De natuur bevindt zich in vrije val en de ondersteuningssystemen van de planeet zijn zo uitgerekt dat we te maken hebben met grootschalige uitsterving van soorten en massale menselijke migratie, tenzij er dringend actie wordt ondernomen. Het is een grimmig perspectief. We hebben de afgelopen jaren een hoop brute en angstaanjagende waarschuwingen gezien over de bedreiging die de klimaatverandering in het leven met zich meebrengt. Veel minder gesproken, maar net zo gevaarlijk, zo niet meer, is de snelle achteruitgang van de natuurlijke wereld als samenhangend geheel. Landdegradatie, verlies van biodiversiteit en klimaatverandering zijn drie verschillende gezichten van dezelfde centrale uitdaging:…
Humans are shifting from a predominantly natural context to a predominantly designed context and this is changing the very foundations upon which health systems reside. The changes in living condition, environment and mentality of people has altered the nature of disease in just the past decades. Right now globally there's a massive shift - called the epidemiological shift - from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases. These health issues are termed ‘lifestyle diseases’ or ‘diseases of civilization’ because the majority of these are preventable. Comprehensive and interdisciplinary approaches are necessary to meaningfully address the complex issues of human health and well-being.…
Global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them appears to be lacking. Instead, divisions are hardening. Geopolitical and geo-economic tensions have risen among the world’s major powers and now represent the most urgent global risks, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2019. In a world of shifting power and divergent values, it is likely to become more difficult to make progress on shared global challenges. Such progress requires two things: alignment on priorities for action, and then sustained coordination and collaboration. The example of climate change shows that, even when the first is possible,…
In 1943 the great physicist Erwin Schrödinger, gave a series of lectures at Trinity College Dublin, published the next year as his book What Is Life? Schrödinger’s central question remains unanswered. There is still no agreed-on definition of what life is. Maybe, some suggest, there are biology-specific laws of nature that we have yet to identify. Indeed, Schrödinger himself argued that ‘living matter, while not eluding the ‘laws of physics’ as established up to date, is likely to involve ‘other laws of physics’ hitherto unknown’. We still struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like…
