Eörs Szathmáry, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, chairman of the Sustainable Development Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, gave the opening speech at the 2021 Hungarian Science Festival, entitled ˇThe beautiful, the bad and the sustainable – What should and could the world be like?”. The lecture is available on the MTA YouTube channel.

Throughout the history of mankind, many civilizations have collapsed, often through their own fault. And the collapse of today’s globalized civilization could be global. It is not so much the mere survival of humanity but the collapse of technological civilization that would have catastrophic consequences for our quality of life – we must do everything we can to avoid this.

In his presentation, Eörs Szathmáry lists the threats to our civilization, the impending climate catastrophe, the increasingly unsustainable economic and social processes, the unprecedented destruction of nature, pandemics that are unfolding and the biggest obstacle to a solution.
the growth dilemma.

After exploring the reasons, the lecture seeks answers to the decision-making situations in which public thinking could be steered towards a form of global cooperation that would help divert our civilization from the path to collapse to a sustainable world.

Source: MTA Youtube channel

About:

Eörs Szathmáry is an evolutionary biologist, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the chairman of the Sustainable Development Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In his research, he studied and modeled many evolutionary processes from the origin of life to the development of human language skills. His book, The Great Steps of Evolution, co-authored with John Maynard Smith, is considered a cornerstone of modern evolutionary biology.