In the News
Image: Klaus Littman, FOR FOREST: The Unending Attraction of Nature, 2019.
Adapting Environmental Ethics for the Anthropocene
Friday, May 3, 2024
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Lang Recital Hall (424 HN)
EMMA MARRIS, Acclaimed Environmental Writer and Journalist
ARTHUR OBST, Postdoctoral Associate, Princeton University
ALLEN THOMPSON, Professor of Philosophy, Oregon State University
Facts about the increasing collective human influence on biological systems, from local ecosystems to planetary-level Earth systems, support the proposal that we now live in the Anthropocene. What do such facts imply, if anything, about norms and values guiding land
management and conservation practices going forward? Do facts about anthropogenic
drivers that can result in undesirable and irreversible changes to ecological and Earth systems
license further intentional interventions and underwrite calls for "planetary management"?
What would appropriate respect for wildness look like on a human-dominated planet? If
human influence on environmental systems pushes them over thresholds into radically new
states, are received Western or Indigenous ideologies sufficient to guide an appropriate
response? How should we think about responding to such radical environmental change?
How, if at all, should environmental ethics adapt to the Anthropocene?
This event is co-sponsored by the Hunter College Departments of Philosophy, Geography and Environmental Science, Urban Policy & Planning, Film & Media Studies, Office of the Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, Office of the Provost.
