Ecology and Human Sciences: On the Challenges to the Humanities in the Context of the Emerging Climate Order

Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century, concern about the scope and possible dire effects of climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of non-renewable resources, and pollution on a global scale has been steadily amplifying and imposing itself on the attention of public opinion. A good example of this are the increasingly common—and increasingly disturbing—voices of alarm coming from the international scientific community, made up mostly of representatives of the natural sciences. Against this background, this article addresses the question of the role of the social sciences and the humanities in the search for solutions to the ecological damage that the biosphere is currently experiencing. To answer this question, four theses are first proposed to underline the need for ecological humanities based on collaborative and interdisciplinary work with environmental sciences. Then, four proposals are put forward articulated around two fundamental lines of work for the ecological humanities of the near future, namely: the challenges of coexistence in solidarity and the challenges of planetary habitability. These proposals are presented and argued with a view to the future development of a transversal model of environmental education for university curricula, based on the conceptual revision of some fundamental terms—freedom, citizenship, sustainability—in the post-pandemic framework.