Abstract for Lund conference: "Prospective studies of contested climate pasts and futures"

I have just composed the abstract below for the organisers of the upcoming conference "Cognition and Evolution in Historical and Social Research", which is to be held September 23–24, at Lund University, Sweden (I have been invited to contribute). 

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Prospective studies of contested climate pasts and futures  

While most researchers in relevant fields of study may agree that the current scale of human impact on current ecology is massive and unprecedented, there is no agreement on the time frame for the Anthropocene. Like the epoch itself, the current conceptualisation of the Anthropocene remains a work in progress. We are currently situated in the middle of an ongoing climate crisis. On this background, it may come as no surprise that both how we should understand recent modern history, and how we should understand possible climate futures, is contested. In this presentation I will outline how biosemiotics and Umwelt theory can contribute to prospective studies of past and future lifeworlds. I will then proceed to discuss how climate futures may be construed by way of a few examples. The presentation will draw on my articles «The study of past Umwelten» (Discipline Filosophische, 2023) and «What can be known about future Umwelten?» (The American Journal of Semiotics, 2019) as well as my forthcoming book Captured: CCS and the fight for the soul of the environmental movement (Bloomsbury Academic). In relation to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), I will touch upon the influence ideas about CCS have had on envisioned climate futures over the last 30 years or so. Disturbingly, there is no consensus among researchers or regulators on the relevant time scales for CO2 storages. Short retention times for CO2 in CO2 storages (<10,000 years) may delay rather than solve the problem of climate change, in effect exposing future generations to the risk of anthropogenic climate change caused in our time. Lastly, I will look into the challenges of long-term waste management in the contexts of radioactive waste and CO2 storage, respectively, including the challenge of communicating across multiple generations.  

Short bio: Morten Tønnessen (born 1976) is a professor of philosophy at University of Stavanger, Norway. Academic (b)log: https://utopianrealism.blogspot.com