Anthropocene liminality: lurching towards the synthetic age in the twilight of Gaia

I situate the Anthropocene as a liminal space between Gaia (an ecological earth system) and a metaphorical Generational Starship (a technologically underpinned human life-support system) symbolising the Synthetic Age, tracing an arc through Cyborg Gaia (a technological hybrid). Doing so reveals constitutional insights: the pivot from regulating action to governing inaction; unprecedented power centralisation premised upon the apex value of survivability; inverted states of exception; enslavement to technological life-support systems; the propensity towards inevitable Normal Accident failures; the potential for societal and civilisational collapse; and perversely forestalling the end of the world to pursue the ends of capitalism. I use Solar Radiation Management as the example to introduce the questions of governing programme initiation; flipping the default position; and scale, scaling, and one-offs; and axiological shifts. Ultimately, we should move away from the ‘how' posed by historical governance challenges, and towards understanding and agreeing on the ‘why’ in the Anthropocene and beyond.