008 Chapter Two: Confronting the Anthropocene and assuming the Capitalocene

After spending time wrestling with the nature of Design itself – the past, present, and future that shape our work – I feel compelled now to confront the overwhelming reality of where we design. It’s inescapable: we practice our craft not on some pristine or infinitely resilient Earth, but on a planet profoundly, perhaps irrevocably, altered. It’s a realization that forces us to ask fundamental questions about our role and responsibilities.

Many scientists argue we’ve pushed the Earth into a whole new geological chapter: the Anthropocene. The name itself, coined initially by Eugene Stoermer and popularized by Paul Crutzen , stops you in your tracks, doesn’t it? An epoch defined by us, by humanity. After millennia in the relative stability of the Holocene, our industrial and post-industrial frenzy – our relentless extracting, producing, consuming, and discarding – has become the dominant force shaping the planet’s systems. Whether the formal geological designation solidifies or not feels almost secondary to the stark evidence all around us. We know we’ve changed things.   

But does “Anthropocene” tell the whole story? Does it tell the right story? By blaming “Anthropos,” humanity as a whole, it risks masking a more uncomfortable truth. Are we all equally responsible? Is the subsistence farmer in the Global South truly culpable in the same way as a billionaire with a fleet of private jets and polluting investments? The narrative feels too simple, too convenient. It lets the real drivers off the hook.   

This is where the concept of the Capitalocene, explored in works like Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism , offers a sharper lens. Coined by Andreas Malm and developed by thinkers like Jason W. Moore , it argues that the defining force isn’t humanity in the abstract, but capitalism as a specific world-shaping system. It’s the Age of Capital, not just the Age of Man. This perspective suggests the ecological crisis isn’t an accidental byproduct of human existence, but an inherent outcome of capitalism’s core logic: the relentless, endless pursuit of accumulation.   

This logic, the Capitalocene argument suggests, hinges on a strategy of “Cheap Nature”. Capitalism thrives by systematically undervaluing and appropriating the unpaid work and energy of vast swathes of life – both human and non-human. Jason W. Moore encourages us to consider the “Four Cheaps”: cheap labor, cheap food, cheap energy, and cheap raw materials.. Nature isn’t inherently cheap; it’s made cheap through conquest, colonization, scientific abstraction, and violence. Crucially, this extends to people. By defining certain groups – women, enslaved peoples, indigenous populations, the colonized – as closer to “Nature,” their unpaid or drastically underpaid labor (care work, subsistence farming, coerced resource extraction) could be appropriated to subsidize the whole system. This exploitative tendency, deeply woven into the fabric of human history, found fertile ground with the emergence of capitalism in the mid-15th century. The conquest of the Americas marked a pivotal moment, unleashing unprecedented resource extraction and establishing brutal plantation systems fueled by forced labor. This era witnessed the institutionalization of subjugation on a global scale, with powerful nations and burgeoning economic systems actively seeking out and exploiting vulnerable populations and their natural resources. The insatiable demand for raw materials and new markets, driven by the engines of early capitalism, amplified pre-existing inclinations towards domination and control. This historical context reveals that the current ecological and social crises are not isolated incidents, but rather the culmination of centuries of a particular mode of human interaction with both nature and fellow human beings, a mode characterized by the prioritization of accumulation and power over sustainability and equity. The legacy of this historical trajectory continues to shape contemporary global dynamics, manifesting in persistent inequalities and the ongoing degradation of the environment. Understanding these deep historical roots is crucial for effectively addressing the complex challenges of the present and forging a more just and sustainable future.

So, when we see the scale of destruction… building over 50,000 large dams, fundamentally rerouting rivers. Driving an average decline of nearly 70% in wildlife populations since just 1970. Oceans acidifying, habitats vanishing, species blinking out of existence. A climate already warmed by over a degree Celsius, fueling extreme weather… the Capitalocene framework suggests this isn’t just “human impact.” It’s the metabolic reality of a system built on cheapening life and externalizing costs for profit.   

