A Critical Introduction

We now live in the geological epoch called the Anthropocene (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000; Steffen et al., 2011; Zalasiewicz et al., 2008; Steffen et al., 2016; Morton, 2016; Sørlin, 2017; Ellis, 2018). In this age, Anthropos, through human activities, technologies and alterations of the global environment have begun to affect the whole life-critical zone of the Earth more than ever before, and more than anything else (Lin, 2010; Latour, 2017). The consequences are many: “the great acceleration” of technology, industry, agriculture, and an over-use of natural resources (McNeill & Engelke, 2016), mass extinctions (see for example Chap. 2), global warming (Oreskes & Conway, 2011), collapse of eco-systems (Steffen et al., 2006), and the spread of pandemics and multi-resistant bacteria. All this promises an ever more impoverished earth if we continue along the prevailing trajectory. Innovative, integrated, achievable, and inclusive pedagogical intervention into climate change and Anthropocene damage, form the two-pronged yet intertwined focus of this collection.