Planetary Crisis Research Articles

Beyond the critical: reinventing the radical imagination in transformative development and global(ization) studies

ABSTRACT Evidence is mounting of severe planetary and civilizational crises, interrelated and mutually constitutive of one another at unprecedented scales caused by the ‘globalization' of a hegemonic mode of civilizational ‘(mal-)development.' Critical scholarship in both Development and Global(ization) Studies faces numerous challenges. In this article, we argue that critical scholarship needs to be radically transformed to become radically transformative. This means that we need to critically revisit what identifies both fields as “critical”, at the meta-theoretical level, as a joint transformative project, fundamentally independent of capital’s discursive lexicons and historical logics. An ontological recognition of the truth and a new dialectic of the truth and the real help enact an action-oriented agenda to explore the potentials for liberation. It is now time to bravely explore the realm of impossibility by re/imagineering alternative lifeways beyond capital, beyond fossil fuel, and beyond commodity-oriented cumulative growth and their associated narrow rationalities.

Inhuman, All Too Human: Virginia Woolf and the Anthropocene

Inhuman, All Too Human: Virginia Woolf and the Anthropocene Emma Brush (bio) The idea that we are living in a time of crisis may be less contentious than the claim that we find ourselves in the Anthropocene— a new geological era defined by human impact— but the two often go hand in hand. Dipesh Chakrabarty’s four theses on the “current planetary crisis of climate change” offer one view of the ways in which crisis and Anthropocene have combined to characterize, and disrupt, modern life and understanding.1 According to Chakrabarty, climate change and the accompanying Anthropocene formulation together trouble not only the scale of human history and the scope of what it means to be human but also the potential for a legible future altogether. The need to internalize these conceptual ruptures becomes as urgent as it is difficult— we can no more experience the full force of global impact than we can the life of the species nor the possibility of its extinction. As a result, the Anthropocene concept emerges as a formal challenge and imperative— to come to terms with the facts of planetary crisis, collective interdependence, and the potential elision of futurity— for the sake of living on.2 But however novel, as an environmental condition, the Anthropocene as discourse owes to a longer conceptual lineage— and a particular inheritance, I argue, from literary and artistic modernism— that complicates these claims. The comparison might begin with the rhetoric of newness (the “structural principle of radical rupture,” to quote Susan Stanford Friedman) that reenacts in a different century the modernist imperative to “make it new.”3 The Anthropocene’s “turn toward epochal time” similarly appears in the modernists’ fascination [End Page 69] with the prehistoric, the primeval, and the primordial.4 Indeed, the species thinking prevalent in Anthropocene discourse originates in evolutionary theory, the provocations of which feature prominently in early twentieth-century thought and literature. The millenarian posture of contemporary environmental discourse, meanwhile, evokes a modernist temporality, in which the “past, present, and future exist in a relationship of crisis” in response to perceived decline and looming catastrophe, both increasingly out of control and of humanity’s making.5 Technological advance and the social structures underpinning it play a central role in this narrative of decline and rupture, just as they do for the modernists. As Sarah Cole writes in her study of modernism and violence, “The precariousness of humanity, in the face of a bewildering array of powers— mass violence, totalitarianism, bureaucracy, technology, the onslaught of visuality— is one of the primary morals of the twentieth century.”6 Cole’s framing suggests that the Anthropocene’s basic motif— the impotence of the human faced with the force of humanity’s collective work— derives much from the social and political disruptions of the first half of the twentieth century and the modernist articulations forged in response. Without question, climate change brings unprecedented scientific and technological challenges and beckons perilous social, political, and environmental consequences. But the Anthropocene, as a rhetorical response to climate change and other anthropogenic activity, does not authorize any self-evident ethical or political answers. Modernism’s example “as a discourse of diagnosis and protest, an artistic response to a social problem,” serves as a reminder that such projects need not serve democratic governance nor equitable outcomes.7 A shadow side of modernism was an often-racist reification of nature and place, an offshoot of Darwinism and imperialism that manifested most directly in the form of eugenics and fascism, but also in a wide range of misanthropic, chauvinistic, and primitivist formulations that continue to trouble scholars of the period.8 Anthropologist Andrew Bauer has argued that the Anthropocene might similarly promote “a regressive environmental politics based on romanticized notions of nature,” essentialized versions of humanity, and inequitable forms of knowledge production.9 The larger work of this essay will be to begin to contextualize the figural and rhetorical work performed by the Anthropocene concept within the modernist canon and legacy, in an effort to sharpen [End Page 70] its use and articulate its hazards, with an eye, ultimately, toward better navigating the material conditions the term succeeds in calling into view. As a...