And the responsibility? It’s drastically unequal. Recent research paints a staggering picture of carbon inequality. The richest 1% of the global population (about 77 million people) were responsible for as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the poorest two-thirds of humanity combined – that’s around 5 billion people. This tiny elite accounted for 16% of global consumption emissions, while the poorest half accounted for just 8%. It would take someone in the bottom 99% around 1,500 years to emit what the average billionaire does in one year, considering not just their luxury lifestyles (jets, yachts) but, more significantly, the emissions embedded in their vast investment portfolios, often heavily weighted towards fossil fuels. The investments of just 125 billionaires generate emissions comparable to the entire nation of France annually. This isn’t an “Anthropos” problem; it’s a problem rooted in extreme wealth concentration generated by the Capitalocene’s logic. Those least responsible, primarily in the Global South, suffer the worst consequences – heat deaths, crop failures, displacement.   

Faced with this, how can we, as designers, simply carry on as usual? The Capitalocene reframes the challenge. It pushes us beyond merely designing “greener” products within the same system. It demands we critically examine our own complicity. How does our work serve the engine of accumulation? How does it participate in the environment-making project of capital? Can design contribute to challenging this logic, perhaps by exploring pathways towards decommodification, justice, sufficiency, or even post-capitalist futures? It’s a daunting task, requiring a shift from market-driven problem-solving to a deeply critical, politically aware practice, conscious of the historical forces shaping our damaged planet.

009 Wrestling with Wickedness: The Tangled Knots of Now

The difficulty is, the situation isn’t neat, isolated problems waiting for clever, singular solutions. They are tangled, messy, and interconnected in ways that defy easy fixes. I found a crucial lens for understanding this when I encountered the concept of “wicked problems,” first named by Rittel and Webber in planning theory, but brought powerfully into design thinking by Richard Buchanan back in the 90s. It resonated immediately because it articulated something I think many of us feel when confronting the world’s challenges: this sense of overwhelming complexity, where problems resist clear definition, where solutions in one area trigger unintended disasters elsewhere, where there’s no clear endpoint, no definitive ‘solved’ state.

And today, it feels like we’re drowning in a sea of intersecting wicked problems. Climate breakdown fueling biodiversity collapse. Crushing economic inequality driving social unrest, which in turn is worsened by environmental disasters. Rampant misinformation poisoning public discourse, making collective action feel impossible, and creating fertile ground for authoritarianism, even in the most traditionally democratic nations. Resource scarcity clashing head-on with a global economic model predicated on endless growth. These aren’t separate fires to be put out individually; they are threads in a vast, burning tapestry of unsustainability. How can we even begin to untangle this mess?

From a design perspective, this reality demands, I believe, a radical departure from business as usual. How can our traditional methods,  often focused on linear processes, solving well-defined briefs, producing discrete objects or services,  possibly be adequate for this level of systemic entanglement? Buchanan’s work already pointed towards this decades ago: engaging with wicked problems requires embracing uncertainty, thinking in systems, and acknowledging, with humility, that our interventions always ripple outwards in unpredictable ways. It means letting go of the myth of the designer as the lone genius imposing solutions from above. Instead, perhaps our role shifts towards becoming facilitators, weavers of connection, co-creators working within communities to navigate complexity and build resilience. It’s here that approaches like the Symbiotic Design Framework I’m trying to articulate, frameworks that prioritize relationships, context, ethics, and how systems evolve over time, feel less like academic exercises and more like essential tools for survival, not for ‘solving’ wickedness, but for engaging with it responsibly.

010 Flickers of Awakening: Have We Learned the Lessons?

Of course, concern for our planet isn’t entirely new. There have been moments, pivotal turning points, where collective awareness seemed to flicker awake. I think of the shockwaves from the Santa Barbara oil spill in ’69 – the raw images of environmental devastation galvanizing a movement, leading to the first Earth Day, the founding of Greenpeace. Around the same time, thinkers like those in the Club of Rome were asking hard questions, publishing “The Limits to Growth,” daring to suggest that infinite economic expansion on a finite planet might just be impossible.

