This website is dedicated to my life-long efforts of seeking to improve our knowledge about our common past, present, and future as inhabitants of the beautiful but limited planet Earth, our one and only home in the otherwise inhospitable cosmos.

 

In the menus, information about me, my work, and my publications can be accessed. At first sight, they may look disconnected. But all of them came as a result of my research into our common human past, the first roots of which began to take shape in January of 1969. Everything that subsequently followed is described under Career Description.

 

My research into this theme has, so far, consisted of three phases:

 

1982-1997: Religion, Politics, and Ecology in Andean Peru
This research has led to the publication of two books:Religious Regimes in Peru (1994): a long-term historical study of this theme focusing on the village of Zurite, and San Nicolás de Zurite (1995): a collection of case studies that I witnessed myself.

 

1993- Present: Big History
This research has led to two books as well as many articles about various aspects of big history. These books are The Structure of Big History (1996) in which a general structure for big history is proposed, and Big History and the Future of Humanity (2010, 2015), in which underlying patterns are outlined that help to explain big history.

 

2017-Present: The Biosphere
A series of chance discoveries starting in 2017 allowed me to discern general principles in our biosphere’s history that had been overlooked so far. This led to my most recent book How the Biosphere Works (2022), in which this theme is explained by using those general principles, including a novel history of the biosphere. The book also contains a few considerations about the future.

 

After having done all of that, I feel to have completed the research project that I embarked upon in 1982. To be sure, a great many questions remain to be solved. Building on the studies of a great many illustrious scholars, I see my work hopefully, to some extent, as a fresh beginning.  Any serious feedback will be greatly appreciated.

 

The knowledge acquired as a result of my life-long efforts is intended for assisting to make the best possible choices for assuring humanity’s best possible survival and prosperity in the foreseeable future.

 

For doing so in effective ways, we must establish a global network of first-rate interdisciplinary research institutes dedicated to studying all biospheric issues in relation to each other, by combining all the available knowledge, while offering policy recommendations all around the world for how to address all those issues in an intergated fashion.

 

Strangely, such a global knowledge network does not yet exist. Founding it is one of the most urgent priorities, if not the most urgent one, that will help humanity to survive the future challenges, many of which are increasingly visible today.

 

Much like in the 19th century the implementation of a global network of weather stations was begun, leading to today’s worldwide weather forecasts including ways to protect ourselves against inclement weather, we now must establish a similar global network of biospheric stations that produces biospheric forecasts, including ways to protect ourselves against inclement biospheric changes.

 

The remarkable success of the global weather stations network is first of all due to the fact that all involved see an interest in cooperating as well as possible to produce the best possible weather forecasts for all of us. The same ought to be the case for the implementation of a global biospheric stations network, which would make it similarly successful. The time to act is now.