How to think about the ecological transition?

In the journal Nature dated October 5, 2023, researchers from different disciplines combined their knowledge to determine what the distant future of Earth will look like. Their conclusion is this: in 250 million years, the continents will have drifted to the point of colliding with each other. They will no longer form separate entities but instead merge into one massive block, Pangea Ultima.

This evolution will be slow but not peaceful: as the continents come together and collide, they will trigger intense volcanic activity along their edges, releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases. Consequently, Earth’s climate will drastically heat up, especially as the Sun’s activity increases by 2.5%. Furthermore, the presence of a single supercontinent instead of multiple ones will lead to the formation of vast deserts in the interior where no rain will ever fall. In summary – to borrow the famous phrase from economist John Maynard Keynes – “in the long run, we will all be dead.”

On another note, this result humbles us by showing that the Earth’s very distant future is in no way dependent on our actions, past, present, or future: all traces of our presence and its effects will eventually disappear from its surface. Pangea Ultima symbolizes both the total collapse of politics and the complete erasure of our effects on Earth. In the study by Nature, human activity is no longer part of the equation; only the intrinsic historicity of the Earth system, which began long before the appearance of the Homo species and will continue long after.

However, what applies to the long-term future does not apply at all to the short-term future: it depends on us. We know that what happens in the coming decades will be partly determined by what we do. In terms of the environment, all projections are concerning, whether they involve climate change, habitat loss, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, soil, water, and air pollution, or deforestation. Moreover, all these phenomena are interconnected: air pollution worsens climate change, which accelerates deforestation, leading to biodiversity loss, and so on.

Therefore, how should we philosophically consider the transition that needs to take place?

Dominique Bourg, a philosopher of science and professor emeritus at the University of Lausanne, author of “Leçons des limites planétaires” (Actes Sud, 2025), and Sophie Swaton, a philosopher and economist, researcher at the University of Lausanne, author of “L’Œil du jaguar” (Actes Sud, 2025), and the creator of the ecological transition income, presiding over the Zoein Foundation and its research institute dedicated to the emergent civilization paradigm, have collaborated on the book “Primauté du vivant, essai sur le pensable” (PUF, 2021).