Then came the Brundtland Report in ’87, giving us that ubiquitous definition of sustainable development: meeting present needs without compromising the future. It felt like a landmark then, a way to finally talk about balancing economy, equity, and environment. But looking back now, I have to ask the hard questions: Did that definition, however well-intentioned, inadvertently become a tool for sustaining the very economic systems driving the crisis? When I hear the word “sustainable” today, I confess, a deep skepticism arises. Has it been co-opted, greenwashed, used to provide cover for practices that are anything but? While it marked a crucial starting point in global dialogue, I can no longer see “sustainability,” as commonly practiced, as a potent enough strategy to undo the damage or change our trajectory. It seems to sustain the status quo more than it sustains the planet. We need, I feel urgently, new paradigms.

011 The Designer’s Crossroads: Complicity or Transformation?

So where does that leave us, as designers, caught in the glare of the Anthropocene’s wicked problems? The warnings from bodies like the IPCC grow ever starker. The interconnectedness of environmental stress and social disparity becomes clearer every day. And design sits right in the middle of it all, a powerful force shaping how we live, what we desire, how we make, and what we waste.

Historically, let’s be honest, design has often been complicit, prioritizing novelty, fueling consumption, optimizing resource-intensive production lines. Have we been designing desire, or have we inadvertently been designing destruction? Yet, I also see a growing awareness, a rising generation of designers – and maybe some of us older ones too! – recognizing this critical juncture. We can either continue to grease the wheels of this exploitative machine, or we can actively work to redesign the machine itself.

We see promising signs, of course. Movements like Cradle to Cradle, challenging the very concept of waste. Biomimicry, looking to nature’s genius for solutions. Circular design principles, attempting to close the loop on material flows. These are vital explorations, offering glimpses of different ways to operate. But are they enough on their own? My sense is that they often remain focused on specific aspects – materials, processes, end-of-life – without necessarily tackling the whole system. Don’t we need a broader view, one that foregrounds the intricate relationships between components, dimensions, people, and places? Because from a symbiotic perspective, a product is never just a product; it’s a node in a vast network, with ripple effects we have a responsibility to understand. By consciously considering that entire lifecycle, those extended impacts, perhaps designers can shift industries, influence consumers, and advocate for policies that align human flourishing with planetary health, moving beyond mere sustainability towards genuine regeneration.

012 Beyond Techniques: A Shift in What We Value

Ultimately, though, I suspect this runs deeper than just adopting new design methods. It demands a fundamental shift in our priorities, in what we collectively value. The Brundtland report warned us decades ago about chasing economic growth in isolation, and in “The Limits to Growth” the alarm sounded about infinite expansion. Today, facing this tangled web of crises, the choice feels stark: will design continue to accelerate our planetary decline, or will it become a force for healing and reconnection? Do you see another alternative on the horizon? What will you decide?

Let’s be optimistic and believe there might still be time, a window, albeit rapidly closing, to pivot towards systems that actually nurture life, systems we might call truly symbiotic. As scientists refine their understanding and activists demand bolder action, perhaps designers can bring their unique skills to the table. Maybe it means forging deeper collaborations across silos, with ecologists, sociologists, policymakers, indigenous knowledge keepers. Maybe it means rediscovering the wisdom embedded in vernacular practices, the deep ecology that philosopher Arne Naess championed, ways of living attuned to the place that our industrial society steamrolled.

And perhaps, as Humberto Maturana so profoundly suggested, it means approaching this daunting task not just with intellect, but with love and tenderness, a deep care for the living world we are part of. The Anthropocene paints a grim picture, yes, but it also throws down a gauntlet. Design, understood as the conscious shaping of our shared future, is a critical arena for human responsibility and ingenuity. We need to confront our complicity in the “Brown Economy,” as Pavan Sukhdev termed it, that relentless, fossil-fueled engine driven by a narrow view of progress. Perhaps the wisdom of thinkers like Manfred Max-Neef, reminding us of fundamental human needs beyond material accumulation – subsistence, protection, affection – can guide us. The vision of a “Green Economy,” as defined by UNEP, offers a pathway, but I believe we need to push further, towards regeneration. The Symbiotic Design Framework I am proposing is my attempt to contribute to that shift, advocating for a design practice that actively participates in the healing and flourishing of our planet and all its inhabitants.

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