Tipping Points: Moments to Despair, or the Spark of Creation?

Abstract Attenborough’s 2021 documentary: Breaking Boundaries transitions from the scientific analysis of the planetary boundary hypothesis to the solution, which is a global awakening of planetary consciousness. David frequently speaks directly to the camera, reassuring the audience that even though tipping points are irreversible, there is still time to save us. This documentary demonstrates the essential contradiction that we find ourselves in. We have moved from the stable environmental conditions of the Holocene, that lasted from 11,700 years ago to 1952, and in which human civilisation thrived, to the unstable Anthropocene, which will destabilise the living conditions upon which we rely, yet we don’t know what to do. The research question for this paper is: What is the best course of action in the Anthropocene? In this paper, I outline: (1) How the emotional-reactive states that the tipping points can produce are alleviated through teaching and learning about the complex ways in which humans live, dwell and become in the Anthropocene; (2) Unique human creativity is still alive, yet annihilated by perpetual calls for productivity and the performance-driven environments in which we find ourselves in, and that leads to a mode of burnout through overproduction in an attempt to respond.