Earth is our locale : decentering and decelerating the human in the Anthropocene

Every locale is a realisation of its own deep history and geography. As humanity continues to push beyond the limits of nature’s capacity to provide solutions to the outcomes of modernization, in 21st century Japan everything is rendered local and global, particular and universal. In this chapter I examine the geology, ecology, and climate of Japan within the context of present-day environmental breakdown. Taking examples mainly from Tokyo Prefecture as a global locale, I show how Asia, with Japan in the vanguard, has emerged as a leading participant in the Great Acceleration of the depletion of the Earth’s environmental capacity. Although Japan and Tokyo are by no means the only culprit, the consequence is that the Earth is passing from the stable Holocene into the Anthropocene epoch, where instability and unpredictability are the new, less forgiving, normal. I end by concluding that the Anthropocene disruption will force us to decentre and decelerate our humanity, and acknowledge that we are all connected; that Earth is our locale.