This dissertation is an investigation and analysis of the contributions of the human organism to climate change, specifically concerned with its adverse effect on the biosphere. The focus of the analysis rests on three phenomena distinctive to humans participating in globalized economies and modernized societies; the distortions of anthrosupremacy, an uncritical development of technology, and an unhealthy cathexis with economic growth. These are analyzed and identified as stark contributors to the creation, proliferation, and pervasiveness of systems contributing to the decline of the biosphere. These phenomena serve to dissociate humans from the consequences of their actions in systemic ways; thereby thriving by preying on the faults of human agency. Using a biogenic framework to analyze human agency, these faults are identified as problematic to the teleological pursuits of the human organism (i.e., extantcy). An analysis of these phenomena in relationship to the faults in human agency is done to create an awareness of how certain mythologies, technologies, and socioeconomic practices have created enabling constraints that deter a more efficacious and sustainable exercise of human agency. Existing strategies and philosophies that have been promoted to address the issue have failed to account for these enabling constraints and, have therefore, fallen short of creating their desired effect in practical ways. This dissertation concludes that, without altering these enabling constraints to allow for a more efficacious and sustainable exercise of agency, the human species is less likely to persist into the indefinite future.

A junior high teacher and artist altered the curriculum of his Art Foundations II course and his own artistic practice in response to complexity thinking. This teacher-artist-researcher uses the arts-based methodology a/r/tography to make meaning of the relationship between his art and pedagogy. The a/r/tographer explains the impact of complexity on the philosophy of education, a/r/tography as a methodology, and the meaning making that occurred are included. Evolution was used as a methodology for art making and as constraint for developing artworks in the classroom and in the author's own art. The teacher-artist-researcher conceptualizes art as an emergent complex cultural practice that evolves over time. He argues that artists, teachers, consumers, and students are implicated in the evolution of art.