Down to Earth

1. The Climate Crisis, Inequality, and Populism are Linked

This essay proposes to take these three phenomena as symptoms of a single historical situation: it is as though a significant segment of the ruling classes (known today rather too loosely as “the elites”) had concluded that the earth no longer had room enough for them and for everyone else.

A single phenomenon. The explosion of inequalities since the 1980s, the systematic denial of climate change, and the rise of nationalist/populist movements are not separate issues but interconnected symptoms of a fundamental shift. This shift is driven by a realization among some elites that the planet cannot sustain universal prosperity based on the old model of modernization.

Abandoning the common horizon. Instead of seeking a shared future, these elites decided to abandon the idea of a common world and protect themselves, leading to deregulation, increased inequality, and denial of the environmental crisis that necessitated this retreat. Donald Trump's election and the US withdrawal from the Paris Accord are stark symbols of this flight, revealing a war over what constitutes the shared "earth."

Universal deprivation of ground. This abandonment creates a "wicked universality" where everyone, migrants fleeing devastated lands and citizens feeling left behind by their own countries, experiences a sense of losing ground. The panic and anxiety in contemporary politics stem from this shared ordeal of finding oneself deprived of inhabitable land, making the climate question central to all geopolitical issues.

2. Elites Abandoned the Shared World, Causing Political Delirium

The absence of a common world we can share is driving us crazy.

Betrayal and denial. The hypothesis is that certain elites understood the threat of the New Climatic Regime but decided not to share the consequences with the public. Instead, they chose to dismantle solidarity (deregulation), build gilded fortresses for themselves (explosion of inequalities), and deny the very threat that prompted their actions (climate change denial).

Epistemological chaos. This deliberate denial and betrayal have led to a widespread loss of trust and an "epistemological delirium" in public life. When leaders deny undeniable facts and abandon shared reality, it becomes understandable why citizens might turn to "alternative facts" or lose faith in established knowledge and institutions.

Poisoning trust. The superrich, exemplified by figures like Trump, have committed a crime by actively financing disinformation campaigns to obscure the climate threat. This has left ordinary people in a fog, unable to grasp the true situation and mobilize effectively, while the deniers themselves are poisoned by the need to constantly lie and maintain an impossible reality.

3. The Old Political Compass (Local vs. Global) is Broken

Instead of tension, there is henceforth a yawning gap.

The modernization vector. For centuries, politics was oriented along a vector from the Local (archaic, traditional) to the Global (modern, progressive). This axis defined who was moving forward and who was left behind, providing a clear, albeit brutal, sense of direction and allowing for the positioning of Left and Right.

Shattered coordinates. The ideal of the Global, promising universal progress and emancipation, has become increasingly unreal, transforming into "globalization-minus" – a narrow vision imposed by a few for their own profit. In reaction, the Local has also transformed into "local-minus," a retreat into nostalgic, rigid national or ethnic identities.

No shared horizon. These two poles have pulled so far apart, and both have become so detached from any solid reality, that the old vector is shattered. There is no longer a shared horizon or a common ground to orient political positions, leaving people disoriented and unable to distinguish allies from adversaries using the old map.

4. "Trumpism" Represents a Flight to an "Out-of-This-World" Unreality

For the first time, climate change denial defines the orientation of the public life of a nation.

A fourth attractor. Trump's political innovation is identifying and embodying a fourth attractor: the "Out-of-This-World." This represents a horizon for those who explicitly reject the realities of a reactive Earth and worldly constraints, literally operating offshore like a tax haven.

Fusion of contradictions. "Trumpism" bizarrely fuses the headlong rush for maximum profit (associated with globalization) with a headlong retreat to old national/ethnic categories (associated with the local). This fusion is only possible by systematically denying the conflict between modernization and the Earth's limits, making climate skepticism constitutive of the movement.

Post-politics. This movement is not merely "post-truth" but "post-politics," rejecting the world it claims to inhabit. It's a desperate attempt to gain time and postpone coming down to Earth, even if it means leading the rest of the world into the abyss. It confirms the end of politics oriented toward an identifiable, shared reality.

