‘Hosting Earth: Facing the Climate Emergency’
A timely and vital new volume in the emerging literature of environmental philosophy—Hosting Earth: Facing the Climate Emergency—draws on art, science, and politics to explore alternatives to the traditional domination of nature by humans.
Co-edited by Richard Kearney, Boston College’s Charles Seelig Chair of Philosophy, the book engages the question of ecological hospitality: What does it mean to be guests of the Earth as well as hosts?
A publication of the Guestbook Project, of which Kearney is the international director, Hosting Earth features dialogues from the University’s 2022 Guestbook conference of the same title. An edited transcription of its keynote event, a conversation between Kearney and former President of Ireland and climate justice advocate Mary Robinson, leads the book.
Hosting Earth was launched on November 21 at a Guestbook Project event on campus. “Narrative Hospitality” featured National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann in conversation with Kearney. McCann—co-founder of the global non-profit Narrative 4, which uses storytelling to inspire action and to create community change—was presented with the Guestbook Project Award for Narrative Hospitality.
“The most pressing question for our time,” Kearney said, “is ‘How do we save the Earth?' Environmental philosophy is crucial for our time, a dangerous time—described by Mary Robinson, in our interview in the book, as not just a climate crisis but a 'climate emergency.'”
(Clockwise from top left): Richard Kearney, Urwa Hameed ’22, and Peter Klapes ’19, M.A.’21, co-editors of 'Hosting Earth,' which was launched at BC at an event featuring acclaimed author Colum McCann.
While most books to date on the climate emergency focus on science and politics, Kearney explained that “in addition to these crucial disciplines, our volume also invites artists, poets, and philosophers to add new light and depth to this urgent ecological debate.”
Following a preface by Kearney, the book is divided into five parts: “On Climate Justice; Poetics of the Earth”; “Psychologies of the Earth”; “Philosophies of the Earth”; and “Ecologies of the Earth.” BC contributors include Matthew Clemente, a part-time Woods College of Advancing Studies faculty member; and Philosophy faculty members Associate Professor of the Practice David Storey and Assistant Professor of the Practice Stanley Uche Anozie .
As climate change impacts intensify, young people increasingly join the movement for positive change. Among those leading the discussion around the topic, to spread awareness and motivate others to take action, are Hosting Earth’s co-editors, Peter Klapes '19, M.A.'21, who earned degrees in philosophy, and Urwa Hameed ’22, who studied political science, international relations, and managing for social impact and is now a BC Law student. She graduated from the University at 18, and as an undergraduate wrote Steering Towards Change: first-person accounts of 45 women challenging patriarchy, class, and power in Pakistan.
While some of the voices in Hosting Earth are high-profile international figures, in addition to Robinson and former Church of England principal leader Rowan Williams, the book also features young scholars and artists from the emerging generation, for whom the existence of the planet is a matter of life and death—for themselves and for their children.
“As a young law school student, I have always engaged with climate change from a political, scientific, or a legal lens,” said Hameed. “This book introduces a new philosophical lens with which to view climate change informed by the voices of several artists, poets, and philosophers to deepen and enrich the ecological debate, while also showcasing prominent politicians and scholars who share how their personal philosophy has informed their climate change efforts on a global scale.
“Science and philosophy must walk hand in hand so the young generation can be involved in a well-rounded effort to address climate change,” she added. “I hope that the new generation addresses climate change from a scientific lens supported by morals and values that they hold dear. Only a combination of both can produce a zeal that can finally tackle climate change as a worthy match.”
According to James L. Taylor, director of the European Center for the Study of War and Peace, Hosting Earth is “a timely interdisciplinary response to our ecological emergency. This volume proposes a new paradigm shift: that we change course from exploiting the Earth we inhabit to hosting it as it hosts us.”
“The book represents a vital conversation between the natural life sciences and the humanities, which have so often been kept apart—the so-called hard sciences dealing with 'facts' and the arts with 'values.' We advocate for both a 'politics of action' and a 'poetics of earth' as complementary ways of saving our planet,” said Kearney.
“This new conversation between art and science opens horizons and calls us beyond the old 'anthropocene'—where 'man'(anthropos) ruled as a 'master and possessor of nature,' as Descartes infamously put it—to a new 'symbiocene' where humans and non-humans alike may relate in a mutually enhancing sharing ('symbiosis') of our common Earth.”