To Our Readers
The most significant challenge of our time is to protect our environmental legacy. According to recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, global climate warming is increasing, and the impacts of climate warming are seen in climate change and increasing changes to natural and human systems. It is clear that changes in many physical and biological systems are linked to greenhouse gas concentrations from our use of fossil fuels. Our children will see significant rises in sea level, historic changes in global agriculture and forests, more frequent and more intense storms, and increased infectious disease vectors. In the future, fresh water will be as scarce and valuable a commodity as oil in the 20th century. During this period of climate change, the global population will become increasingly urban: in 2008, half of the Earth’s population will live in urban area, marking the first time in history that humans are an urban-centered species. More than at any time, the fate of humanity, our economy, and the planet will be determined by cities.
At home as afar, we face hard realities about our impact on the environment. But with each reality comes an opportunity to reassess our relationship to the environment, better understand its processes, and make sustainability one of our guiding principles. To address the challenges of protecting our environmental legacy and educating a new generation of leaders in conservation and natural resources management, University of Virginia faculty members are conducting very significant research and education in sustainability. Since November 2006 some 50 faculty members from diverse fields, including five deans, have met regularly to exchange expertise and develop a major institutional plan to address these issues. From this planning process five themes have emerged; they are featured in this special Explorations issue on sustainability initiatives.
What is distinctive about the University of Virginia approach to sustainability are the guiding assumptions that the fate of the built and natural environment are intertwined and that the conservation of nature is fundamentally tied to the conservation of human cultures. With these assumptions, faculty members have found common cause and new opportunities for applying basic research and scholarship to develop solutions, policies, and technologies for protecting our environmental legacy.
R. Ariel Gomez, MD
Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies
