Humanity's Rise to Superdominance, the Global Ecological Crisis, and the Way Forward for Education

Humanity's Rise to Superdominance, the Global Ecological Crisis, and the Way Forward for Education PDF Author: Adam C. Scarfe
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152759145X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 117

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Book Description
This book pinpoints the evolutionary connection between the global ecological crisis and transgenerational learning and education. As Julian Huxley (1887-1975) described, the cumulative passing down of knowledge, skills, and ideas by one generation to the next over eons of time, which has been afforded by the advent of complex languages in the evolutionary past, is chiefly responsible for humanity’s planetary superdominance. However, given that the drive of the human species to increase its control over the natural world has, today, run up against ecological limits, there is an evolutionary-existential choice to be made in relation to the ultimate purposes of formal education. Should humanity “double down” on the anthropocentric humanist project of superdominance, including the goals of unlimited economic growth, development, and scientific and technological progress? Alternatively, should a biocentric anti-humanist and/or postmodernist deconstruction of formal education take place? Or should a holistic organicist orientation, emphasizing biological wisdom, help to shape its future? As this book shows, the answers to these philosophical questions on the parts of educators, prospective teachers, and learners will, going forward, play a key role in deciding the evolutionary trajectories of all life-forms on the planet.

Humanity's Rise to Superdominance, the Global Ecological Crisis, and the Way Forward for Education

Humanity's Rise to Superdominance, the Global Ecological Crisis, and the Way Forward for Education PDF Author: Adam C. Scarfe
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152759145X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 117

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book pinpoints the evolutionary connection between the global ecological crisis and transgenerational learning and education. As Julian Huxley (1887-1975) described, the cumulative passing down of knowledge, skills, and ideas by one generation to the next over eons of time, which has been afforded by the advent of complex languages in the evolutionary past, is chiefly responsible for humanity’s planetary superdominance. However, given that the drive of the human species to increase its control over the natural world has, today, run up against ecological limits, there is an evolutionary-existential choice to be made in relation to the ultimate purposes of formal education. Should humanity “double down” on the anthropocentric humanist project of superdominance, including the goals of unlimited economic growth, development, and scientific and technological progress? Alternatively, should a biocentric anti-humanist and/or postmodernist deconstruction of formal education take place? Or should a holistic organicist orientation, emphasizing biological wisdom, help to shape its future? As this book shows, the answers to these philosophical questions on the parts of educators, prospective teachers, and learners will, going forward, play a key role in deciding the evolutionary trajectories of all life-forms on the planet.

Humanity's Rise to Superdominance, the Global Ecological Crisis, and the Way Forward for Education

Humanity's Rise to Superdominance, the Global Ecological Crisis, and the Way Forward for Education PDF Author: ADAM C. SCARFE
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781527591448
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book pinpoints the evolutionary connection between the global ecological crisis and transgenerational learning and education. As Julian Huxley (1887-1975) described, the cumulative passing down of knowledge, skills, and ideas by one generation to the next over eons of time, which has been afforded by the advent of complex languages in the evolutionary past, is chiefly responsible for humanity's planetary superdominance. However, given that the drive of the human species to increase its control over the natural world has, today, run up against ecological limits, there is an evolutionary-existential choice to be made in relation to the ultimate purposes of formal education. Should humanity "double down" on the anthropocentric humanist project of superdominance, including the goals of unlimited economic growth, development, and scientific and technological progress? Alternatively, should a biocentric anti-humanist and/or postmodernist deconstruction of formal education take place? Or should a holistic organicist orientation, emphasizing biological wisdom, help to shape its future? As this book shows, the answers to these philosophical questions on the parts of educators, prospective teachers, and learners will, going forward, play a key role in deciding the evolutionary trajectories of all life-forms on the planet.

Designing Regenerative Cultures

Designing Regenerative Cultures PDF Author: Daniel Christian Wahl
Publisher: Triarchy Press
ISBN: 1909470791
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
This is a ‘Whole Earth Catalog’ for the 21st century: an impressive and wide-ranging analysis of what’s wrong with our societies, organizations, ideologies, worldviews and cultures – and how to put them right. The book covers the finance system, agriculture, design, ecology, economy, sustainability, organizations and society at large.

