Algemeen

As Albert Einstein justly noted, the experimental physical world, with its infinite diversity, directly contradicts the idealized simplicity of the mathematical description. How can one explain this, accept it, and include it in the scheme of a mechanistic vision of the world? Worldviews have different origins, stemming from various social, cultural, religious, political, and economical systems that have developed over millennia. These different origins can inform and create similar worldview realities shared by different groups of people and societies. The present and outdated worldview is based on our all-pervasive and sub-conscious habit to interpret and represent the World surrounding us…

Without setting the stage for where we actually are, how can we truly understand where to allocate our energy? By observing the major issues of our time we get to witness what the opportunities are for impactful and useful innovation and design. To start with an apology. Unintentionally this reflection became longer than intended. But halfway through writing I realized that it is a big story we have to tell and came to terms with it. Unveiling the harsh reality of the state we are in it became a sobering story. Based on personal narratives, experience and expert insights, exposing…

A dream of a sane world governed by logic and rationality has been the cry of many philosophers,  scientists for millennia. What is rational is real and what is real is rational; and if one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart. And yet here we are, in a world run by post-truth, post-factual and post reality politics and discourses. Anything goes and no one cares – all of us liberated in our own respective and self-serving bubbles of cognitive dissonance. Instances of the severe destabilization or even collapse of societies are not historically unique and often occur for the same…

We find ourselves surrounded by the paradox that society can do so much and yet so little at the same time; it is concurrently so powerful and so fragile. It is capable of deploying unprecedented technological power, yet it cannot guarantee development that is balanced in legal, social or environmental terms. The world is facing a set of risks that feel both wholly new and eerily familiar. We have seen a return of ‘older’ risks – inflation, cost-of-living crises, trade wars, capital outflows from emerging markets, widespread social unrest, geopolitical confrontation and the spectre of nuclear warfare – which few…

Today’s world is consistently described by the dominance of national interests, a low degree of multinational combined efforts as well as a decoupling of the Global South. In a highly individualized world, people are losing trust in politics, administration and public media. At the global level, this is also weakening the role of nation states, so that various interest-driven actors – from companies and lobbyists to civil society groups and numerous regional and local entities – are stepping into this gap. Urban areas in particular are becoming actors in their own right on the world stage, so that overall one…

The grand challenge of our time: to achieve the transition to a -global- economy that supports a just society within ecological boundaries. The transition implies redefining economic and financial logic to preserve, regenerate, and enhance our renewable resources, ecosystems, and their biodiversity and related ecosystem dynamics. It is now increasingly understood that continuing along development pathways based on global, linear, fossil-based and GDP-oriented economic progress is literally unrealistic to expect this model to continue forever. There is also clear evidence that the increase in global GDP over the past few decades has not led to significant economic progress for most:…

It is not my objective to present a fatalist perspective, because there are many examples of successful interventions to prevent extinctions, restore ecosystems, and encourage more sustainable economic activity at both local and regional scales. I am hopeful, but fear that the momentum for change might slip away …. we are in a race against time — and we are losing. With each passing year, it becomes clearer just how far behind we have fallen, how fast the situation is deteriorating, and how tragic the results can be. But … Life in the -near- future reflects on a number of…

The Earth system is an incredibly complex system, with many processes interacting with each other, from the small and local scale up to the planetary scale. With human activity playing an increasing role, it appears that the system becomes even more complex. This may seem to make the Earth a highly unpredictable and chaotic system, with arbitrary evolutionary directions and outcomes. The Earth system describes the interconnected complex system at the surface of the planet that sustains life. It is comprised of multiple subsystems (or spheres), including the cryosphere (ice-related systems, including ice sheets, sea ice, glaciers and permafrost), biosphere…

The ecological era we find ourselves in — whether we like it or not, and whether we recognize it or not — makes it necessary to rethink and revaluate our relationship with nature and technology. The world has entered a new era of rapid and major change. Significant shifts are occurring in global economic power, technology, urban growth and through Earth System changes that pose existential threats to humanity, and our relationship with nature on which human life depends. Given current trajectories, transformation of human societies in some form is inevitable. It is, however, not clear whether global transformations can…

The more we destabilize the processes and systems that maintain the stability and resilience of our planet, the more our civilization is at risk. For millions of years temperatures on Earth have changed, significantly, there have been extinction events, but the planet it still here. During those millions of years, it’s our civilization that wasn’t there. Our world as we know it, including all of its history, goes back only about 12000 years. And this period has been characterized by a miraculously stable climate, that has allowed for the development of the agriculture, cities, economies and human societies that we…