University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Team Europe Direct
ESOF2024 | 12–15 June 2024 | Katowice, Poland
Piotr Skubała
Piotr Skubała
Position and institutional affiliation
BIO
Prof. Piotr Skubała, Ph.D. – professor of biological sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice, ecologist, acarologist, environmental ethicist, climate activist. Member of the Team Europe Direct expert network (European Commission), "ethic expert" at the European Commission in Brussels (HORIZON EUROPE), member of The State Council for Nature Conservation, member of the Climate Council at the United Nations Global Compact Network Poland.
Title of the lecture
Towards coexistence. Symbiocene as a response to the challenges of the climate crisis
Authors: Piotr Skubała (Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice), Magdalena Ochwat (Faculty of Humanities, University of Silesia in Katowice), Anna Kopaczewska (Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Katowice).
The human influence of the earth ecosystem has become so destructive that we need a new vision of the world. We believe that we must make an effort to create a new path that takes into account the role of symbiosis in functioning of life on Earth. Science clearly proves that the metaphor put forth by Alfred Tennyson, “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” is far from the truth, whereas Douglas H. Boucher is right when he describes nature as a great community “green in root and flower”. Australian scholar Glenn Albrecht postulates the conceptual framework for the new epoch and calls it the Symbiocene. It will be characterized by replicating symbiotic life processes in human activities. We focus on the three selected phenomena in which close multilateral cooperation plays a significant role. These are: the life of lichens, the functioning of mycelium with plants and permaculture. We take these examples as a training in collective imagination in good interspecies living and draw on selected literary texts. The idea of the Symbiocene, an inclusive and integrative philosophy of life, has great potential to become a new direction not only in the natural, social sciences and humanities.
