Â鶹Íø Research Explores the Global Impact of Industrialisation
Research at Queen’s is at the forefront of research to understand and manage the impacts of human-induced global change. Dr Daniel Pincheira-Donoso explains more.
Humanity has progressed in the last two centuries more than in the previous 10,000 years. Scientific breakthroughs, technologies, medicine, life expectancy, and economic prosperity are all the symbols of the unprecedented success brought by the Industrial Revolution. However, these accelerated advances have led to climate change, loss of habitats, and to the extinction of biodiversity all around the planet – our progress backfired. Dr Daniel Pincheira-Donoso from the School of Biological Sciences explains more.
“Engines, electricity, growing economic prosperity, the internet, and the global connections among all corners of the planet made life better, safer, and human population grew explosively, but this revolution backfired and changed the world in an unprecedented way. We have progressively destroyed natural habitats to give way to agricultural land, climate change is one of the major consequences of industrial activity, we have increased the spread of invasive species globally and we have accelerated the extinctions of biodiversity in pretty much every single corner of the planet. These have become the destructive symptoms of our success and a tangible threat to our future."
“To manage and revert the impact of these planetary threats we need to do what we do best - cooperate as a collective to integrate our scientific and technological knowledge. Â鶹Íø School of Biological Sciences works as a hub with a vision to enable such cooperation. I am committed to understanding the destructive impacts that industrialisation has brought to the modern world. My research integrates the field of evolutionary biology and human induced global change to elucidate the magnitude, the locations, and the speed of these impacts to ultimately identify potential avenues to tackle them”