**3. The human drama in the mirror of the paths of knowledge**

Today, it is common to hear that the way in which the development processes are more usually conceived is in evident contradiction with the perception, which is always more universal and lucid regarding the indissoluble relationship between the so-called "environmental problem" and the "human and social problem." A development based on the exploitation of nature and inconsequential consumption, for a long time, has been giving signs of risk and activated the red light of warning for humanity and the entire biosphere and its multiple ecosystems.

We also know that this alert relates to a broader issue involving the knowledge process per se. There are many voices that have already been raised, outside and inside the scientific environment, giving strength and vigor to the alert in question. It is an alert not only for specialists and scholars but, above all, for humanity itself, that is, for human wisdom and prudence.

One of the main causes of socio-environmental problems is the historical process that cuts and segments the sciences, producing knowledge in pieces and fragmented. Nature and society have been studied in parts according to the lens of different disciplines. With the division of disciplines, science has not been successful in understanding the whole, in its complexity. New knowledge has been sought capable of comprehending the problem in its complexity and its dynamic and relational unity. There is a need for a strategy so that long-term planning can be performed, integrating the various historical, economic, social, political, ecological, and cultural processes.

It is known that the chemical scientist Ilya Prigogine, already in the 1970s, was inviting us to the need and urgency of establishing a "new alliance." Having received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977, this scientist, in one of his most influential works, co-authored with Isabelle Stengers, "The New Alliance" [11], appeals to the urgent need for a "re-enchantment of the world." According to the authors: "*The time has come for new alliances, which have always been established and for a long time ignored, between the history of men, their societies, their knowledge, and the exploring adventure of nature*." ([11], p. 226).

It is never enough to repeat, to us, that the advances in knowledge and the search for correct approaches to overcome the limitations of modern science itself have been great. There were multiple paths. At the level of Environmental Sciences, we highlight the view from the perspective of environmental racism and environmental justice or injustice, so widely worked today by several authors since the 1980s and 1990s (especially in the United States) to the present day, as we have already mentioned when mentioning Robert Bullard [10]. In Brazil we could mention for this essay, the work of Henri Acselrad, Cecília Mello and Gustavo Bezerra [12] and works such as those of Leonardo Boff [6], Elimar Nascimento [13], Daniela dos Santos Almeida, Thula Pires and Virgínia Totti [14], and Teresinha Gonçalves [15].

It is considered paradigmatic the great lucidity of the contributions of Enrique Leff [16], who brings a strong differential contribution to Environmental Sciences by underlining that, from the interests of each scientific discipline, also the knowledge of the peasant, the indigenous, and the Afro-descendant population must be considered. Also relevant are the contributions of Joan Alier [17], with the concept of the "ecologism of the poor." In the same way, the contributions of the sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos [18, 19] should be highlighted, with the conception of the "ecology of knowledge" in overcoming the abyssal line between modern reason and traditional knowledge and others cultivated outside the reach of the academy. We should assuredly mention Edgar Morin [20, 21], with his rich elaborations on the horizon of complexity theory. In the same sense, dialogue with the thought of David Harvey [22], so lucidly explained in "Spaces of Hope" is indispensable.

An important production regarding the relationship between production, circulation, and consumption, focusing on the protection of the environment and the socioenvironmental impact of human actions is organized by Silvia Aparecida G. Ortigoza and Ana Tereza C. Cortez [23]. This is certainly a fundamental path when we talk about sustainability. As already indicated above, urban spaces are characterized, in large part, by concentrated consumption and waste along with a large concentration of pollution, added to the juxtaposition between ostentatious luxury and housing degradation.

Another path of fundamental importance could be identified through reflections and deepening by the bias of "ecosophy" and/or "deep ecology" [4–6, 24–29] with approaches broadly focused on a conception of sacred reverence for everything that surrounds us, and which is based on or refers with respect to ancient wisdom and religious traditions.11

According to Basarab Nicolescu [33], renowned physical scientist and theorist of the transdisciplinary proposal, it is knowledge produced with attention to the "included third." This included the third party is extra-academic and does not use disciplinary language and scientific jargon. The contributions of this author, from the perspective of transdisciplinarity, must be considered in the analysis and the search for solutions to the dramas experienced by humanity.

After this small and representative authorial cast, we can infer that, with the appearance or evidence of the various levels of reality in the studies of natural systems, the complexity presents itself, provoking a new logic of seeing the environmental problem, not reduced to the environmental one, but socio-environmental, involving the different dimensions of human coexistence. Or, more radically, it is about meeting the true meaning of an ecosystem. For, strictly speaking, every ecosystem – a favela, a dam-building enterprise, an agropastoral production enterprise, an indigenous village, a university campus, etc. – is complexly constituted of all spheres of human and natural relationships. Strictly speaking, it is a question of guiding the idea of sustainable ecosystems.
