Our stranglehold on nature has unleashed the coronavirus outbreak. The COVID-19 that has swept through countries and continents has caused untold human suffering, social upheaval and economic damage. But while the spread of the current crisis is unprecedented, the new coronavirus follows a number of diseases that have emerged in recent decades, such as Ebola, AIDS, SARS, avian influenza and swine flu. Pathogens can transform quickly, which allows them to pass from wild animals to humans. These emerging diseases endanger human lives and have major socioeconomic impacts. Most human infectious diseases are zoonotic in origin. These zoonotic pathogens are capable…
Our world stands at a crossroads. We face existential threats that demand urgent action, from the climate crisis to the risk of nuclear war. In 2020, we need to make a bold, collective, and positive choice to work together to secure our common future, and not retreat into tired dogma, failed policies, or defeatism. It’s an interesting time for humanity: we are a vast global population facing unprecedented environmental challenges, yet we still have the time and the capability to prevent extreme outcomes, such as runaway climate change and wildlife extinctions. Anthropogenic changes of the biota and human hyper-dominance are…
A deeper understanding of future patterns of change -and potential disruptions- is enabled by futures studies and strategic foresight. The future of future studies, foresight, and longer term thinking is to invite people and organizations to make more informed and imaginative decisions in the present in the face of new challenges and complex dilemmas, and ultimately, to facilitate better futures for all. The challenges of population growth, disruptive environmental and ecological jolts, widening socioeconomic inequalities, and tension between mainstream populations and extremists are complex, immense, frightening and urgent. The effective and efficient delivery of innovations to tackle these and other…
I grew up in the time of the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Watching the first step on the moon with my father at our small black and white TV. Gazing upon in The Netherlands was the same moon on which American astronauts had just landed. The path I’ve traveled side by side with so many other people inspired by science and technology has been enormously enlightening and rewarding. But there’s still far to go. The future looms. We will face daunting challenges in coming decades, and to overcome them we will need to summon up a…
