The Moving Walkway is Ending: A Speculative Essay on Climate-Driven Species Mobility and Planetary Politics

Climate change is driving species to move. Alongside climate-driven human migrations and mobility, nonhuman species are changing where they live, in response to anthropogenic destruction of the climate and the biosphere. The article examines this less considered element of the current and future mobile planet, in search of framings that can better help us grapple with the transformations underway. It first presents some general global projections of species mobilities and presents some of the key issues raised around intersection of human and nonhuman mobility. It then turns to two elemental forces—fire and ice—whose power is increasingly visible in contemporary planetary politics. Both elements call for a consideration of deeper time horizons, alongside the immediate emergencies that these forces also bring about. The final section turns to think about the ethics, time scales, and differential politics of a fully mobile planet—one that is mobile from geological forces to earthly elements, from nonhuman species to human lives and cultures, drawing on recent work on earth mobility and speculative kinetic ethics.