The 2030 Spike

The 2030 Spike PDF Author: Colin Mason
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136555110
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The clock is relentlessly ticking! Our world teeters on a knife-edge between a peaceful and prosperous future for all, and a dark winter of death and destruction that threatens to smother the light of civilization. Within 30 years, in the 2030 decade, six powerful 'drivers' will converge with unprecedented force in a statistical spike that could tear humanity apart and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Depleted fuel supplies, massive population growth, poverty, global climate change, famine, growing water shortages and international lawlessness are on a crash course with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the face of both doomsaying and denial over the state of our world, Colin Mason cuts through the rhetoric and reams of conflicting data to muster the evidence to illustrate a broad picture of the world as it is, and our possible futures. Ultimately his message is clear; we must act decisively, collectively and immediately to alter the trajectory of humanity away from catastrophe. Offering over 100 priorities for immediate action, The 2030 Spike serves as a guidebook for humanity through the treacherous minefields and wastelands ahead to a bright, peaceful and prosperous future in which all humans have the opportunity to thrive and build a better civilization. This book is powerful and essential reading for all people concerned with the future of humanity and planet earth.

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible PDF Author: Charles Eisenstein
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583947248
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
As seen on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday A beacon of hope in the face of our current world crises, this uplifting book demonstrates how embracing our interconnectedness is key to world transformation In a time of social and ecological crisis, what can we as individuals do to make the world a better place? This inspirational and thought-provoking book serves as an empowering antidote to the cynicism, frustration, paralysis, and overwhelm so many of us are feeling, replacing it with a grounding reminder of what’s true: we are all connected, and our small, personal choices bear unsuspected transformational power. By fully embracing and practicing this principle of interconnectedness—called interbeing—we become more effective agents of change and have a stronger positive influence on the world. Throughout the book, Eisenstein relates real-life stories showing how small, individual acts of courage, kindness, and self-trust can change our culture’s guiding narrative of separation, which, he shows, has generated the present planetary crisis. He brings to conscious awareness a deep wisdom we all innately know: until we get ourselves in order, any action we take—no matter how good our intentions—will ultimately be wrong-headed and wrong-hearted. Above all, Eisenstein invites us to embrace a radically different understanding of cause and effect, sounding a clarion call to surrender our old worldview of separation, so that we can finally create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. With chapters covering separation, interbeing, despair, hope, pain, pleasure, consciousness, and many more, the book invites us to let the old Story of Separation fall away so that we can stand firmly in a Story of Interbeing.

The Superorganism

The Superorganism PDF Author: Bert Holldobler
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393067040
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 556

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Book Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of "The Ants" render the extraordinary lives of the social insects--ants, bees, wasps, and termites--in this visually spectacular volume. 110 color and 100 black-and-white illustrations.

Abundant Earth

Abundant Earth PDF Author: Eileen Crist
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022659680X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
In Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist not only documents the rising tide of biodiversity loss, but also lays out the drivers of this wholesale destruction and how we can push past them. Looking beyond the familiar litany of causes—a large and growing human population, rising livestock numbers, expanding economies and international trade, and spreading infrastructures and incursions upon wildlands—she asks the key question: if we know human expansionism is to blame for this ecological crisis, why are we not taking the needed steps to halt our expansionism? Crist argues that to do so would require a two-pronged approach. Scaling down calls upon us to lower the global human population while working within a human-rights framework, to deindustrialize food production, and to localize economies and contract global trade. Pulling back calls upon us to free, restore, reconnect, and rewild vast terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the pervasive worldview of human supremacy—the conviction that humans are superior to all other life-forms and entitled to use these life-forms and their habitats—normalizes and promotes humanity’s ongoing expansion, undermining our ability to enact these linked strategies and preempt the mounting suffering and dislocation of both humans and nonhumans. Abundant Earth urges us to confront the reality that humanity will not advance by entrenching its domination over the biosphere. On the contrary, we will stagnate in the identity of nature-colonizer and decline into conflict as we vie for natural resources. Instead, we must chart another course, choosing to live in fellowship within the vibrant ecologies of our wild and domestic cohorts, and enfolding human inhabitation within the rich expanse of a biodiverse, living planet.

Factfulness

Factfulness PDF Author: Hans Rosling
Publisher: Flatiron Books
ISBN: 125012381X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.

The Precipice

The Precipice PDF Author: Toby Ord
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 031648489X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
This urgent and eye-opening book makes the case that protecting humanity's future is the central challenge of our time. If all goes well, human history is just beginning. Our species could survive for billions of years - enough time to end disease, poverty, and injustice, and to flourish in ways unimaginable today. But this vast future is at risk. With the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, where we face existential catastrophes - those from which we could never come back. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pathogens and artificial intelligence. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it will soon be too late. Drawing on over a decade of research, The Precipice explores the cutting-edge science behind the risks we face. It puts them in the context of the greater story of humanity: showing how ending these risks is among the most pressing moral issues of our time. And it points the way forward, to the actions and strategies that can safeguard humanity. An Oxford philosopher committed to putting ideas into action, Toby Ord has advised the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Minister's Office, and the World Bank on the biggest questions facing humanity. In The Precipice, he offers a startling reassessment of human history, the future we are failing to protect, and the steps we must take to ensure that our generation is not the last. "A book that seems made for the present moment." —New Yorker