5. A New Attractor: The "Terrestrial" as a Political Actor

The current disorientation derives entirely from the emergence of an actor that reacts and will continue to react to human actions and that bars the modernizers from knowing where they are, in what epoch, and especially what role they need to play from now on.

Reorienting politics. The shattering of the old Local/Global axis reveals the emergence of a third, powerful attractor: the Terrestrial. This is not the planet seen from space ("Earth") or abstract "nature," but a new political actor that actively participates in public life and reacts to human actions.

Geo as agent. Geopolitics is no longer just about humans acting on the earth; it's about humans acting with or against the earth system itself as an agent. This changes everything, making it impossible to distinguish physical from human geography or to occupy land without being occupied by it in return.

Unprecedented situation. The Terrestrial is both ancient (the ground beneath our feet) and tragically new (the Earth system reacting on a global scale). No human society, however wise, has faced the reactions of the earth system to eight or nine billion humans, making the current situation unprecedented and requiring a complete remapping of political positions.

6. Political Ecology Failed by Staying on the Old Map

To modernize or to ecologize: this has become the crucial choice. And yet, ecology has failed.

Stuck in the middle. Despite successfully introducing environmental issues into public debate, political ecology has largely failed to gain commensurate political power. This is because it tried to position itself "neither Right nor Left" or "beyond the cleavage" without identifying a new political vector or attractor.

Confused orientation. Ecologists were caught in the trap of the old temporal arrow, trying to tow everything toward their pole while the main political forces were still arrayed along the Local-Global axis. They failed to make the "ecological crisis" feel as vital and direct as defending one's territory.

Missed opportunity. Ecology and social movements failed to effectively join forces, remaining stuck in a false choice between "social questions" and "ecological questions." This prevented them from creating the necessary energy for a "great transformation" commensurate with the "Great Acceleration" of market forces and Earth's reaction.

7. Class Struggle Must Become Geo-Social Struggle

If the analyses in terms of class have never allowed the Leftists to stand up to their enemies in a lasting way (which explains why Polanyi’s predictions about the extinction of liberalism were wrong), it is because their definition of the material world was so abstract, so ideal, not to say so idealistic, that they never had a firm grip on this new reality.

Beyond abstract materialism. Traditional class analysis, based on positions in the "system of production," was tied to the abstract, idealistic materialism of the Global attractor. It failed to grasp the concrete, worldly reality of how different materials (like coal vs. oil) shape conflicts and power dynamics.

Geo-logic of conflict. Class struggles depend on a "geo-logic." The shift from coal to oil, for example, changed the material conditions of labor and control, allowing elites to win against workers, even if the traditional "social classes" remained defined the same way.

New maps of struggle. Since the old map of social classes is losing its grip on political life, we need to draw maps of "geo-social loci." This requires a more realistic definition of class struggles that accounts for the new materiality imposed by the orientation toward the Terrestrial, identifying real interests based on entanglement with diverse agents.

8. The Problematic Idea of "Nature" Immobilized Politics

For, in order to mold a politics, you need agents who bring together their interests and their capacities for action. But you cannot make alliances between political actors and objects that are external to society and deprived of the power to act.

Exteriority of objects. A particular political-scientific history invented a concept of "nature" as external to society, governed by objective laws, and deprived of agency. This made it impossible to politicize environmental issues effectively or to form alliances with non-human actors.

Galilean vs. Lovelockian. This split created a bifurcation: "nature-as-universe" (Galilean objects, seen from afar, external, indifferent) vs. "nature-as-process" (Lovelockian agents, seen up close, internal, reactive). Modernity associated the former with objective reality and progress, and the latter with subjective feelings and archaism.

Political paralysis. This division meant that when ecologists spoke of "protecting nature" (nature-as-universe), it felt too distant and abstract to mobilize people. Trying to use this abstract "nature" in class conflicts was like stepping into concrete, preventing effective alliances between social and ecological movements.