Re-storying the landscape: The humanities and higher education for sustainable development

In the midst of the planetary crisis represented by the Anthropocene – the geological epoch in which human activity has become the dominant influence on the environment – the humanities can advance the sustainability movement by emphasizing the study of human experience. As we face sustainability challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, we encounter questions such as: what kind of education is of most value and how do we engage the environmental humanities as a mode of inquiry to better understand the crucial relationships between humans, place, and sustainability? Addressing these questions requires non-conventional modes of inquiry. Studying the stories of the landscapes that we inhabit is a non-conventional mode of inquiry that nurtures a sense of place. These stories include how the land was shaped by both natural and human forces. Stories of place and the history of how humans have altered it provide crucial insight into the human-Earth relationship. The study of place cultivates interest in infusing lived and felt human experience into the curriculum and pedagogy. Infusing human experience into higher education pedagogy encourages the linking of the sciences with the humanities. These ideas were implemented in a case study in which a swamp located in northwestern Ohio was used to contextualize sustainability education at Bowling Green State University. Such an education-oriented response to the sustainability crisis allows us to formulate new modes of inquiry, to better collaborate across disciplines, and to embrace uncertainty.

Governing the End Times? Planet Politics and the Secular Eschatology of the Anthropocene

This article furthers the debate on the political implications of the Anthropocene – the most recent geological epoch marked by catastrophic environmental change – by engaging it through the lens of political theology. The article starts from the observation that discourses on the Anthropocene and related political projects are deeply influenced by a linear temporality and a common orientation towards the threat of the end of time. It distinguishes three competing discourses of the Anthropocene, eco-catastrophism, eco-modernism and planetary realism. The article analyses how these discourses invoke and update key symbols, images, and storylines of Christian political theology. Furthermore, it studies how each discourse mobilises these secularised Christian motifs to promote competing planet political projects. Each of these projects develops a different position towards the unfolding planetary crisis and the related threat of the end of time. Eco-catastrophism calls for a planetary emergency management, eco-modernism promotes ongoing experimentation with the planet, whereas planetary realism translates into what could be called a ‘realpolitik of resilience’. Revealing the Western theological roots of the Anthropocene and planet politics is essential if the emerging literature on the Anthropocene wants to live up to its promise of pluralising and decolonising IR.

Daoism and the Project of an Ecological Civilization or Shengtai Wenming 生态文明

For China today, environmentalism is central. The socialist doctrine of “Xi Jinping Thought” prioritizes transitioning to sustainability in the goal of building an “Ecological Civilization”. This creates unprecedented opportunities for Daoist practitioners to engage in state-coordinated activism (part 1). We show how the science of the planetary crisis (part 2) resonates with Daoist values (part 3), how these values integrate in national policy goals (part 4), and how this religious environmental activism plays out in case studies (part 5).

A Process Theology of Hope: The Counter Apocalyptic Vision of Catherine Keller

Christianity continues to decline in the traditional west, yet is at the same time experiencing significant growth in the majority world. Research indicates that by 2060 the portion of those who identify as non-religious will decline significantly across the globe. Christianity in the future will largely be dominated by an apocalyptic eschatology that has the potential to disengage Christians from our current planetary crisis. Catherine Keller has developed a counter-apocalyptic vision that challenges traditional eschatology in its potential to disconnect faith from the planet’s most urgent challenges. Keller attacks a key facet of apocalyptic eschatology that enshrines an omnipotent deity. Her approach is evaluated within the broader process-relational theology from which she has emerged, particularly that influenced by Whitehead. It is argued that her eschatological alternative is best placed to offer a vision that enables Christians to take the earth seriously, to generate a chastened and realistic hope, grounded in a process relational ontology.

