Description
Earth Systems Scientists are exploring new conceptions of planetary boundaries linked to ecological conditions that provide a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity. These scientists propose to refigure the relationship between human beings and the earth in ways that can preserve and maintain a biosphere conducive to human and much other life on earth. This framework is organized around the view that anthropogenic climate change produced by political and economic globalization has transformed the human species into a ‘natural’ force, thereby disturbing the distinction between ‘man’ and ‘nature’ central to so many modern claims to political authority. Planetary boundaries are politically significant in that they determine the boundaries of political order and the character of political authority on a world scale. This raises the question of the relationship between science and politics at the ‘geo-’ scale. The paper will consider the title question in the context of mid-century debates on systems that involve the relationship between science and politics and between the natural versus the social sciences in political theory (Sheldon Wolin, David Easton) and international relations (Hans Morgenthau, Hedley Bull, Kenneth Waltz, Morton Kaplan, Karl Deutsch). It will link these debates to prior attempts to theorize international politics as one subset of systemic connections subordinate to a broader economic (Wallerstein, Hardt and Negri), social (Morton Kaplan, Karl Deutsch, Mattias Albert), or ecological (Kenneth Boulding, Margaret Sprout) world system.
