Canary Science in the Mineshaft of the Anthropocene

Alongside the melting of glaciers, human bodies warn another petrochemically driven planetary crisis. Much as climate science ignored early warning observations Indigenous peoples, medical establishment has oft en dismissed canaries struggling to survive in mineshaft modernity. In an aleatory Anthropocene, we know not for whom toxicity will toll. While case studies environmental justice remain essential, privileged must also be jolted into understanding their own ontological precariousness (i.e., vulnerability) from toxicants pervasive everyday life. Moving beyond “citizen science” with inspiration feminist ethics care and relational epistemologies, I make a extrasensory value “canary science.” If managerial “risk” was keyword profiteering twentieth century, sense shared vulnerability coronavirus era could help usher transitions needed survival this polluted world.