Issue of Scale

Introduction

The Anthropocene is the new geological epoch that has yet to be officially recognised but is now in practice. Its most obvious manifestation, climate change, is the subject of increased scientific understanding, yet neither governments nor individuals are doing much to address it effectively. It is possible that cultural responses to the issue could increase interest in and comprehension of the problem. Clark makes the case that scale effects are becoming increasingly relevant in modern international politics and have substantial ramifications for literary studies. This post will discuss the issue of scale and how it relates to the Quranic Botanical Gardens (QBG).

The Issue of Scale, the Anthropocene, and Climate Change

The difficulty of depicting climate change, one of the Anthropocene’s distinguishing symptoms, is added to the problem of visualising it. Given how widely scattered it is in time and space, it is difficult to understand global warming. As a result, we can never witness all climate change at once; we can only ever see parts of it (Morton 9). The current political structure undermines efforts to manage global climate change because it operates on the incorrect scale by encouraging “the unmolested use of individual property and exploitation of natural resources” (Clark 6). Because of how enormous the scales of climate change are, we can only see and experience the local and temporary manifestations of this vast phenomenon, such as a scorching summer or extended periods of rain. One must look beyond everyday life to understand climate change. In light of this, the QBG launched the Ghars Campaign to increase environmental consciousness and the significance of green conservation projects within Qatar and develop an informed, responsible, and globally aware community.

As in modern political governance, the text is viewed as “an arena for the contestation of individual or collective interests, rights or identity claims” (Clark 8). To avoid this approach to literary criticism, we must be creative to appropriately convey climate change in a way readers find engaging due to its enormous spatial and temporal scales. The question is, do art, literature, and science fields reach a point of no return in the Anthropocene, where human consciousness and creativity cannot go any further? It is still evident that representational and narrative difficulties confront writers, artists, and scientists who try to capture the slow horror of climate change in engaging stories (Nixon 1). Therefore, to adapt to the appropriate scale, we must plot and give figurative structure to formless threats whose lethal ramifications are distributed over space-time (Morton 10). To this end, the QBG was created to showcase the many plants’ harmony and reflect Islamic art and architecture. Modules of plant components and conventional tools manufactured from plants in the past and may still be used today are also on show in its museum. The symbolic constraints are also severe, necessitating innovative methods of alerting the public to destructive acts that are low in immediate spectacle but high in long-term impacts (Nixon 1). The QBG is home to an information centre that details the plants mentioned in the Holy Quran and Hadith, Islam’s relationship to the environment, morality, and cultural legacy. The Botanical Museum, a part of the Information Center, offers insightful information, Islamic inscriptions, paintings, and pictures so that visitors can obtain a sense of natural Arab and Islamic history while realising the urgency of responding to the effects of climate change.

Works Cited

• Clark Timothy. “Scale: Derangements of scale.” Telemorphosis: Theory in the Era of Climate Change, Vol. 1, 2012, pp. 1-22.
• Morton, Timothy. “Hyperobjects: Philosophy and ecology after the end of the world.” Minnesota Press, 2013.
• Nixon, Rob. “Slow violence and environmental storytelling.” Nieman Storyboard, 2011.
• “Our Plants.” QBG, qbg.org.qa/plants.