Stewardship and the Anthropocene:
An interpretation on the Age of Stewardship concept and analysis of
conscious consumerism.
By Kristin Kirkman
June 11th, 2020
1From Atwood's Picture One. The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images.
Margaret Atwood’s project It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change presents two
extreme possible outcomes of the Anthropocene. Picture One is a positive one of clean energy,
sustainable farming and industrial practices, and the recognition of the reality of climate change.
This is a future where society focuses our attention on mitigation of the damage we have
already done to the Earth. In this reality, we not only clean up the mess that exists now, but we
also make systematic changes that promote sustainability.
2Wolfgang Simlinger/ASAblanca via Getty Images
Picture Two is a bleak and terrifying image of resource depletion, the breakdown of society, and
disease. This is the Mad Max, apocalyptic future envisioned by so many of us to be the outcome
of continuing dependence on oil for energy and allowing carbon emissions to rise as the planet
becomes more crowded with people. Both pictures feel extremely futuristic, and not extremely
grounded in the reality of the present. But they each raise questions of how humanity will rise to
these challenges – an important thought exercise as we move closer and closer to a reality
where oil will no longer be able to sustain us.
3Women harvest wheat with sickles in Tras os Monte, Portugal. Photo by Volkmar K. Wentzel.
In his book, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene, Roy Scranton describes the intersection
between politics, the energy industry, and climate activism throughout history. He says, “the
key is energy” and that “just as a beehive is structured around the production of honey, so are
human societies structured around labor, horses, wheat, coal, and oil” (p. 27). Scranton
supports his statement with discussion about the structure of society after the Agricultural
Revolution. During this time, communities moved from nomadic existence to a sedentary life.
Instead of relying on migrating sources of food, we began keeping livestock and establishing
farms, which came with the room for society to develop technologies to maintain the land that
was settled. Scranton highlights that these types of societies require huge amounts of labor to
harvest grain or construct irrigation systems. From an organization perspective, most of the
human population were considered laborers. Here we see that the source of energy was pure
manpower.
As humanity shifted into the Industrial Revolution, energy to move materials, refine products,
harvest crops, and perform other vital functions was now found in coal. In the 19th and early
20th century, this new flow of energy required huge numbers of coal miners. Like in the
Agricultural Revolution, energy relied on a large class of laborers, but this group had shrunk
significantly in the Industrial Revolution.
4Chinese coal mine in 1944. Photo by Willard Price.
Now, we are living in the Great Acceleration – an era marked by the use of fossil fuels for
energy production. Burning fossil fuels makes for highly concentrated energy and requires much
less physical labor than coal, which results in a much smaller labor class than ever before. This
era has created a culture of consumption.
5This refinery in the province of Alberta, Canada, processes crude oil from the region's "tar
sands". Photo by David Boyer.
Barry Lord enhances the ideas about life in a transitional state where humanity is forced to
depend less and less on oil as an energy source. In his article, The Culture of A World Without
Oil, he describes how oil-based, capitalist culture has resulted in an abundance of products
which encourages buying things, experiences, and brands. He says “Whereas people in the
coal culture were defined in relation to the production process (as workers or capitalists, for
instance), in a world powered by oil and gas we were all encouraged to see ourselves simply as
consumers”. This consumerism separates most of the population from the production of
energy, and therefore (as Scranton described) removes the power that comes with the energy
industry.
6 A supermarket in Singapore. Photo by Desmond Wee.
As we have transitioned to new sources of energy, we will be forced to move away from oil as
human populations grow and oil sources become more costly and risky to access. As Saudi
Arabian Minister of Oil, Sheik Ahmed Zahi Yamani, put it, “The stone age came to an end, not
for lack of stones, and the oil age will end, but not for lack of oil”. Lord says that oil will be
replaced by renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy. With this
change, Lord predicts that the culture of consumption will no longer be encouraged by our
energy supply. This Age of Consumption will be replaced by the Age of Stewardship.
Concept: The Age of Stewardship
The Age of Stewardship describes a future setting like Atwood’s Picture One – a reality marked
by a focus on sustainability rather than consumerism. Stewardship encompasses a variety of
behaviors and morals focused on entrusting people with the responsibility to care for something.
