Torp, Mads Algreen

I analyse the ecological crisis understood as the entwined state of emergency caused by the temporal and spatial worsening of climatological and environmental systems and the dwindling of biodiversity. I propose Norwegian ecophilosopher Arne Næss’ theoretical framework of a Shallow and Deep Ecology movement as an analytical lens through which the ecological crisis can be understood. I locate Western modernity as the hotbed of the shallow approach to tackling the crisis, and argue that its visions are critically insufficient at bringing forth a sustainable future where both modern people of the Global North and non-modern people of the Global South can thrive alongside non-humans alike, whom I argue bear intrinsic value. I base this proposal on an ecocentric axiology. I propose Næss’ moral principle ‘biospheric egalitarianism - in principle’ as a political guideline for the Green Transition in modern states. I refer to this transitions as the Darkgreen Transition and argue that an internal revision of the ‘good life’ as envisioned within modern states can be achieved through ‘nature-formation’. Globally the Darkgreen Transition must create a political space for non-modern ontologies and epistemologies to ensure that the bioregional knowledge is taken serious and neocolonial ecological interventions is avoided in the name of a (shallow ecological/) Green Transition. I draw on Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ Epistemologies of the South framework to establish this point in conversation with Næss’ Deep Ecology

(Dark)Green Transition - The Deep Ecological Solution to the Ecological Crisis of the 21. Century

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Roskilde Universitet