CLIMATE AGE POLITICS

PERHAPS one of the most frightening aspects that came out of the G7 Summit in Biarritz was President Trump's answer to to the question on climate change.

''I want the cleanest water on Earth. I want the cleanest air on Earth. And that's what we are doing.

'And I am an environmentalist,' he claimed.

This prescient comment, in itself, articulates more than its obvious meaning. It enables a whole new brand of politics.

In an era where politicians have now become political celebrities, Trump has managed to keep the world at edge through his witty remarks and bizarre, sometimes absurd, statements.

However, the dismal picture, of an empty chair, taken during the G7 climate change session says it all.  It is evident that for many decades, it's a world drugged with hyper-capitalism, politics has majorly been driven by economic incentives.

However, we have already entered an epoch that is unlike any in human history.     -The Anthropocene, an age where human activity has a direct impact on the geological sphere.

It is no longer nature, rather man that is shaping the  geological structures of the earth,, putting to play a whole new political evolution.

Rather on the basis of challenges institutions, practices and principles on the basis of challenges in the Anthropocene, Trump wants the best of all worlds   -imaging America as a  Shangri-La, which can be brought about through geological and environmental structuring.

One cannot help but imaging an extremely polarised world   -a utopia bordered by a dystopia.

President Trump's statements hints at a new factor, geology, which will govern politics.  The foreshadowing of another great extinction even should shatter the idea of the Cartesian man    -one that separates itself from nature    -rather, people like Trump are reaffirming it.

One needs to look beyond the aesthetical and commercial significations of nature and knowledge the world as a charnel ground.

Politically, we should emphasise the concept of  co-existence that has long been forgotten. [Ed : The Express Tribune]