9. We Need Sciences of the "Critical Zone," Not Just the Universe

Speak of nature in general as much as you like, wonder at the immensity of the universe, dive down in thought to the boiling center of the planet, gasp in fear before those infinite spaces, this will not change the fact that everything that concerns you resides in the minuscule Critical Zone.

Focus on the habitable layer. To understand the Terrestrial, we must focus scientific attention on the "Critical Zone" – the thin layer between atmosphere and bedrock where life and geological processes interact. This minuscule zone is where everything that concerns us resides, distinct from the vastness of the universe or the planet's interior.

Different epistemology. Sciences of the Critical Zone require a different epistemology than sciences of the universe. They deal with phenomena that are local, entangled with human actions, and immediately plunged into controversies involving competing interests and knowledge claims, unlike the distant, seemingly disinterested objects of astrophysics.

Political function. The sciences of the Critical Zone are inherently political because they describe the agents and processes that constitute our dwelling places and with whom we must negotiate our survival. They provide the necessary "cold-blooded knowledge" about the "heated activity" of the Earth, essential for reorienting political affects toward the Terrestrial.

10. The Conflict is Between Production and Engendering Systems

If these two systems enter into conflict, it is because another authority has appeared, making it necessary to raise all the old questions again, no longer starting from the project of emancipation alone, but starting from the newly rediscovered value of dependency.

Two opposing logics. The current crisis is not just a conflict within the system of production (e.g., capital vs. labor) but a deeper contradiction between the system of production and a system of engendering. The former is based on freedom, human centrality, and mechanistic views; the latter on dependency, distributed agency, and processes of genesis.

Authority of dependency. The New Climatic Regime reveals a new form of authority: the Earth system itself, imposing limits and dependencies that challenge the modernist project of emancipation based on overcoming "natural" constraints. The elites' flight is a recognition, however perverse, of this new authority.

Redefining the human. This conflict forces a redefinition of the "human." No longer just a being in "nature" or one who transcends it, the human becomes a "terrestrial" – an earthbound being entangled with countless other terrestrials (non-humans) in a system of mutual dependency and engendering.

11. We Must Redescribe Our Dwelling Places to Find Political Ground

How could we act politically without having inventoried, surveyed, measured, centimeter by centimeter, being by being, person by person, the stuff that makes up the Earth for us?

Politics needs description. Politics has been drained of substance because the abstract language of traditional politics fails to connect with the concrete reality of people's lives and their dependence on specific, often invisible, conditions. We need to generate alternative descriptions of our dwelling places.

Inventorying dependencies. Defining a dwelling place means listing everything a terrestrial (human or non-human) needs for survival and is willing to defend. This requires an exhaustive investigation into the agents, processes, and entanglements that constitute our subsistence, going far beyond the simple "humans and resources" model of the production system.

A new political geography. This redescription creates a new political geography, revealing territories that don't align with traditional administrative or national borders. It makes visible the geo-social conflicts and potential alliances based on shared dependencies, providing the necessary "footholds for protests" that globalization-minus sought to eliminate.

12. Europe Can Offer a Model for Landing in the New Regime

To land is necessarily to land someplace.

A potential homeland. Europe, the Old Continent, is uniquely positioned to offer a model for landing in the New Climatic Regime. Having invented the idea of the Globe and modernization, and having experienced the horrors of nationalism and empire, it understands the dangers of both globalization-minus and the retreat to rigid national borders.

Complexity as strength. Europe's bureaucratic complexity and intricate regulations, often criticized, are actually assets. They embody the superimposition and overlapping of interests necessary to navigate the ecological mutation that straddles all borders, offering an alternative to the simplistic sovereignty of the nation-state.

Facing history. Europe's history of colonization and its role in unleashing the forces now causing migration and environmental upheaval give it a particular responsibility. It must "de-globalize" its project, redefine sovereignty, and learn to cohabit with those it displaced, offering a refuge and a site for a new, reflexive modernization based on rediscovering inhabitable ground.

Last updated: May 2, 2025