Nature's Secrets for Uncertain Times - Tuesday 3 March, 5pm. Lecture Theatre A, Student Services, CB2 3PT
Professor Ruth DeFries | Denning Professor of Sustainable Development, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University
The complexity of the urban, interconnected modern world, combined with the complexity of a changing planet, makes the future unpredictable and uncertain. How societies can prepare and manage for unpredictable times raises fundamental questions about how society can persist through uncertainty. Nature’s experience over billions of years with survival through swings in climate, crashing asteroids, and self-inflicted extinctions provides surprising and counter-intuitive clues for us, with lessons for the architecture of trade networks, collective decisions, and investments to maintain biological and cultural diversity.
The Tellus Mater Distinguished Fellowship is managed by the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute in cooperation with the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust.
