Critical Sustainability in Geosciences — A praxis

Our justification to critical sustainability in geosciences comes from years of experience in engaging with various branches of geo- and sustainability sciences, predominantly revolving around issues of climate change and aiming to tackle its problematique at the human end—be it, for example, educational or societal. Based on a typology formed we recognise three main classes of critical to consider when conducting research; that the state of the earth and its system is in a critical condition and appears to continue the uncomfortable trend at an accelerating speed; that the contemporary practices of sustainability have plenty to be critical about as the track record of the endeavour of sustainable development and sustainability science can be viewed as substandard; and that the history of science, research and other utilisable forms of knowledge- and sense-making offer countless critical approaches that when considering the two previous points begin to seem like a necessity. 

Based on this justification we suggest a two-fold focus for the initiation of a more critical approach in geosciences as it aims to address issues of sustainability. Firstly, the epistemic foundation of geosciences, again and especially in the context of sustainability, could reflect the empiric-historic roots to consider the ongoing unprecedented phenomena and understanding of it: the duality of historical and predictive is severely contested and limits of our understanding—grasping the unknown-unknowns—are put to task. While the previous point mostly pertains to the world-views on which our research is unboundedly built upon, the critical turn has significant relevance to the practice and aims of sustainability-orientated research, from our position: the praxis—the problems of practice. It appears that, while practising research, we simultaneously exemplify the ideals of science (and sustainability) in a manner where we fail to live up to them—partly as ideals are easily understood as utopian, but more deviantly so if we fail to be critical towards our own practice-shortcomings.  

To operationalise the suggested topic: elaborating on the active praxis of critical sustainability in geosciences, we observe a case of citizen climate change and sustainability responses and perceptions in Finland. Based on a (representative) national survey,  while almost 90% agree to mostly understand what climate change is about, only approximately 35% agree that they themselves are contributing to the problems or see that the challenges they face in their everyday life are related to climate change and sustainability. Here we suggest, as a hopeful initiation of a conversation, that geosciences could ponder on its roles and vices, but moreover the groundbreaking possibilities, when contributing to a critical, palatable and impactful understanding of the Earth System crisis we face and the methodological choices we make while labouring towards this understanding.