The Dispute about the Future: Anthropocene and Sustainability as a Challenge

The upcoming transformations of today’s societies into sustainable societies pose numerous problems. To avoid the destruction of the foundations of life in the Anthropocene, a profound social and cultural transformation encompassing all areas of life is required. To know how this can be accomplished requires extensive research and knowledge, the reliability of which plays an important role. The more open and diverse the global world becomes, the more difficult it is to determine which facts are important and what consequences can be drawn from them for human action. Instead of a reflexive approach to the results of scientific research, today one often encounters a populist approach to science. Its results are used to support preconceived opinions. One is not interested in new findings but aims at the disparagement of people of other opinions and their hateful insult. A destructive division of society is the result of the debates that are so important for the future of humanity.