The cognitive geography of the Anthropocene: evolutionary traps and the perception of ecological risk

Abstract

Humans show an apparent delay in identifying appropriate and effective responses to the ongoing ecological crisis. This paper analyses the cognitive roots of this adaptive inertia from a geo-anthropological and evolutionary perspective, hypothesising a structural mismatch between mental configurations formed in ancestral enviroments and contemporary ecological contexts characterised by high systemic complexity, rapid change and global interdependence. This paper argues that the ecological crisis, far from being reducible to purely economic or political variables, should also be reframed as a crisis of cognition and representation. In this perspective, a critical understanding of neurocognitive constraints is a necessary precondition for the development of sustainable and culturally resilient strategies.