Fernando Valladares, CSIC researcher : "We are working hard for a world that makes us neither healthy nor happy".

Planetary boundaries are the physical, chemical and biological conditions necessary for human life to exist. Fernando Valladares, researcher at the Spanish National Researchcommittee (CSIC), says that we are "bursting" these limits and that it is a "miracle" that we have these conditions because of the way we treat nature.

Valladares gave a lecture at the University of Navarra entitled "The future of the planet is happening" where he explained, before more than a hundred people, that we still do not believe the climate we are living or the historical environmental cycles. This session is part of the cycle of seminars organized by the Chair Campus Home of Sustainability of the Biodiversity and Environment Institute BIOMA of the University of Navarra, and is part of the program of #LabMeCrazy! Science Film Festival.

One of the planetary limits that we have transgressed, according to the speaker, is the use of water, which we use disproportionately for tourism, Building, food production, and irrigation, among other uses. The researcher pointed out that "35% of the surface area of the European Union will be subject to high water stress in the 2070s" and that "it is Economics itself that has left us without water".

Valladares explained that there are historical environmental cycles that we cannot ignore and which have accelerated with climate change, and which we must anticipate. For the biologist, these cycles can be grouped into three stages: anarchy and savagery; order, civilization, reason and skill; and decadence and barbarism.

On the other hand, the scientist said that life no longer predominates in the biosphere and "artificial things have more weight", which is due to the fact that we have turned a living planet into a "massive system of global production" and that, together with lifestyles where stress, anxiety and work predominate, has negative consequences for people. "We are working hard for a world that makes us neither healthy nor happy," he says.

For Valladares, it is necessary to change the current status quo and this requires the motivation of staff to contribute to what he called "a new prosperity", that is, a civilization worth living in, and for this "we must not deny history or science", nor compromise the resources of future generations. Valladares appealed to the concept of regenerative growth -a way of living that does not grow by damaging nature but by caring for and increasing its value-, and that this regeneration should lead us towards ways of life with low carbon emissions and respectful of the natural environment.  

Fernando Valladares holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, is a research professor at the committee Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) -where he directs the Ecology and Global Change group at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-, and Adjunct Professor at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid. He has published more than 450 scientific articles and books in Ecology and Plant Biology being a highly cited scientist with numerous investigations on the role of biodiversity and the impacts of climate change and human activity on ecosystems. In 2021 he received the Jaume I award in the category of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Communication award from the BBVA Foundation.