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 above and on the left, information about me, my work, and my publications (books and articles) can be accessed. At first sight, these 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 after watching the famous Apollo 8 Earthrise photo for the first time.

 

All my investigations that followed were motivated by my growing concern about the question of how humanity had got itself into its current ecological predicament. This is described in more detail under Career Description. At the beginning of my research, ecological history did not yet exist.

 

 

In a short summary, 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 consisting 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 integrated 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.