All That Remains? Environmental Realism in the Anthropocene

A recent turn in (some) contemporary political theory has been toward a form of 'political realism'. This is not a unidimensional change, but rather a complex reframing process, motivated by a growing dissatisfaction with any or all of the following alleged failings: (1) abstract, idealistic formulations, (2) the primacy of ethics over politics, (3) the neglect of history and historical contingency, (4) pretensions to universalism, and (5) the neglect of the ideological, as opposed to philosophical, dimension of political thought. Environmental political theory is a problem-driven genre, which has always had, as it were, one foot in the realist camp. Theorising in this area is motivated, generally, through a concern about such things as climate change, the distribution of environmental goods and bads, human population growth, political economy and sustainability, species preservation, energy economics, and so on. That said, sharp divisions have emerged between those who see the need for a reformist, pragmatic approach to any political resolution, and those who see political ecology as a far more radical engagement with contemporary liberal capitalism, involving fundamental change to economy, polity, and society. Both camps would see themselves as rooting their analyses and propositions in a 'realistic' assessment of our current condition. A question that has not been asked, is what 'realism' in environmental politics might look like if we take the claims of the anthropocene seriously. The huge inertia of global climate and evolutionary processes may mean that we face a collective future in which, for example, the sixth great wave of extinction is underway, in which the Earth's climate will increase beyond 2 degrees C whatever we do now, in which processes of desertification and oceanic acidification are already irreversible. In such a world, what, if any, role does environmental political theory have?