Environmental Education and the Anthropocene: Convergences, Distances, and Contemporary Challenges

We live in the Anthropocene (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000) or, in Stengers’ (2015) terms, in the time of catastrophes, a period marked by the intensification of interdependencies between socio-environmental crises. Scientific literature on the Anthropocene has produced increasingly consistent diagnoses of ongoing biogeophysical transformations, grounded primarily in contributions from the Earth System Sciences (Steffen et al., 2018) and the Geological Sciences (Zalasiewicz et al., 2021), which are extensively systematised in the works of Wallenhorst (2020; 2025). These studies provide a robust framework for understanding planetary boundaries, dynamics of acceleration, and systemic risks associated with transformations driven by the capitalist mode of production. In parallel, the concept of the Anthropocene has been further developed by scholars working at the interface between Earth sciences and the humanities, incorporating economic, historical and political dimensions into the understanding of the contemporary crisis. In this regard, contributions by Veiga (2019; 2023; 2025) and Latour (2017; 2021) shift the debate beyond a strictly biogeophysical perspective, interrogating models of development, forms of social organisation and regimes of knowledge production that sustain socio-environmental collapse, while offering occasional reflections on the role of education. It is within this context that a central question emerges, guiding this proposal: in the face of the gravity of the Anthropocene, is what we lack a deeper knowledge of the urgency of the times in which we live, or do existing bodies of knowledge rather collide with political, economic and institutional interests that hinder their translation into social transformation? The aim of this article is to address this question from the perspective of Environmental Education (EE), exploring its analytical contributions to understanding the relationships between science, power and socio-environmental inequalities. EE is here understood as a field in permanent (re)foundation in response to socio-environmental transformations. As noted by Reigota (2004), EE emerged as a response to environmental issues produced by a predatory and unsustainable capitalist economic model, gaining international visibility from the Stockholm Conference (1972) onwards. However, as indicated by Leite Lopes (2004) and Carvalho (2001), some early approaches adopted a conservationist and normative character, centred on individual responsibility and avoiding a critical interrogation of the social structures that produce environmental degradation. Over recent decades, authors such as Layrargues (2012) and Carvalho (2014) have deepened the critical foundations of EE, highlighting it as a field traversed by epistemological, ethical and political disputes. Methodologically, this proposal is based on a bibliographic review of scientific productions from the Earth sciences, the humanities and Environmental Education, with an emphasis on articulations between the Anthropocene, scientific knowledge, politics and socio-environmental justice. In dialogue with Carvalho and Ortega (2024), we argue that the dimension of catastrophes should not be understood solely as collapse, but also as an opportunity to reinvent ways of doing science, educating and inhabiting the world, reaffirming the centrality of Environmental Education in the construction of socially just responses to the Anthropocene.