The Handbook

The Great Transition Handbook

« Collective knowledge is much greater than the sum of individual knowledge. »

Mark Swilling, Sustainability Institute, South Africa

The Great Transition Handbook is a crucial tool for understanding current upheavals and becoming empowered to act accordingly. Organized by major themes, the handbook offers a knowledge base and skill-set building from various disciplines in order to understand the major scientific, economic, ethical, legal and political challenges at stake.

For the first time, a collective of seventy lecturer-researchers from a wide variety of fields (environment, health, life sciences, biology, physics, economics, law, management, philosophy, sociology, political science) have come together to imagine and design a handbook for the “Great Transition”.

It is an inter- and transdisciplinary work since the “Great Transition” does not simply affect the environment or the economy as is usually thought, but the very heart of our representations and therefore all fields of knowledge: it is systemic.

Several internationally recognized experts were consulted, such as, Dominique Bourg, Gaël Giraud, Alain Grandjean, Catherine Larrère, Marc Dufumier, Jean Jouzel.

The handbook explains in clear and accessible language the processes involved in global warming and the degradation of all forms of life, but actors’ different responsibilities, the deepening of environmental inequalities and the financial mechanisms that are behind it.

Beyond the mere description of facts, the handbook identifies individual and collective levers for action such as social reorganization of work, economic measures, transformations in lifestyles and ways of production (agroecology, permaculture, etc.).

It is the fruit of the work of the collective “FORTES” (Training in Ecological and Social Transition in Higher Education), a collective born at the request of the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in the summer of 2019. The Minister requested that the Campus de la Transition lead the development of a white paper on Higher Education at the time of ecological and social transition, intended to serve as an effective tool for tangible change in higher education to be in line with the challenges of the century that are looming with the climate emergency.

According to Le Monde, the result of this work was, “like a colorful bible to carry everywhere, a manual enriched with a broad glossary and a substantial bibliography for both teachers and students.”