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 surface of the beautiful but limited planet Earth. This very thin and delicate layer covering our planet that
we call home is known as the biosphere. It is our one and only home in the otherwise inhospitable cosmos.
In the menus above
and on the left, information about me, my work, and my publications (books and articles) 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, present, and future, the first roots
of which began to take shape in January of 1969 after seeing the famous Apollo 8 Earthrise photo (see: upper left on this web page,
photo credit: NASA).
This photo showed for the first time Earth rising above the barren lunar surface as seen by humans, the
astronauts of Apollo 8. Most notably it showed how special and vulnerable our tiny home in space is, while many people began to realize
that humanity was rapidly degrading it. Watching this photo made clear that safeguarding our common future on Earth was, and still
is, the largest and most urgent issue facing humanity.
All my subsequent explorations and investigations described on this web
site were motivated by my growing concern about how humanity had got itself into its current ecological predicament. This
is mentioned in more detail in
Career Description. At the beginning of my research, ecological history did not
yet exist.
What is the issue in a nutshell? Our common home in space is the very thin layer covering the Earth known as the biosphere.
If the Earth were an apple, this layer is, in fact, thinner than its skin. Down below it, regular human life as we know it is not
possible, while as soon as we ascend to some five kilometers, 3.5 miles, above sea level, humans are not able to live their regular
lives either. This thin layer is all there is for human survival and prosperity in the known universe.
How well do we know how
our common home, the biosphere, works? Not very well, I think. This worrying situation is first of all the result of academic specialization,
which rewards specialized studies, while the production of general interdisciplinary overviews is rarely rewarded, if at all. Yet
to understand how the biosphere works, we urgently need a combination of good interdisciplinary overviews and specialized knowledge.
The
famous dictum by the English philosopher of science Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1526 CE) “nature is only to be commanded by obeying her”
is also very much applicable to the biosphere. We can only manage the biosphere well by taking into account (obeying) its very
nature. Doing so requires sufficient knowledge of the biosphere's functioning.
Reaching
that level of understanding has taken me more than fifty years. After receiving my M.Sc. in chemistry in 1978, followed by a few years
of general orientation, exploration, and reflection, 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 numerous 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 subject is explored using those general principles together with established knowledge. The book also offers a
novel history of the biosphere including human history, focusing on its influence within the biopshere, while it also contains
considerations about the future.
After having done all of that, I feel to have completed my initial
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 effectively, we urgently need to establish a global
network in every nation on Earth consisting of biosphere stations and institutes: first-rate interdisciplinary research institutes
dedicated to studying all biospheric issues in relation to each other by combining all the available knowledge into one single
interdisciplinary integrated view of how the biosphere works, while offering policy recommendations for how to address all
the current and future ecological and social issues in an integrated fashion.
Strangely, such a global network of biosphere
stations and institutes 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 our future challenges, many of which are increasingly visible today.
Much like in the
19th century the implementation of a global network of weather stations and institutes 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 biosphere
stations and institutes.
The task of this novel biospheric network would be to carefully monitor the biosphere worldwide in all
its aspects by making use of all the available information, including, for instance, the current climate change studies, in doing
so collaborating with all the institutes and indivudual scientists that are already working on more specialized biospheric issues.
The
novel task of the biosphere institutes would be to integrate all of that knowledge into a single coherent image of the biosphere as
a whole. Based on that, those institutes should produce biospheric forecasts and policy recommendations, most notably all
the necessary ways and means that are needed to protect ourselves and the biosphere against inclement biospheric changes.
The
remarkable success of the global weather stations and institutes network is first of all due to the fact that all involved see
an interest in cooperating in the best possible ways to produce the best possible weather forecasts and recommendations for protecting
all of us against inclement weather. The same could could happen with the implementation of a global network of biosphere stations
and institutes, which could make it similarly successful. The time to act is now.
If you would like to take a look at our home
planet from space almost in real time, from a distance of about 900,000 miles (about 1.5 million km), you might want to visit:
https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/
To the best of my knowledge, this website will not place cookies on your device or track it in
any other ways. No advertisements or other third-party Internet based materials will appear on this website either. It is also
an AI free zone. All possible errors are mine.