Environmental stewardship functions on the following assumptions:
1. Humans and nature exist together in one space – All living things on this
planet live within the same closed system, and therefore each human action will
result in a (seen or unseen) reaction on the environment.
2. The Earth takes care of humanity - We utilize and exploit finite resources from
the Earth.
3. Humanity has the responsibility to take care of the Earth – A sense of duty is
required to ensure that we can continue using these resources for generations to
come.
7A prairie strip on an Iowa agricultural field. Photo by Omar de Kok-Mercado.
8A recently planted riparian forest buffer borders an agricultural field along Emory Creek, which flows into the Corsica River in
Queen Anne's County, Md. Photo by Will Parson
9 An organic agroforestry coffee farm in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Photo by Kristin Kirkman.
The Age of Stewardship, driven by renewable energy sources, will encourage and promote
sustainable farming practices. There are no more monocultures. Palm crops have been
converted to a practice of agroforestry. Coffee farms also include banana trees not only to
provide shade for their products, but to provide food to farmers and habitat to native birds and
mammals. Crops are rotated to improve soil quality, thereby increasing quality and quantity of
production. Prairie strips cover farmlands in beautiful patterns, where native plants flower and
protect dozens of invertebrate, rodent, and ground nesting bird species. Dairy farms contain
methane recapture facilities which create enough energy to power the farm as well as nearby
schools, and the homes of the farmers. Compost recipes are shared among coop members as
each trade their manure for natural fertilizers.
River systems are cherished and protected for their critical role in ecosystem functions. Every
river is given a riparian buffer which prevents runoff from farmlands and factories. Major roads
also have these buffer strips and natural bridges. These act as biological corridors, allowing
movement of animals between patches of land which were previously fragmented.
10 Solar panels on the roofs of apartment buildings.
Infrastructure for the transmission of green energy no longer depends on the energy grid built in
the 1890s. A new Smart Grid has been put in place which allows for two way information –
helping maintenance identify and solve problems in the grid faster than the old system. When
wind or solar power dips, the grid will have backup energy storage capabilities that will avoid
disruptions in energy supply. Urban infrastructure will include localized solar panels on roofs
and windows, removing the dependence on energy traveling from miles away to be used. They
also include household cisterns for rainwater capture and filtration, improving the cost of living
for families and water conservation.
11Wood wrapped cistern for rainwater capture. Can be installed on businesses or homes to conserve water. Photo by Innovative
Water Solutions, Austin TX.
12 This glass features a 1/8" dot pattern screen printed onto the surface of the glass. Known as fritted glass, this is a feature
designed for energy efficiency that has also been found to help birds avoid collisions. Photo courtesy of The Bell Museum.
13 Brightside Native Species Demonstration Garden, a garden design using native species. Photo by Jim Diaz.
14 Native species garden in the setback outside Missouri Sierra Club. Photo by Fawn Hoener.
Buildings, private and public, will include bird-safe glass which will protect migratory birds from
collision deaths on their way to and from their breeding grounds. These buildings are
constructed cheaply but strongly from man-made materials which were fished out of the ocean
by widescale clean-up projects. City design focuses on extending habitat for other species by
incorporating native plants into landscaping and architecture. Even artwork in the streets
perform multiple functions – acting as spaces for social gatherings as well as gatherings of
multitudes of bugs, plants, and small mammals. Native species in theses spaces make the
feeling of each city or town more unique and special, allowing visitors to experience life from a
slightly different perspective each place they go.
15 Founded in 1975, West Philadelphia's Aspen Farms holds 30 plots, many of which are two to three times the size of other city
garden plots. Photo by Grace Dickinson.
Community gardens occupy every few blocks, and are spaces where communities gather to
help each other. They hold potlucks with the produce they grow every month,and give
workshops on how to build urban farms.
16 Image of Grace Dickinson at Aspen Farms.
17 Liuzhou Forest City concept art by Stefanto Boeri.
18 The Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) in Milan. Designed by Stefano Boeri.
19 3D printed ceramic 'seed stitch' tiles provide spaces for plants to be potted. Photo by Matthew Millman.
Stewardship and sustainability are key components of early childhood education. Students
travel to local farms for fieldtrips, where they see where the food for their school lunches comes
from. The produce they eat changes with the seasons and is always filled with color. At school,
they practice their skills in a student garden. They have classes on how to repurpose recycled
products and materials. Home economics courses (now called community building) have been
reworked and reintroduced to teach older students of all races and sexes about nutrition,
sewing, heath, sustainable design, and home management.
