This paper presents three different metaphors for sustainability in the Anthropocene. The first metaphor is the widely used notion of an ‘ecological footprint’, which offers a snapshot of what sustainability would require today using existing technologies. The second metaphor is one of a rocket taking off. Unlike the static footprint metaphor, this metaphor allows for the possibility that achieving a long-term sustainable trajectory might require entering a temporary state of even higher levels of unsustainability. Finally a third metaphor is presented, in which human civilisation is likened to an airplane and modernity to a runway. This metaphor suggests that sustainability can be achieved either by (1) a take-off into a post-scarcity space-faring civilisation or (2) a deceleration into a small-scale economy based on norms of frugality and simplicity. The third metaphor highlights the risk that insufficient political commitment to either trajectory might lead to (3) a catastrophic ecological overshoot.
Arias-MaldonadoM (2013) Real Green: Sustainability After the End of Nature. Farnham: Ashgate.
2.
Asafu-AdjayeJBlomqvistLBrandS et al. (2015) An Ecomodernist Manifesto. Available at: http://www.ecomodernism.org/.
3.
BakerS (2006) Sustainable Development. New York: Routledge.
4.
BostromN (2003) Astronomical waste: The opportunity cost of delayed technological development. Utilitas15(3): 308–314.
5.
BostromN (2010) Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
6.
BostromN (2013) Existential risk prevention as global priority. Global Policy4(1): 15–31.
7.
BrookBWEllisECPerringMP. (2013) Does the terrestrial biosphere have planetary tipping points?Trends in Ecology & Evolution28(7): 396–401.
8.
BrownTL (2003) Making Truth: Metaphor in Science. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
9.
CafaroPCristE (eds) (2012) Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
10.
CeballosGEhrlichPRBarnoskyAD. (2015) Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances1(5): e1400253.
11.
ConnellyS (2007) Mapping sustainable development as a contested concept. Local Environment12(3): 259–278.
12.
CowenT (2011) The Great Stagnation. New York: Dutton.
13.
CristE (2013) On the poverty of our nomenclature. Environmental Humanities3: 129–147.
14.
CrutzenPJ (2006) Albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulfur injections: A contribution to resolve a policy dilemma?Climatic Change77(3): 211–220.
15.
FosterJBClarkBYorkR (2011) The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. New York: Monthly Review Press.
16.
FullerSLipińskaV (2014) The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
17.
GardinerS (2011) A Perfect Moral Storm. The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
18.
GatA (2013) Is war declining–and why?Journal of Peace Research50(2): 149–157.
19.
HamiltonCGemenneFBonneuilC (eds) (2015) The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis: Rethinking Modernity in a New Epoch. Milton Park: Routledge.
20.
HuesemannMHuesemannJ (2011) Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.
21.
JamiesonD (2014) Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed–and What it Means for Our Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
22.
KarlssonR (2013a) Ambivalence, irony, and democracy in the Anthropocene. Futures46: 1–9.
23.
KarlssonR (2013b) Modernity as a runway. Conference paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Hollywood, California, 28–30 March, 2013.
24.
KellyP (2011) Avatar … and the ‘sustainabullies’ of higher education. Journal of Futures Studies15(3): 103–116.
25.
KleinN (2014) This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. London: Allen Lane.
26.
KnightJ (2015) Anthropocene futures: People, resources and sustainability. The Anthropocene Review2(2): 152–158.
27.
LarsonB (2011) Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability: Redefining our Relationship with Nature. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
28.
LewisMW (1992) Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
29.
LewisSLMaslinMA (2015) Defining the Anthropocene. Nature519(7542): 171–180.
30.
LomborgB (ed.) (2004) Global Crises, Global Solutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
31.
ManiatesMMyerJM (eds) (2010) The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
PrincenT (2011) Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
34.
QvistSABrookBW (2015) Potential for worldwide displacement of fossil-fuel electricity by nuclear energy in three decades based on extrapolation of regional deployment data. PLoS ONE10(5): e0124074.
35.
RockströmJSteffenWNooneK. (2009) Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society14(2): 1–32.
36.
SchlesingerMLauRR (2000) The meaning and measure of policy metaphors. American Political Science Review94(03): 611–626.
37.
ShueH (1995) Ethics, the environment and the changing international order. International Affairs71(3): 453–461.
StockhammerE (2012) Rising inequality as a root cause of the present crisis. University of Massachusetts Amherst Political Economy Research Institute Working Paper 282.
40.
SymonsJKarlssonR (2015) Green political theory in a climate changed world: Between innovation and restraint. Environmental Politics24(2): 173–192.
41.
Van den BerghJC (2011) Environment versus growth – A criticism of ‘degrowth’ and a plea for ‘a-growth’. Ecological Economics70(5): 881–890.
42.
VogelS (2015) Thinking Like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
43.
WackernagelMReesW (1996) Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.
44.
WapnerP (2010) Living Through the End of Nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
45.
WelzelC (2013) Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
