Responsibilities of Science in the Entry and Exit of the Anthropocene – Editing

In the origin of Western modernity and the exploitation of nature in the name of progress, science again plays an essential role. This time to explain the current crises and find solutions to address them.

Contrary to what its origins in Earth system science might suggest, the Anthropocene is not a long-term geophysical epoch that we enter, but rather a moment that marks the end of a historical trajectory from which, for better or for worse, we have already begun to emerge. By this definition, the Anthropocene is the historical moment when human pressure on the “critical zone of life” on Earth’s surface became so exponential that it endangered the survival of the human race.

It is possible to locate its origin in the first “great divergence” that was from the sixteenth century with the emergence and then the colonial domination and globalization of Western modernity, which replaced the relationship with the cosmic and cyclical world with a Promethean relationship of transformation and exploitation of nature in the name of progress, at the expense of harmful inequalities between culture and nature, instrumental rationality and solidarity, male and female, the West and the rest of the world.

Emancipated and freed from religious dogma, science was both a product and an accelerator of this new relationship to the world, exploration through knowledge shortly before exploitation and consumption in the service of growth that ultimately leads to self-destruction. In this sense, the Anthropocene is indeed the result and final stage of Western modernity whose globalized modes of development and increasing human pressure have become so dominant (including in China), that the exit from the Anthropocene has already begun. or without humans, since their inability to significantly reduce this anthropogenic pressure will lead, in a series of catastrophes that have become uncontrollable, to their collapse and thus to the actual reduction in anthropogenic pressure. Either with humans, because they are able to break out of the multiple “path dependencies” of modern development patterns and engage in a new “great bifurcation” that allows them to develop patterns of existence and solidarity among themselves and with non-humans, making it possible to significantly reduce anthropogenic pressure on their environments.

Scientific technical challenges

Once again, science is at the center of this historical moment. Not only, as you now know how to do, document this Anthropocene moment through measurements and projections of catastrophic shifts in the Earth system and all local ecosystems. But also, as it should do better, to better understand and overcome the two main challenges of this bifurcation. On the other hand, the technical-scientific challenges of a sober relationship with the environment and energy that allows work while reducing anthropogenic stress. On the other hand, and this is undoubtedly the most complex challenge that the humanities and social sciences in particular must face, in order to better understand the “good reasons” for which actors act or resist the logic of bifurcation, and in particular in order to inform citizens of public opinion and public action .

In any case, a challenge common to all scientific disciplines is the ability to promote a transdisciplinary approach imposed by the highly interdisciplinary and hybrid nature of the ‘transition problems’ to be solved. In order to face all these challenges, comprehensive scientific coordination systems must be established to serve the goals of transformation within research and higher education institutions.

It is this logic that leads to the creation of the new “Transformation Institute” just created by Purdue University, which should allow all research units, components, training and services of the institution to achieve their transition goals, in collaboration with the scientific, regional, economic and European partners that make up the bifurcation ecosystem.

Eric Masset is Purdue University Vice Chancellor in charge of Environmental and Societal Transformations, Professor of Sociology and Researcher at the Emile Durkheim Center. Latest publications: The social approach to the Anthropocene: a new historical framework for social relations. E-mail. Framespa Notebooks, 40, 2022 ; after the community. augmented sociology book, Water’s Edge 2020.