ABSTRACT
This chapter lays the foundations for coming to terms with the impact on the environment through tracing the conceptual lineage of the Anthropocene. Slowly but surely a mechanism of appropriation develops about establishing and overcoming frontiers outlined in the mind's eye of the individual, or what was later termed 'the limits to capital.' It says that through abstraction, humans became the pinnacle of evolution. The colonial enterprise represents 'the advancing fringes of GÇ£dead-eningsGÇ¥' in the context of the American westwards expansion and its 'reckless gutting of resource for quick GÇ£profitGÇ¥.' The chapter indicates that our growth and prosperity are premised on energy made cheap , along with cheap nature, money, work, care, food and lives, all imagined without any obvious limits. It says that the point being that even though limits to growth have been identified, these are merely incorporated into the growth mechanism and more becomes, precisely that: more.