Patchy Anthropocene: Frenzies and Afterlives of Violent Simplifications

Patchy Anthropocene: Frenzies and Afterlives of Violent Simplifications

Associations of the edge: Arctic imaginaries

ABSTRACTThe article analyses the most recent environmental debate on Arctic warming. Three main concerns are identified. First, the debate underlines that the ongoing Arctic change is a warning of the planetary crisis to come. Second, it emphasises that this change is a symptom of epochal transition toward the Anthropocene. Third, it regards the change as an outcome of the continuing colonial repression of the extreme North. The main objective of the study on which the article is based was to evaluate these concerns as part of the main historical imaginaries of the Arctic (singled out from related literature). The method utilised was an application of ‘critical reading’ developed by post-colonial researchers. The evaluation revealed that in order to strengthen their message, environmentalists have creatively utilised and developed ancient imaginaries of the Arctic. However, at times, this coupling has in practice resulted in conceptual associations that weaken the environmentalists’ potential in formulating foundational critiques and alternatives. The evaluation of the environmental concerns also helped to sketch the contours of an Arctic development alternative that is grounded on reciprocal localisation and ethno-ecological cooperation.

Vulnerability, Response-Ability, and the Promise of Making Refuge

This paper proposes “making refuge” as a conceptual placeholder and an analytical rubric, a guiding ethos and praxis, for the engaged Buddhist aspiration of responding to the social, political, economic, and planetary crises facing the world. Making refuge is conceived as the work of building the conditions of trust and safety necessary for living and dying well together as co-inhabitants of diverse communities and habitats. The paper will explain the rationale for making refuge by connecting the dharmic understanding of dukkha with feminist conceptualizations of the body and vulnerability. This will chart some theoretical and methodological pathways for engaged Buddhism to further its liberatory aspirations in reciprocity with emergent movements in radical critical theory, contemplative studies, and social and ecological activism. The paper will also examine the effects of white supremacy in U.S. Buddhism through the framework of making refuge. This will demonstrate how political healing and restorative justice might be cultivated through a dispositional ethics that pays appropriate attention to the vulnerabilities facing oppressed people.

Escape Velocity: American Science Fiction Film, 1950-1982 by Bradley Schauer

200 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 46 (2019) More aspires is conceivable only within a post-biological, post-ecological order indifferent or even hostile to the survival of the larger biosphere. More’s anthropochauvinism is the product of an inward turn that Pilsch figures, provocatively, as the basis for transhumanism’s revolutionary potential: “an internalization of technology” (7) that marks it as something more than a naïve “religion of technology.” Where religion entails belief in something external (the hope of technological transcendence, in this case), here the divine object is fully absorbed into the transhuman subject; the self is everything, there is no outside. Pilsch proposes that by reframing utopia in such individualistic terms, transhumanism makes possible the conception of “spaces beyond the current configuration of power” (13). But this call to “[shift] our attention from the state to the body as the needed site of utopian investment” (13) never really makes clear whose body is to be thus invested. The transhumanist project of indefinite life-extension, for example, supposes that aging and death are evolutionary errors that advanced biotechnology can correct, yet it takes little interest in the larger economic, infrastructural, and otherwise resource-dependent systems that make the technology possible in the first place. Even presuming that such a precarious arrangement could remain more or less viable in the face of civilizational collapse, the back-of-envelope math makes clear that it would benefit at best only a handful of extremely wealthy individuals. This outcome hardly seems compatible with a utopian vision, though it does recall the class-defined transhumanity of William Gibson’s Count Zero (1986), in which “the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human” (New York: Arbor House, 1986 [18]). The absence of satisfying answers to these questions involving class and the unfolding planetary crisis—and related ones concerning race and gender that take on added urgency in a time of resurgent fascism—prevents Transhumanism from realizing the full potential of what is otherwise a deeply informed and elegantly expounded work of scholarship. Despite these quibbles, I enthusiastically recommend Pilsch’s book and look forward to his further development of the ideas it introduces.—Joshua Raulerson, Pittsburgh, PA Light Industry. Bradley Schauer. Escape Velocity: American Science Fiction Film, 1950-1982. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2017. x+269pp. $26.95 pbk, $17 ebk. In May 1977, everyone figured George Lucas’s space-opera folly, Star Wars, would be a massive flop; just weeks before its release TwentiethCentury Fox even tried to offload it onto a tax-shelter group. Within days of its limited opening in just thirty-two theaters, however, it was clear that it would be a hit, though no one could anticipate quite how massive—thirty-five years later, Disney would buy Lucasfilm for four billion dollars. Schauer’s fascinating critical history of American sf film begins with this strange conjuncture. Until that summer, pulp elements were box-office poison for big budget sf. Since then, costly spectacles that draw on the pulpiest, most juvenile elements of the genre (not a priori a bad thing) have increasingly dominated our screens. To explore this transition, Schauer eschews the more familiar textual, contextual, and/or theoretical approaches to sf film that 201 BOOKS IN REVIEW analyze how a film creates meaning, relates to and illustrates cultural trends, or exemplifies or falls short of certain critical-theoretical expectations. Escape Velocity instead pursues an industry analysis; that is, it works from the “impact” of industrial “determinants ... on the production strategies of filmmakers and studios” (3) to understand how and why particular films and cycles of films were made. (Other such analyses of potential interest to SFS readers are Nick Heffernan’s Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953–1968 [2004], Richard Nowell’s Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle [2011], Blair Davis’s The Battle for the Bs: 1950s Hollywood and the Rebirth of Low-Budget Cinema [2012], and James Chapman and Nicholas J. Cull’s Projecting Tomorrow: Science Fiction and Popular Cinema [2013].) In addition to exploring the relationships among broader economic trends, industry strategies, and production histories, Schauer combs through reviews in industry presses and...

