Human ecology and civilizational change: Reflectons on the right to life

Abstract

There is a widely held belief that climate change imposes hazardous consequences to human lives once the latter are affected by the environmental impacts caused by global climate change negative effects. Nevertheless, humans are not equitably responsible for environmental damage, for the depletion and contamination of ecosystems are not the result of the life style of the large majority of humans; in this sense, it is imperative to address the issue in economic terms of a Capitalocene, rather than an Anthropocene. This research implements deductive methodology with exploratory emphasis to investigate the ways in which environmental protection strategies are followed by a legal structure that authorizes the use, the appropriation and the management of nature’s values; ultimately, one expects a change in overall behaviour. In this scheme, it explores the concepts of ecology, natural environment and justice, as well as proposals that question dominant rationality, could entail social change strategies to erect a mode of production and the dominant logics. Political ecology, environmental knowledge and environmental justice are social constructions both in symbolic and material terms. These frameworks allow a new civilizational project of a shift in dominant rationality in which social sciences meet alterity.