Contemporary Problems on Environment

Code: FIL14579M

6 ECTS

Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours

Scientific Area: Philosophy

Teaching languages: Portuguese

Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese

Presentation

Some of the main contemporary environmental problems are presented, their characterization and problematization are carried out in different registers: biological, biochemical, ecological, historical, anthropological, societal and individual.

Sustainable Development Goals

Educação de qualidade - Assegurar a educação inclusiva, e equitativa e de qualidade, e promover oportunidades de aprendizagem ao longo da vida para todos.

Cidades e comunidades sustentáveis - Tornar as cidades e os assentamentos humanos inclusivos, seguros, resilientes e sustentáveis.

Produção e consumo sustentáveis - Assegurar padrões de produção e de consumo sustentáveis.

Ação climática - Tomar medidas urgentes para combater a mudança climática e seus impactos (*).

Proteger a vida terrestre - Proteger, recuperar e promover o uso sustentável dos ecossistemas terrestres, gerir de forma sustentável as florestas, combater a desertificação, deter e reverter a degradação da Terra e deter a perda da biodiversidade.

Paz, justiça e instituições eficazes - Paz, justiça e instituições eficazes promover sociedades pacíficas e inclusivas par ao desenvolvimento sustentável, proporcionar o acesso à justiça para todos e construir instituições eficazes, responsáveis
e inclusivas em todos os níveis.

Learning Goals

Knowledge:
Presentation of some of the main contemporary environmental problems,
its characterization, problematization; historical analysis of its origin, in different registers: biological, biochemical, ecological, climatic, historical, anthropological, societal, individual.
Skills:
Recognition of the philosophical and ethical aspects inherent in these issues. Understand the contributions of biological sciences, ecological, ethological and environmental studies, science and technology, arts and humanities,
This skills are oriented to develop the activation of existing knowledge and information; and the hermeneutic, critical and dialogic abilities of students about the exposed subjects, in different scales of understanding and intervention.

1. A world without a future. The multiplicity and complexity of contemporary environmental issues. The historical-philosophical significance of the Anthropocene, the relevance of human communities in environmental history.
2. A world too human-centered: the landscape dimension of the environmental crisis. The extension and dissemination of urban modes, the depletion of resources and the accumulation of waste, the loss of natural and cultural diversity.
3. A world heading towards a precipice: the ecological dimension of the environmental crisis: deforestation and the destruction of biodiversity, pollution with micro particles, the dangers of genetic engineering. Ethical problems in the genetic restoration of species and spaces.
4. From the closed universe to the infinite world: the ambivalence of sustainability and technological solutions for resolving the environmental crisis. The recognition of new ways of dwelling, the development of relationships of companionship with non-humans.

Teaching Methods

Lectures by teachers; thematic comments and debates; presentations of work by students. Bibliographic reviews; written and oral knowledge assessment tests; individual and group research work.

Evaluation:
Continuous evauation: assistance: 20%; participation and debate: 20%; final essay and discussion: 60%.
Exam: 100%.