This article seeks to materialize social theories of modern temporalities. It proposes a tempo-material analysis of carbon resources like coal, oil, and gas to illuminate how fossil materialities both underpin and undermine modern temporalities and introduce the notion of fossil modernity to evoke an understanding of the modern composed of multiple conflicting modes of material temporality. Fossil resources (fossil fuels and petrochemical substances) drive the pace and progressive perspective of modernity. The residuals of these resources (CO₂, plastic waste, and petrochemical toxins) confront societies with long-lasting ecological damage. Fossil fuels helped to produce the expectation of growth and endless possibility. Fossil residuals create a horizon of ecological liabilities in which past options have become future obligations. This renders the pretences of “modernization” understood as a process of constant renewal and innovation problematic. The article argues that modern societies cannot simply overcome their material–temporal predicaments through “decarbonization” because even after a shift to solar power, organic agriculture, and sustainable plastics, the fossil past will continue to influence, inform, and incite social operations. The article thus shows how different responses to the problems of fossil modernity need to go back to and emerge from the material residues of the past: this goes for bio-capitalist projects seeking to “recycle” the entropic temporality of fossil residuals as well as for environmental justice movements that decipher these residuals as indexes of social asymmetries and call for socio-ecological “redistribution.”

本文力求实现现代时间性的社会理论。它提出了对碳资源（例如煤，石油和天然气）的时间材料分析，以阐明化石物质如何既支撑和破坏现代时间性，又引入化石现代性概念以唤起对由物质时间性的多种冲突模式组成的现代的理解。化石资源（化石燃料和石化物质）驱动着现代化的步伐和进步。这些资源的剩余物（CO ₂，塑料废物和石化毒素）对社会造成了长期的生态破坏。化石燃料有助于实现增长预期和无限可能。化石残渣创造了生态责任的视野，过去的选择已成为未来的义务。这使得“现代化”的概念被理解为一个不断更新和创新的过程。该文章认为，现代社会不能通过“脱碳”简单地克服其物质-时态的困境，因为即使转向了太阳能，有机农业和可持续塑料，化石的过去也将继续影响，提供信息并煽动社会活动。