Building a Better World: An Ecosystemic Approach for Global Change & Development Design

Problems of difficult settlement or solution in the world cannot be solved by segmented academic formats, market-place interests or mass-media headlines; instead of dealing with taken for granted issues (the apparent “bubbles” in the surface), public policies, research and teaching programmes should detect the issues and deal with them deep inside the boiling pot. Policy discussions and policy making require new paradigms of growth, power, wealth, work and freedom embedded into the cultural, social, political and economical institutions (more critical than individual motives and morals). Urban planning cannot be subordinated to the interests of business corporations, cities cannot remain as privileged centers for profit and capital accumulation, transforming citizens in mere users and consumers, but must preserve and develop mankind heritage, encompassing history, values, architecture, landscapes, the arts, the letters. Being-in-theworld is more than living on it, it demands an ecosystemic approach, the construction of a new social fabric, as new structures emerge in the socio-cultural learning niches and develop critical capacities to operate changes in the system. Problem solving implies dynamic and complex configurations intertwining four dimensions of being-in-the-world, as they combine, as donors and recipients, to induce the events (deficits and assets), cope with consequences (desired or undesired) and contribute to change (diagnosis and prognosis): intimate (subject’s cognitive and affective processes), interactive (groups’ mutual support and values), social (political, economical and cultural systems) and biophysical (biological endowment, natural and man-made environments). An integrated ecosystemic approach to education, culture, environment, health, politics, economics and quality of life should develop the connections and seal the ruptures between the different dimensions of being-in-the-world, in view of their mutual support and dynamic equilibrium.