The world as we know it is threatened by unprecedented environmental degradation, climate change and global warming, seemingly associated with the proposed Anthropocene epoch. This crisis, intensified over the last two decades, has led to the emergence of social and political movements opposed to continued dependence on environmentally damaging natural resource extraction and unchecked wasteful consumption in the Global North. This panel examines this unfolding crisis and the response to it within both the scientific community, and the worlds of art and literature.