The Anthropocene and its Future, 2024 The Challenges of Accelerating Social and Ecological Change

This book analyses the complex social and ecological processes of the Great Acceleration, the Great Transformation, and sustainable development that shape the future of the global society in the twenty-first century. The first process takes place for a longer time, the second over the past thirty years, with attempts to build a sustainable economy and society in the global policy of sustainable development. The processes and their interaction will be discussed with knowledge from inter- and transdisciplinary transformation research, social and political ecology, and theories of modern society. The guiding theoretical concepts for the social-ecological transformation will be clarified: the concepts of acceleration, transformation, and sustainable development, and the societal and ecological processes they include. To obtain a more detailed picture of the changes in the global social-ecological system, different parts of the global transformation, the digital transformation, the transformation of food systems, and the transformation of modes of living in the social lifeworld are described to show the complex changes in the epoch of the Anthropocene more concretely. The global change processes in society and nature are caused by human forces but are difficult to control through policy and governance. With the interdisciplinary integration of concepts and knowledge, it becomes possible to provide a more detailed picture, of the difficulties to achieve a sustainable future society.

Part I Complexity of Global Change - Acceleration and Transformation.- 1 Introduction - The Century of Accelerating Social and Ecological Change.- 2 Global Change - The Great Acceleration.- 3 Global Change - The Great Transformation.- 4 Sustainable Development - The Discourse about the Common Future.- 5 Theoretical Models of the Social-ecological Transformation.- Part II Problems in the Great Transformation.- 6 Digitalisation and Social-Ecological Transformation.- 7 Food Systems and Social-Ecological Transformation.- 8 Modes of Living and Social-Ecological Transformation.- Part III The Future – Nature and Society.- 9 Transformation of Nature - Changing Relations between Nature and Society.- 10 Transformation of Society - Governance of Global Crises.