Our dominant current socio-economic and political systems have become decoupled from the larger ecology of life, and our relationship with our natural environment and the animals within has changed dramatically. This has led to various outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases – with COVID-19 as the hard lesson learned (or not?). In this lecture, Pim Martens, Professor of Sustainable Development at Maastricht University, will discuss the complexities and connections between our own well-being and that of the animals with whom we live, and global environmental changes like climate change and biodiversity loss.
PIM MARTENS 
Among all the societal complexities of the decoupling from nature is one never mentioned, which relates to the deterioration of human health and the lesser ability to cope with changes such as temperature and global warming. This is the lost ability to feel in the body-brain-mind, and heed the natural call for respite from high activity, rest (giving a break to Autonomics and brain central control of local physiological functions such as mitochondrial energy production), in order to RECOVER. This is the first “instinct” . Biological life is not only about survival & adaptation, but also maintenance of function and structure – the “resources” that need to be “sustainable”. Development is necessary only during child growth. In other words:
* Theories make a logical mistake based on semantic drift, mostly performed by economists & business whose language and behaviour us that if war or patterned rule binding, not that of peaceful living maintaining long term VIABILITY.
* Collective behaviour decoupled from nature and the actual workings of biological life, is a reflection of individual behaviour in health, strain, stress… Stretching resources of all ans any kind. Look to the most common online message to gifted people detected in adulthood (and autistics too, to no longer ignore a coming meltdown crisis): “come back to yourself, find out your own true needs, learn to be assertive about meeting them, feel the “… and you will avoid the stress induced illnesses & rare syndromes & autonomic symptoms of physiological distress so common among this population, whose brain is so intensely activated. Those people feel it but are taught to ignore the “first instinct” over the second instinct of survival. So does medicine now.
People with the “normal” physiology do not even feel this, and build cultures solely based on survival and over growth/development.
Hence David Attenborough is half right: meet people’s needs to reduce the reproductive and other drives , but NOT not just those of societal activity: do not ignore the biological need of the human great ape to Respite-Rest-Recovery . Doing so, for any complex system leads to irs “Fragility”, deterioration, “frailty”, not to adaptive greatness.
Go back to oral myths of Creation and practices to see whence this come; look at the drift in human health and semantics and planet adverse effects to see whither this goes. It is not the first time.
Correct the logic, correct the overriding directive to “go UP”, and you will understand how to stop winding-up-winding-down from spiralkingbout of hand.
These are very simple properties of geometric toplogy of distorsion at limits. (My modelling method).
Sustainable viability long term. Not “sustainable development” of “human advancement” – above nature, decoupled from biology, mathematical theorems no longer embedded in the physical world and taught without their geometry basis.
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