The author explores the idea of sovereignty as an illusion that is and will continue to have deleterious effects on cooperative efforts to slow or stop climate change and the extinction of millions of species. To make this case, the notion of sovereignty is defined and its attributes described. This lays the foundation for arguing, from a psychoanalytic perspective, that sovereignty is a tightly held illusion (and practice). The last section of the article identifies the negative present and future impact of sovereignty with regard to the Anthropocene Age, as well as briefly identifying other possibilities for ordering societies.
Keywords: anthropocene; climate change; illusion; sovereignty.