I worry that even well-intentioned attempts to "improve nature" (say by reducing suffering) will make things worse even in their own terms.

'The anthropocene' refers to the way we live now, in a highly globalized world, characterized by a large human population and powerful technologies that allow for "action at a distance" that aggregate apparently negligible acts into powerful forces that are transforming fundamental planetary systems. In this sense 'the anthropocene' refers to a period in which nature as an independent autonomous domain comes to an end or is under serious threat.

I begin with human psychology and then see what we can say about ethics.

I worry that even well-intentioned attempts to "improve nature" (say by reducing suffering) will make things worse even in their own terms.

We live on a restless planet in a violent universe.

Even if Bill McKibben were to become dictator, future generations would suffer because of the carbon we had already emitted.

Aristotle thought that humans are rational animals and Hobbes thought that we act on the basis of rational self-interest. If only! It's not that we never do these things, it's that they are hardly constituative of who and what we are.