Future Earth is a 10-year international program launched in 2012 at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in response to urgent calls for international collaborative research to find solutions to challenges posed by newly identified global environmental changes, and to identify opportunities for a transition to global sustainability.
Future Earth is co-designed and co-produced by academics, governments, business and civil society form all regions of the world to build upon and connect decades of global knowledge to intensify the impact of research and find new ways to accelerate sustainable development.
Future Earth operates as a platform for collaborative international engagement, research, and innovation to support sustainable intiatives from five global hubs – Montreal, Stockholm, Colorado, Paris, and Tokyo – and is connected to over a dozen regional and national offices across the globe. The Governing Council of Future Earth is composed of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum, and members of the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability.
The alliance operates as an informal body comprised of the following organizations: the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the Belmont Forum and International Group of Funding Agencies for Global Change Research (IGFA), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations University (UNU), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1725″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Future Earth is at its core of global research projects and other initiatives related to Global Environmental Change, and Knowledge-Action Networks (KAN), which includes the online collaborative tool: the Open Network.
The Open Network is a platform open to anyone committed to sustainability, including researchers from all disciplines and experts in policy, civil society, business, media, the humanities, arts and law and interested citizens.
This inclusive community is an effective and stimulating way to connect with researchers, professionals, and visionaries across the globe to share knowledge, funding opportunities and take action-together. Topics include decarbonization, economics, health, biodiversity, oceans, food and agriculture, etc. If you wish to explore or are interested in any of these topics or wish to discuss others related to climate change and add value to research, Sign up now to join Open Network!
You will receive notifications from the Open Network and communities you might wish to join, and to stay informed about and participated in Future Earth’s activities around the globe-while minimizing traveling requirements and scientists’ footprints!
“If the world is going to understand science it is not because they’re going to read scientific articles, it is going to be because we tell compelling stories“ (Paul Shrivastava, Future Earth Former Director)
With the mission to curate a global conversation about data, technology, and innovation that lead to solutions to the persistent environmental challenges of our time, Future Earth is publishing the Anthropocene Magazine. The digital, print and live magazine were created “not to present Future Earth research as such but to engage conversations among a larger audience” (Josh Tewksbury, Executive Director and Future Earth Colorado Director).
Anthropocene Magazine is Innovation in the Human Age in order to bring great Stories to great Science!
Officially we are leaving in the Holocene epoch (marking the period since the last ice age, 11,70 years ago), but In August 2017 members of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (the largest and oldest constituent scientific body in the International Union of Geological Sciences) made the recommendation to formally designate the Anthropocene as an epoch in geological history of the planet and set the 1950s as the starting point.
This is the human era. They included aspects of pollution, the “built” environment, agricultural changes to the earth, species extinction and species invasion due to man. Kathryn Kohm, Anthropocene editor in Chief wrote that this epoch we live in, during which humans dominate the planet, “asks us to contemplate our species as a pulse in a vast geologic time scale—an exercise that requires a difficult balance between power and Humility. It asks us to renegotiate our relationship with nature.” READ the LAST ISSUE of Anthropocene
SIGN UP for the WEEKLY SCIENCE DISPATCH (also available in French, Spanish and Portuguese!)
BECOME a SUPPORTING MEMBER or PITCH A STORY! One of Future Earth’s governing members, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SSDS) created the Sustainable Development (SDG) Academy.
SDG curates free, graduate-level courses on sustainable development for students around the world.
From sustainable cities to human rights to climate action, each of our courses addresses the fundamental challenge facing our world today: How do people, communities, governments, and companies not only coexist but also cooperate and collaborate, to save the one planet we have?
As a massive open online education platform, SDG Academy‘s courses are fully interactive, so you can meet, debate and learn from both our global faculty of sustainable development experts and your fellow students.
Visit SDG Academy in Pure Treasures for more information!
PS: My 14 years-old son and I took the 6 week-course One Planet One Ocean over the summer, we could not wait to watch the videos and beautiful live illustrations every week!
[Photographs, and video and text from and inspired by futureearth.org, anthropocenemagazine.org, and courses.sdgacademy.org]
[Feature and sidebar images by Samuel Zeller and William Bout].
