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James Martin said that we can create the world that we want. But he also told us that we’re not going to be able to seize the opportunities or build that world if we stay in our silos.
That’s why he founded the Oxford Martin School, to find solutions to the most pressing global challenges with pioneering, interdisciplinary, impactful research of the highest quality. Because he understood that all the mega problems that we are facing now and will continue to face in the 21st century are all interlinked. And because all mega problems are interlinked, all mega solutions are interlinked. If we find progress in one that helps progress in solving the others. And they are solvable.
We stand at a critical crossroads right now, at the beginning
of the 21st century. It is a crossroads in human history where we are collectively deciding which way we’re going to go as a planet and as a species. Are we going to take a path of damage and destruction? Or are we going to take a path of opportunity, economic growth and social well-being?
AT A CRITICAL TURNING POINT
This is a critical decision. One that we’re making every day through many small decisions. We are at a moment in history that has never been as important or as profoundly influential or determining of
the quality of life over the next hundred years. James Martin was optimistic because he knew that we could create the world we want. Recognising the great things we are capable of when we work together should make us all feel the same way.
Christiana Figueres, former UNFCCC Executive Secretary and member
of The Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health at the Oxford Martin School
From her James Martin Memorial Lecture
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