ФЕНОМЕН ІДЕЙ В УПРАВЛІННІ ЖИТТЄДІЯЛЬНІСТЮ СУСПІЛЬСТВА

Actuality. Cosmogeological phenomena and the rapid development of scientific and technical progress cause the next bifurcation of the world civilization and require a transition to a qualitatively different state of society. This is manifested in the increase of chaos and entropy and by all accounts is a systematic, multidimensional, planetary crisis of industrialism, which poses a threat to human existence. The output of forcing state and the transition to order is possible under condition of selection of the relevant attractors, which are based on socially significant ideas. Purpose and methods. The article aims at disclosing the essence of the phenomenon of ideas as the driving force in the management of the livelihoods of the society. Methodological basis of research is the dialectical principle of cognition, systemic, historical, cognitive, and situational approaches to the study of social phenomena, fundamental principles of the theory of ideology and control. Results. The essence of the spiritual power’ ideas, is able to penetrate deep into the human mind and influence on society. The influence of the most important ideas on the fate in individual countries and peoples. It is shown that the idea of live appear and disappear and in some circumstances can recover his strength. Substantiates necessity in fresh ideas which touch: roles of the state and market; relations between an individual, society and state; correlation of morality and economic efficiency, production and consumption; to democraticness of globalization, that in ideas, which would come forward as an alternative of neoliberalizm which has already exhausted the vital resource. Conclusions and discussion. The scientific novelty of the obtained results consists in deepening of essence understanding, role, value of ideas and their administrative function; in the theoretical analysis of life cycle in ideas and demand determination on new ideas which are able to provide overcoming a system crisis and subsequent development of society. The practical value of the obtained results appears in possibility of their use for strategy development in country and the following administrative science in new theoretical position about an idea as management.

Science in ‘the storm’: Reflections on politics and plant sciences today

What constitutes science? What is the relation between scientific practice and capitalist modernity? What are the responsibilities of scientists in the face of our planetary crisis? In 2016 the Zapatistas of Chiapas organized an event to reflect upon and discuss the practice and politics of science. This paper — based on a script of a presentation at the event — takes up these questions, drawing from radical thought and philosophy of science to consider science in our present conjuncture.

Tending this Fragile Earth, Our Island Home: The Pope's Encyclical in Dialogue with Anglican Theology

Laudato si’, Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical on the environment, drew on the Roman Catholic magisterium and his own background as a Latin American Jesuit influenced by Franciscan spirituality. He described a planetary ecological crisis and spells out a response based on a theology and spirituality of creation and invites dialogue with voices from other traditions. The Anglican theological tradition offers resources for dialogue with the encyclical, including nineteenth- and twentieth-century theologians, as well as insights from the liturgical movement, and the dialogue with science that issued in the Episcopal Church's “A Catechism of Creation.” Flexibility in liturgical experimentation, affirmation of the role of laypeople in decision making, and Anglican openness to examining faith and practice in the light of new understandings and insights are all resources that the Anglican tradition can bring to a conversation with the concerns of Laudato si’.

