main ideas:

1. We as the human race, not just a specific group of humans, are responsible for all the environmental change that has occured

2. We need to "shift our attention away from the domains of nature and society toward the common source of agency" (Latour 13)

3. There is no objectivity: "the very notion of objectivity has been totally subverted by the presence of of humans..." (Latour 3)

Question:

What is the neccesity of deanimation?