Planning for Life's Crises
HOW SCIENCE CAN HELP US TO PREDICT AND CONTROL OUR PERSONAL AND GLOBAL FUTURES
Working Towards a More Humanistic Society
Very excited to have been invited to speak at the Eighth International Conference on Humanistic Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist per se, but I have great sympathy with many of its aims, and especially with the all-permeating idea of interconnectedness. I will be talking...
The Future of Food: An Integrated Global Challenge
A talk delivered at the meeting "Food Futures in the Anthropocene" (University of Tasmania, November 7-10 (2020)). One of a number of talks and articles where I have been trying to bring people's attention to the importance of interconnectedness between the many...
Pursuing Power vs Pursuing Understanding: The Root Cause of Society’s Problems
Very proud to have been invited to do a long "Heroes of Mother Earth" podcast interview, where I argued that the problems the world is facing are interconnected in such a way that sudden large changes are not only inevitable, but also largely unpredictable. I talked...
Self-interest is blocking progress on global problems
The natural environment is a web of connected systems. Change one element and you impact on other elements. The human impact on earth systems is becoming increasingly obvious. In my latest programme for Australian ABC Radio National's Science Show...
The world needs a new Integrated Global Systems Science to survive
This was my entry to a NESTA-sponsored competition on what we may hope for in the way of scientific advances and developments in the next ten years. Didn't make the final ten, sadly, but I hold by every word. I argue the need for a new Integrated Global Systems...
The World Needs Complexity Thinking
I was proud to be a finalist (14 finalists out of 2702 entrants from 122 countries; https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/the-new-shape-prize/finalists) in the recent Global Challenges New Shape competition , which sought suggestions for new approaches to the...
Systemic Risk: What it Means and What we can Do
Some basic references for a talk that I delivered to the Aon Benfield conference “Risk Re-imagined” (Gold Coast, Australia, September 18-20 (2017)) IRGC Concept Note “Preparing for Future Catastrophes”...
Making the best decisions
Several years ago I was invited to write a book chapter on how we can make the best decisions in our complex, interconnected world. I wrote the chapter, aimed at a general audience and containing some interesting stories about how Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin,...
Superbowl for politicians
Op-ed submitted to Boston Globe after Patriots' Superbowl LI win. Pity they didn't take it, but here it is anyway. The message that it contains is rather important; like footballers, politicians need to adapt quickly to circumstances! When wide receiver Julian Edelman...
127. How can we cooperate? A new lesson from the bees
The world is rapidly going down the road of competition rather than cooperation. In doing so, as I have shown in previous posts and in my book Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life, its citizens face the deadly dilemmas exposed by game theory – in...
126. The ethics of game theory: Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby & Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid
I avoid political commentary on this website , but in the current climate (31st January, 2017) I believe that it is very important for as many of us as possible to look dispassionately at what is happening and try to understand what is going on below the surface...
119. Science in the real world: predicting society
If you think that science, and scientific thinking, have little to do with the rough-and-tumble of the real world, think again – and take a look at this wonderful paper by a group of psychologists and mathematicians from the Cornell-Princeton-Yale triangle...
What Nepal really needs to do about landslip disasters
July, 2016 After hearing a well-informed talk by the experienced Nepal road engineer Bleddyn Griffiths about his experience of the Nepal earthquake disaster, I suggested that we write a joint letter about both the science and the realities, which are linked in a more...
The Great Barrier Reef is in great danger
Here is the self-explanatory text of a letter sent to the Sydney Morning Herald, but not accepted for publication. Perhaps I should have been rougher, because the original draft referred to the exposed backside as being in need of a thorough kicking. "The Government...
117. Global Governance of Slowly Developing Catastrophic Risks
Early in 2015 I was invited, together with co-authors from the International Risk Governance Council, to write a review on the above topic for a special issue of the journal Ecological Economics. The referees liked the writing, but wanted us to add more economics...
114. Mastering complexity – I’m going to give it a try
In story fourteen I argued that science, like sex, thrives on diversity. I quoted from Peter Medawar, and the quote is worth repeating: There is no such thing as a Scientific Mind. Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very...
Avoid major disasters by welcoming minor change
November 4, 2015 My World View article “Avoid major disasters by welcoming minor change” has now been published in Nature (Vol.527, p.9). Here is the link: http://www.nature.com/news/avoid-major-disasters-by-welcoming-minor-change-1.18718 The full article cannot be...
What scientists need to know about talking to politicians
My article in Physics World (August 2015) with John Tesh, formerly of the UK Cabinet Office, giving 12 tips for scientists to have effective dialogue with politicians. Here is the original draft: How Do Politicians Think? Practical Tips for Communicating Science...
New Encyclopedia article: Climate change and future food supplies
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Food Issues, edited by food historian Ken Albala, has just been published (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/Book239023?subject=W00&fs=1). It is loaded with interesting and useful material. My own contribution is an article in which I...
My article on “Global Warming and Future Food Supplies” from the new SAGE Encyclopedia of Food Issues
Extract from Article (Vol.2, pp. 719-723) Future Policies to Mitigate the Effects of Climate Change on Food Supplies The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create It. Neelam Chaturvedi Many studies have shown that the largely negative effects of climate change on...