Paul N. Edwards

What we call “technology” today involves intensely concentrated metabolic processes, ingesting and transforming energy and materials on a planetary scale. Techno-metabolism also concentrates and compresses time. Its temporalities include Earth's deep past (fossil fuels, minerals) and its present (biological net primary production). The Anthropocene epoch – with humanity as a geological force – now appears likely to consume, as well, the human future, potentially to the extinction of our species. Holding multiple temporal and spatial scales within our analytic frameworks has proven (unsurprisingly) difficult for STS and History of Technology. This talk offers ways of reconfiguring our conceptual and methodological tools to meet this urgent challenge.