20 HeartBeet Farm in New York hosts elementary students to teach them about gardening. Here students are planting their own
garden in the rain. Photo from HeartBeet Farms.
21 A staff member at Cafe de Monteverde in Monteverde, Costa Rica. This farm host an education program called
Life Monteverde, which encourages awareness about sustainability in coffee production.
22 A photo of a completed project by Resonant Energy, a group based in Boston which aims to provide renewable energy to
underrepresented communities. They help install and manage solar panels to help save thousands of dollars on electricity.
Students are also given an education on environmental science, as well as its interconnection
with racial justice. They learn about the history of colonialism and the long term impacts it had
on indigenous American (North, Central and South), African, and Pacific Island communities.
They know that stewardship includes taking care of their planet, themselves, and each other.
Volunteerism is a foundation of education, and each student explores their own passions and
interests through volunteering experiences. Student knowledge on various topics is evaluated
by projects that focus on community building rather than standardized testing.
23 An image of Aaju Peter, an Inuk lawyer, activist, and sealskin clothing designer. She appeared in the
documentary Angry Inuk, in which Alethea Arnaquq-Baril defends the Inuit seal hunt as a vital means for the
Inuit economy and lifestyle.
Food is grown locally, making a plant-based lifestyle easier for urban areas, which do not have
much land to raise animals. Most people live a vegan lifestyle, which allows water conservation
and is responsible for the huge drop in greenhouse gas emissions. Any meat or dairy that is
consumed comes from 100% sustainable sources – which have become the new norm since
policies have shifted focus to sustainable energy. Farmers markets allow community gardens to
share any goods they have too much of and allow for spaces for people to gather and enjoy art,
food, and each other.
24 A meal from Broadfork Cafe, a vegan restaurant based in Seattle, WA.
25 Sno-Valley Mushrooms, a vendor at the Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Markets.
27A meal from Plum Bistro, a vegan restaurant in Seattle, WA.
26 A meal from Kati Vegan Thai, a vegan restaurant in Seattle, WA.
Recycling has taken on a brand-new meaning, as the single use model has become obsolete
and an almost alien concept. Where recycling used to mean sorting garbage to be taken away
to a mysterious location unknown to most citizens, it now means transforming items that no
longer work into new things.
28 Milk jug lamp by Dave Beedon.
Instead of creating new items, businesses focus on salvaging preowned/never used products
which were made in the Age of Consumerism. At home, people use the same tools and items
for years at a time. They often achieve this by sharing items with their neighbors, rather than
purchasing their own item. Clothing is no longer a major method of personal expression, as fast
fashion has nearly vanished. Trends are not material items, but have more to do with
expression through music, writing, and the creation of digital art – things that still come and go
but cannot rot in a landfill.
29 Upcycled medicine organizers are transformed into spice containers by Seattle Sundries.
30 Dan Burfield upcycles old pinball machines into birdhouses.
Conscious Consumerism as a Transitional
Movement
The Age of Stewardship will include a lot more aspects than the ones described, though all will
focus on sustainability in every sense of the term. This means economic, social, and
environmental sustainability. In an age of consumerism, true sustainability is difficult to come by.
As Scranton and Lord describe, it will take widescale structural changes in order to make an
Age of Stewardship possible. This future may sound great, but it is becoming less and less likely
that humanity will survive the Anthropocene without consequences. A Nature article by Smith
and colleagues predict that even if we stopped all emissions immediately, there would still be
atmospheric changes due to the emissions already released, including an increase in average
global temperature. But how can individuals contribute to stopping emissions NOW?
31 Rainforest juxtaposes with rows of cut trees from the clearance of forest inside the PT Wana Catur Jaya Utama palm oil
concession in Mantangai, Kapuas district, Central Kalimantan.
One proposal is conscious or environmental consumerism. This movement has become
increasingly popular over the past few decades and encourages individual change in order to
combat unsustainable consumerism. The idea behind conscious consumerism is essentially
about “voting with your dollar”. In other words, it is participating in capitalism and consumerism
by only making purchases that support social, economic, and environmental sustainability. To
many, this concept makes purchases feel liberating and meaningful. By doing the research on
how products are made and only buying products from businesses that embody an individual’s
personal values, consumers feel good about how they spend their money. It is an opportunity to
support local business or groups, while also receiving a material item to represent your goodwill.