ETHNO-RELIGIOUS TERRORISM: ESSENCE, DIMENSIONS, CONCEPT

The objective of the article is to identify, describe, and explain the essence of terrorism as a general civilizational criminal phenomenon, the characteristics of dimensions of its reproduction and the formation of its concept on this basis. The results of the study provided the grounds for several conclusions. First, ethno-religious terrorism is manifested as a cultural phenomenon, a special segment of the inhumane discourse of hostility and aggressive social practices. It appears as a reaction to the systemic planetary crisis of managing economics, culture, consumption of natural resources, and becomes possible in the result of the massive loss of identity, fragmentation of the world-view. Secondly, we have established that the specified type of terrorism is a segment of aggressive and violent crime, in the collective and psychological basis of which there is the religious and ideological and/or ethnic domination in the systems of socio-political practice, which is achieved through intimidation as a result of committed murders, destruction or damage to property, objects of nature and offenses of a preventive nature (financial, human resources, information, and other provision). Thirdly, ethno-religious terrorism exists within three dimensions: individual (the act of sacrifice, catharsis), group (integration, social orientation) and general (administrative practice, political criminal activity, the postmodern phenomenon of the culture). The applied value of the study is that the suggested vision of the nature and dimensions of ethno-religious terrorism can be used to improve the systemic principles of counteracting its reproduction. The latter should be reflected in the improvement of the provisions of the United Nations Global Counterterrorism Strategy through the consolidation of a coherent, coordinated system of level differentiation of anti-terrorist activities’ directions and measures. We note that without changing the basic approaches within the cultural, political, and economic aspects of the interaction of nations and peoples of the world with regard to their diversity and parity, proper autonomy, without stopping the global tendency towards marginalization, it is impossible to effectively counteract to ethno-religious terrorism. Value/originality. The new vision of a complex, multidimensional nature of ethno-religious terrorism has been formed in the work. Its nature is grounded as a civilizational phenomenon reflected on the level of discourse, mass social practices, global managerial strategies. It forms an empirically grounded theoretical basis for increasing the effectiveness of counteracting ethno-religious terrorism in Europe and the world in the whole.

Planetary Crises and the Difficulty of Being Modern

This article questions whether the presently dominant ideas about globalisation and global warming work with very different conceptions of the ‘globe’ that are both connected and yet opposed to each other. The discussion on globalisation may be seen as an extension of homocentric narratives of modernity that see humans as separate from the natural world. The global warming literature, on the other hand, has led to a serious renewal of critical calls to abandon the nature/culture distinction. This article tracks some of the ethical difficulties of being modern at a time when collective human aspirations carry planetary implications. In the process, the article brings into conversation some post-human and post-colonial perspectives on our time.

Listening with young children: enchanted animism of trees, rocks, clouds (and other things)

This article introduces the notion of enchanted animism, contending that an enchanted re-animation of the world may be necessary for learning to live on a damaged planet. The paper draws on a project with young children which invited them to share what they thought was ‘good’ in the outdoor spaces at their early learning centre. These encounters revealed children’s relationship with nonhuman elements which seemed to be calling in and enchanting children. In particular, children’s playful animation of so-called inanimate things – trees, rocks, clouds – allowed an egalitarian view of the world in which both humans and nonhumans were seen to be engaged in intentional projects. The paper argues that enchanted animism kindles children’s sensitivity to Earthly processes, enabling them to listen to the Earth more attentively, with the awareness and responsiveness that a planetary crisis demands.

