ETHICS AT THE TIME Dr H.

Cristini
OF THE Spring 2021

ANTHROPOCENE 1
ANTHROPOCENE
• Definition: Simple &Complex
Science and Nature: Scientific journal

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THE ANTHROPOCENE IS A GEOLOGICAL
AND AN ECOLOGICAL FIRE

•“The trajectories of the Earth system in the

Anthropocene” 2018 in American scientific journal PNAS
(16 scholars from different Academic disciplines).
• today the biggest risk is the possibility that the whole
chain reaction pushes the Earth system towards going
beyond the threshold that would jeopardize the
stabilization of the climate’s compatible temperatures
with human life in society.
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LET’S FACE THE MAJOR RISK
TO WHICH WE NEED TO
PREPARE:
• Greenhouse planet or Planet oven.
• Today we consider that the temperature at the surface of
the Earth is roughly +1.1 dc with what we used to call
the pre-industrial era (from 1850 to 1900).
Problem?
• Today we are living a climate, which is the consequence
of gas emissions thrown in the atmosphere until roughly
the 1980s.
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LET’S FACE THE MAJOR RISK
TO WHICH WE NEED TO
PREPARE:
• Going beyond +2 Degree Celsius is a critical threshold
beyond which, the whole snowballing effect will
become irreversible and which level of stabilization
could then become a +5°C.

• Slogan "We have only 10 Years to save the planet" is
scientifically founded.

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1. CONSEQUENCES:
Simple: none of the well-known functioning could
subsist:
• the waves of heat in France would raise beyond 55°C to
a prospective study has demonstrated that with only
+3.7°C of global warming we would reach deadly heat
peak of 55°C in the East of France
• Amazonian forest savanna

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2.CONSEQUENCES:
•Second consequence, the decrease of photosynthesis of plants in reason
of heat the diminishing of plants' photosynthesis, it would also increase
the microbial respiration of the floor freeing more and more CO2 in the
atmosphere.
that our main allies in the captation of CO2 produced by human
activities i.e. our vegetal grounds could in a few decades participate also
to increase the rate of CO2 in the atmosphere increasing the temperature.
Going beyond the threshold of +2°C will also generate an increase of
the ecosystems destruction; which would become less complex and
therefore less resilient to global warming and would collapse even faster
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CONSEQUENCE: THE
ANTHROPOCENE IS ON FIRE
• Picture: when a huge ball is on top of the hill, we need
practically very little energy to make it roll on that
downhill. Today the Earth system is on top of the hill.

the Anthropocene is a fire on this earth

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THE EDUCATION AS A POLITICAL COUNTER-FIRE

• if we predict the worst, it is again to prevent it.

• Education is always starting from hope that is a moral
duty;
• when one stops to hope, One is depriving himself or
herself the means to act and to divert itself from the
responsibility that we all have something to do in order for
things not to be as bad as they could be.
• So what to do????
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THE EDUCATION AS A POLITICAL COUNTER-FIRE

 Radical

Resist and draw these deviated values

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THE CHALLENGE TO RESTORE ANOTHER DESIRE.

• Require a strong enough desire

• If the Anthropocene is Grosso modo the capitalocene.

• people ought to free themselves from the

multiplication of needs that alienate them.

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FOR AN EDUCATION OF
EMERGENCY
• give to our children the means of an unavoidable
struggle and also the means for a different relationship
to the world.
• All these themes need to be approached as early as
possible
•The second obstacle is for instance the authority of the
knowledge and the representative

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‘ECOLOGY OF THE SENSITIVE’
• that is how to be attentive
• how to take care of the living, the one that is close to
us.

• Need to learn how to limit ourselves

Education must weave ties and allow children to feel
solidary, dependent, before even to think about it.
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