ABSTRACT
In the spring of 2012, during a run of unseasonably warm weather, 3,000 scientific experts and decision makers gathered in London at the ‘Planet under Pressure: New Knowledge towards Solutions’ conference. Convened by the Global Environmental Change Programmes and the International Council for Science, the goal of the conference was ‘to assess the state of the planet and explore solutions to impending global crises’ (Brito and Smith 2012: 1). ‘Planet under Pressure’ was timed to deliver a powerful message to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, to be held that summer. The ‘State of the Planet Declaration’, summarizing the key messages from the proceedings, was issued at the conference. The declaration provided a clear and urgent call to global action to meet the world’s sustainability challenges. New scientific understandings of the Earth system, it declares, ‘demand a new perception of responsibilities and accountabilities of nation states to support planetary stewardship’ (ibid.: 2). Recent research and the large-scale action required by society, urge the authors of the declaration, require drastic changes in political and scientific organization:
The scientific community must rapidly reorganize to focus on global sustainability solutions. We must develop a new strategy for creating and rapidly translating knowledge into action, which will form part of a new contract between science and society, with commitments from both sides
(ibid.: 4).