Utrata przyszłości w epoce antropocenu

Jak twierdzi Martín Caparrós, „ekologia urasta do rangi znaku naszych czasów, czasów bez pomysłu na przyszłość”. Świetną ilustrację tej tezy stanowi interdyscyplinarna debata na temat propozycji E.F. Stoermera i P.J. Crutzena, którzy z uwagi na skalę i zakres ludzkich ingerencji w systemy planetarne zasugerowali, by współczesną epokę geologiczną nazwać antropocenem – epoką człowieka. Naukowcy zatroskani skalą obecnego kryzysu planetarnego formułują kolejne już ostrzeżenia dla ludzkości. Czy rzeczywiście antropocen to epoka bez pomysłu na przyszłość? Utraciliśmy rafy koralowe, stabilność klimatu, pory roku, poszczególne gatunki, a nawet naturę. Jak rozumieć tezę o utracie przyszłości w epoce człowieka? Jak się wydaje, nieprzekraczalną blokadą dla myślenia o przyszłości w XXI wieku jest dominacja myślenia rynkowego. W jego ramach horyzont inwestycyjny to najwyżej 20–30 lat. Czy ignorowanie kosztów klimatycznych i środowiskowych rozwoju współczesnych gospodarek nie świadczy o braku wyobraźni i zbiorowym wyparciu samej idei przyszłości? Czy ryzyko nagłej zmiany klimatycznej nie kwestionuje myślenia linearnego i dotychczasowego, zachodniego pojmowania czasu? W artykule szukam odpowiedzi na powyższe pytania, opierając się na wcześniejszej analizie wybranych narracji w debacie na temat antropocenu. Należą do nich: 1) naturalistyczna narracja przyrodoznawców (E. Stoermer, P. Crutzen, W. Steffen, J. Zalasiewicz, J. Rockström), 2) narracja humanistów w nurcie postnaturalizmu: D. Haraway, B. Latour, I. Stengers, D. Chakrabarty, 3) dyskurs eko-marksistowski, operujący etykietką kapitalocenu i krytyczny wobec etykietki antropocenu: J. Moore, I. Angus, A. Hornborg, A. Malm, C. Bonneuil, J.-B. Fressoz, S. Lewis, M. Maslin, 4) dyskurs eko-katastroficzny (C. Hamilton, E. Crist, J. McBrien, E. Swyngedouw, N. Oreskes i E. Conway), a także 5) narracja ekomodernistów mówiąca o dobrym, a nawet wspaniałym antropocenie (T. Nordhaus, M. Schellenberger, D. W. Keith).

Where the wild tales are: how stories teach kids to nurture nature

S. F. Said explores a study on children’s books as preparation for planetary crises. S. F. Said explores a study on children’s books as preparation for planetary crises.

A Global De-colonial Praxis of Sustainability — Undoing Epistemic Violences between Indigenous peoples and those no longer Indigenous to Place

Addressing our growing planetary crisis and attendant symptoms of human and human-ecological disconnect, requires a profound epistemological reorientation regarding how societal structures are conceived and articulated; named here as the collective work of decolonisation. While global dynamics are giving rise to vital transnational solidarities between Indigenous peoples, these same processes have also resulted in complex and often contradictory locations and histories of peoples at local levels which unsettle the Indigenous–non-Indigenous binary, providing new and necessary possibilities for the development of epistemological and relational solidarities aimed at increasing social–ecological resilience. The International Resilience Network is an emerging community of practice comprised of Indigenous and settler–migrant peoples aimed at increasing social–ecological resilience. This article narrates the story of the Network's inaugural summit, and provides an overview of contextual issues and analysis of particular pedagogical aspects of our approach; foregrounding ruptures between ontology and epistemology that inevitably occur when culturally and generationally diverse groups who are grounded in different daily realities and related agency imperatives come to share overlapping worldviews through learning ‘in place’ together. Developing pedagogical practices for naming and negotiating associated tensions within the collective work of decolonisation is, we argue, a critical step in enabling practices conducive towards the shared goal of increased human–ecological resilience.

Gestão das Águas e Territórios Protegidos

Como dizia Carl Sagan (1934-1996), a água é o elemento singular que dá cor e vida a este pálido ponto azul do sistema solar que habitamos – a Terra. Entremeados por cinco extensos oceanos, estão os ecossistemas terrestres, que abrigam um diverso conjunto de seres vivos e, também, mais água em distintas formas. Nessa arena da vida, a humanidade evoluiu, criou seus próprios meios e ecossistemas, apartando-se do mundo natural (Thomas 2010). Esse contraste tem nos levado a enfrentar crises planetárias nunca antes vividas pela nossa espécie, como a perda de biodiversidade, as mudanças climáticas globais e as alterações dos fluxos biogeoquímicos (Steffen et al. 2015). Essas crises, às quais se somam as crises hídricas, ameaçam a nossa qualidade de vida e até mesmo a nossa capacidade de sobrevivência.