The Anthropocene is a proposed new geological epoch based on the observation that human impacts on essential planetary processes have become so profound that they have driven the Earth out of the Holocene epoch in which agriculture, sedentary communities, and eventually, socially and technologically complex human societies developed. Regardless the formalization of the Anthropocene it is becoming apparent that Anthropocene conditions transgress Holocene conditions in several respects The knowledge that human activity now rivals geological forces in influencing the trajectory of the Earth System has important implications for both Earth System science and societal decision making. While recognizing that different…
CONSIDERING GLOBAL AND REGIONAL IMPACTS OF RAPID CLIMATE CHANGE in conservation planning is a major societal challenge. Climate change is rapidly increasing in rate and magnitude and can alter the survival, fitness, phenologies and interactions of individuals, affecting population viability and food web dynamics, which in turn alter the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Climate change profoundly impacts ecosystems and their biota, resulting in range shifts, novel interactions, food web alterations, changed intensities of host–parasite interactions, and extinctions. An increasing number of studies have documented evolutionary changes in traits such as phenology and thermal tolerance. While evolutionary responses have the…
Society 5.0 will feature enhanced forms of robotics, AI, nanotechnology, and biotechnology, an enhanced Internet of Things, and further exploitation of Big Data. Both Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0 are premised on the creation of increasingly sophisticated cyber–physical systems, which are characterized by their reliance on embedded, decentralized, real-time computation occurring within a network of heterogeneous physical objects. When human beings (or social robots or AIs) are functionally integrated into a cyber-physical system (CPS) at the social, cognitive, and physical levels, it becomes a cyber-physical-social system (CPSS) whose members may engage in cyber-physical-social behaviors within cyber-physical spaces. Through their interactions…
There are people in the world who habitually say yes. And there are people who habitually say no. The people who say yes are rewarded by the adventures they get to go on, and the people who say no are rewarded by the safety they attain. We now live in a world of complex challenges, not just complicated problems. In an increasingly exponential world, there needs to be a distinct difference between our approach to tackling complex challenges as opposed to complicated problems. The future is notoriously difficult to predict. Our shortcomings in seeing and extrapolating the exponential trends that…
