The Anthropocene as abstract machine

After reviewing the notion of an abstract machine elaborated by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Connolly shows how the Anthropocene itself is an abstract machine vastly exceeding its human components. It is composed initially of capitalist emissions of CO2 and methane joined to a host of impersonal amplifiers. The amplifiers show how the effects of capitalist emissions far outstrip the initial power of the emissions themselves. An ocean conveyor shutdown, glacier self accelerations, and the radical shifts in the formation of wild fires provide merely a couple of examples. A brief discussion of the ‘Antique Little Ice Age’ in Rome helps to show how planetary volatilities have come into being in other times and places. The essay closes by exploring possible fascist responses in temperate capitalist states spurred to a notable degree by the climate refugees these very states have helped to create. And it explores the type of politics needed today to respond to climate wreckage and curtail the danger of fascism.