Twenty First Century Challenges for the Scientific Community Lecture by Sir David King of Oxford University 01 December 2009 AAAS Auditorium
1200 New York Ave NW
Washington, DC 20005
Sponsors/Organizers American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
4:30-5:30pm
with tea and coffee starting at 4pm
The major set of new challenges faced by our global civilization in this century result from the improvement in wellbeing delivered through the last 150 years.Advances in engineering, technology, agriculture and medicine, together with economic and political development, led to human lifespan increasing and the population rising by 1 billion every 12 years, reaching 6.8 billion today and 9 billion by mid-century.Due to the consumption of one set of natural resources, including fresh water, oil and minerals, at a rate faster than they can be replenished, and the mismanagement of others, in particular the atmosphere, land and oceans, the ecosystem services required from the Earth for a population of 9 billion are being rapidly eroded.Climate change is the single biggest new challenge, as it requires a collective response from all major nations.If these challenges are not future-proofed, enforced environmental migrations, coupled with growing health, food, energy, mineral and water challenges will lead to widespread conflict by mid-century between developed, rapidly emerging and developing nations. The discussion will address meeting these challenges through greater global awareness of the demand for equitable solutions, new forms of national and global governance which are fit for purpose, and a new approach to these challenges from the scientific community.
Please RSVP to international@aaas.org with "Dec 1 lecture" in the subject line by Nov. 25
