Historical Epistemologies of Planetary Modelling II (HEPM II) - Toward a Political Ecology of Earth Systems Science

This second HEPM workshop builds on a first held in Berlin in June 2023 and a forthcoming special issue in The Anthropocene Review.

HEPM is an ongoing project between KTH Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History in Stockholm and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin that works to collate and advance recent histories of Earth Systems Science (ESS), the computational and model-based analysis of the planet as a parametrized system of feedbacks. While recognizing the need for a more detailed understanding of our environment’s many dynamics and with ever-greater empiricism, HEPMII is oriented toward the political ecology of ESS.

Advancing a critical ecological epistemology of ESS, this workshop is concerned with ESS’s relation to state power, surveillance technologies, and political relations. It will explore the material and energetic demands of ESS and its technologies. We will also ask, in a constructive register, what would a more radical kind of planetary modeling look like? And, as part of this work, how can underrepresented, marginalized, and oppressed perspectives be integrated?