The Evolution of Responsibility in the Anthropocene

Description

70.000 years ago, the human brain experienced a significant development in the quality of its potential: homo sapiens was suddenly able to think about things that don’t exist and to invent all kind of tools to escape the harsh pressure of evolutionary selection. I want to argue that from this time on, homo sapiens is escaping the path of natural evolution and becoming responsible for its own fate. Homo sapiens is shaping not only himself but more and more his environment and the whole planet leading to a new era coined the „Anthropocene“. This term was suggested by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000, as the epoch in which human activities started to have a significant global impact on the Earth’s ecosystem, including the atmosphere and the geosphere. More recently technologies in molecular genetics are being invented that make it possible to manipulate the genomes of living organism like plants and animals and even of humans in a more precise and efficient was way than before. This might be the beginning of the end of the era of genetic diseases but this might also mean that we humans will create new species to satisfy our ideological demands. What I want to discuss is the fact that we, homo sapiens, need to realize that by doing all this, we are becoming more and more responsible for what is happening on our planet. Only high level education for every body will enable us find the solutions to shape our future in a sustainable way.

Period	13 Jul 2016
Event title	ICCHP 2016
Event type	Conference
Location	Linz, AustriaShow on map