Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

People often remark on the beauty of Arcosanti; it is a haunting, dramatic landscape. What most people don’t realize is that the landscape looks that way largely because it has been shaped by a perceived balance between the build and unbuilt environment - between humans and non-human nature. What does ecology tell us about what it means to be human? There are not only clues that can help define shifts in “ecosystem change,” a phrase that refers to either minor changes in ecosystem patterns and processes, or major changes in an ecosystem state, but also climate shifts that are turning some areas from a wood or green land to an arid, bare desert. What are our responsibilities, given the ecological knowledge we have? We discuss how our future evolution will be shaped by an awareness of the global threats, a willingness to take action, and an ability to do so. We question and inspect the concept of planetary well-being where our human impact on ecosystems and its consequences for societal and cultural transformation can be approached through transdisciplinary, and cross-cultural discourse.