On – line lecture with prof. Ewa Bińczyk

“Planetary Environmental Crisis and the Problem of Denialism”. Prof. Ewa Bińczyk on – line lecture, 2nd of February 2022.

One of the events connected with the World Wetlands Day 2022 was a meeting with prof. Ewa Bińczyk, who accepted the invitation of the Society to prepare and deliver a lecture on problems and threats posed by climate change. Prof. Ewa Bińczyk, PhD, works in the Department of Practical Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. She deals with contemporary environmental philosophy, philosophical assumptions of ecological degrowth economics, philosophy of science, science and technology studies and controversies in science. She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN), PAN Forecast Committee, Council of Experts of the Polish Climate Coalition and Council of the Climate Education Foundation. She is the author of books:: Sociology of Knowledge in the Bible (Nomos 2003), A Picture that Captivate Us (Universitas 2007), Technoscience in a Risk Society (UMK 2012), and also The Epoch of Man. Rhetoric and Lethargy of the Anthropocene (PWN 2018).

Ewa Bińczyk is also co-author of Modeling Technoscience and Nanotechnology Assessment (Peter Lang 2014), co-editor of a selection of texts Studies in Science and Technology (UMK 2014) and Horizons of Constructivism. Inspirations, perspectives, future (UMK 2015). She was a scholarship holder of the Foundation for Polish Science (2005), the Fulbright Foundation (2006-2007), and a winner of the Polityka weekly’s “Stay with us” scholarship (2010). In the winter semester of 2016, she worked as a visiting scholar at Harvard University (Department of History of Science). In August 2021 she co-presented a seminar at the European Forum in Alpbach.

Abstract

The context of the lecture consists of a vast catalogue of problems commonly referred to as “the planetary environmental crisis.” The crisis is currently debated within climatology, environmental sciences and the so-called Earth system science, the emergence of which is called “the second Copernican revolution in science.” We will discuss the issues of crossing tipping points and planetary boundaries, the risk of destabilization of the hydrosphere, lithosphere and atmosphere, and the problem of the annihilation of the biosphere.

Next, we will focus on the most critical challenges of the epoch in which planetary environmental change occurs. These include climate policy and the extreme fetishization of the postulate of emission reduction, humanity’s attitude to irreversible environmental losses, as well as the complex causes of stagnation (marasmus) and denial.  

Furthermore, we will focus on the history of disinformation campaigns on global warming (the actions of the so-called merchants of doubts) and analyze new forms of denialism (deflection, division, climate fatalism/doomism, emergency plans). This will allow us to look for answers to two essential questions: 1) how to create the pro-environmental correction of thinking and acting in the 21st century, 2) how to effectively conduct climate education.

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