Sustainability and ecological civilization in the age of Anthropocene: An epistemological analysis of the psychosocial and "culturalist" interpretations of global environmental risks

Abstract

The aimof this article is to assess the validity of the culturalist explanation of unsustainability by critically examining the social-cultural interpretation of the risks on which it is epistemologically based. First, we will explore the different ways in which the notion of Anthropocene is changing our perception of risks. Second, we will analyze the limits of the social-cultural explanation of risks relative to the global (non-linear) interdependence between human activities and environmental processes that defines the Anthropocene. Third, we will introduce the Chinese concept of Ecological Civilization and analyze its cultural foundations and culturalist assumptions. Finally, we will develop the practical consequences of this critic of the social-cultural interpretation of risks and of culturalist explanations of unsustainability.