To many people, it is also a socially acceptable and trendy way to show the world that they love
the environment.
32 A conveyor belt in the Inceptor 002, a water pollution project from The Ocean Cleanup in Kland River, Selangor, Malaysia. This
group was founded by Boyan Slat at the age of 18.
33 Alexa Sunshine has over 200 K subscribers on her YouTube channel that focuses on thrift store shopping and how to oppose fast
fashion. Photo by Don Leach.
This movement seems to be the beginning of the transition out of the Age of Consumerism.
Conscious consumerism has many thoughtful and beneficial ideas behind it, but there are some
major problems that need to be addressed within this movement before it can usher in the Age
of Stewardship.
As Alden Wicker describes in his article Conscious consumerism is a lie. Here’s a better way to
help save the world conscious consumers are told that simply not participating unsustainable
businesses models will just make them go away. Wicker says “Making series of small, ethical
purchasing decisions while ignoring the structural incentives for companies’ unsustainable
business models won’t change the world as quickly as we want. It just makes us feel better
about ourselves.” The biggest problem with conscious consumerism is that it requires that
people still participate in consumerism.
Additionally, the sustainable consumerism movement is largely elitist – only being possible for a
small fraction of people (usually European and North American populations), which have the
means to purchase luxury items or pay premiums for sustainable produces. In these populations
of mostly middle class, white people, things like thrifting are not just environmentally friendly,
they are trending actions to brag about. However, even this action has had unforeseen effects
which miss the mark of sustainability (remember that it takes social, economic, and
environmental sustainability to reach true sustainability). People all over the US are noticing the
prices of thrift stores increasing – which may not be a big deal for most people practicing
conscious consumerism, but hurt lower class communities which have no other choices in terms
of where to purchase clothing items.
Yes, if every single person practiced conscious consumerism, the market for unsustainable
products would disappear. However, most of the world does not have the means for this
behavior due to the structural incentives of modern capitalism. For example, water bottle
consumption continues to rise, despite trendy reusable water bottles, like Hydro Flask,
becoming popular in recent years. This goes to show that for most people, it’s just much more
realistic to participate in the established capitalist structures of consumerism than to spend extra
time and money researching every product we need.
34 Image form the Duawmish Alive Coalition - a group of nonprofits and government agencies devoted to promoting the heath
of the Duahmish River Watershed.
35 Waltraud Doering of the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund aid and welfare organization sews protective masks for paramedics, free
of charge, as the coronavirus outbreak continues, in Barsinghausen, Germany, on March 26, 2020.
It’s clear that conscious consumerism is a step in the right direction towards stewardship. It is
equally clear that it has some foundational issues. So, what are some alternatives to conscious
consumerism that can help us reach the Age of Stewardship? Wicker describes some of the
ways individuals can change where they put their money in order to make real changes,
including donating to organizations that fight agricultural runoff, volunteering with groups that
fight food deserts, or contacting representatives to ask them to support specific environmental
policies. What all these things have in common is that they support structural changes instead
of making statements through inconsequential purchases. This is the action that will lead to the
Age of Stewardship.
This culture of stewardship seems far away and somewhat alien compared to the consumerism
culture we have known our whole lives. Like every other culture shift, it will require a revolution.
This one will be the Green Revolution - the prioritization of renewable energy and the cycling out
of the oil industry. Whereas oil makes for consumerism, renewable energy will require
sustainability. Envisioning the Age of Stewardship is a practice that allows us to criticize the
ways we are currently living – what products do we purchase often? What happens to our
waste? Where does our food come from? What areas of my life are influenced by materialism?
36 Rose Edhit Loukou fills bottles with homemade liquid soap in her restaurant. She gives this soap to families in the Palmeraie
neighborhood of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on April 1, 2020.
Over time, I hope that wealth will become less about the possessions we have and more about
the time we volunteer, the long term projects what we invest in, and the knowledge we share
with others. For now, we must prioritize supporting structural change in the energy industry with
the hope that it will carry us to the Age of Stewardship.
