Investment in science is a pillar for any dynamic, equitable modern society, and promoting scientific literacy across all levels of society can help foster innovation, dialogue, and consensus that crosses disciplinary and cultural boundaries. Science also helps to uncover answers to foundational questions that have captivated, confounded, and divided our species for millennia. But what is “science,” and what kind of “evidence” ensures that an approach is scientific? If we take “science” to broadly mean, in its purest sense, a “dynamic search for the truth,” or more explicitly, “the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence,” as the Science Council aptly defines it, then science extends beyond the established, highly specialized disciplines of reductionist natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, geoscience, and space science) that have been so successful in fostering our understanding of our planet and the cosmos. Under this definition, science also includes the rigorous data-driven (qualitative and quantitative) social sciences, the inherently non-reductionist “holistic” sciences such as ecological and Earth system sciences, and the budding interdisciplinary field of complex systems science, as well as robust traditional knowledge systems based on multi-generational experiences, observations, and reasoning. As with science, “evidence” can mean a lot of things as well, including primary research, pre-existing data, past and planned experiments, and the referencing of peer-reviewed publications and primary sources. It can also include local and traditional knowledge, thought experiments, theoretical proofs, contemplation, verifiable personal experience, and empirical observation. Broadening and weaving together these forms of scientific evidence holds the potential to address complex, interconnected global challenges and explain deep mysteries that could help unify our polarized societies around foundational understandings. Foundational Questions Foundational questions can transcend the divides of generations and cultures: Cosmology, physics, and evolutionary biology have shed...

Traditional Indigenous territories are complex, adaptable, and resilient socio-ecological systems that contain the majority of the world’s biocultural diversity. But can Indigenous Peoples play a leading role in both combating climate change and preventing the next pandemic? Right now, there is a fair amount of rhetoric being flung about connecting, comparing, and contrasting the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change and the “sixth extinction” of biodiversity. In Indigenous worldviews—as well as in complex systems science—all these crises represent “maladies” caused by the profound unbalancing of our interconnected living planet. From his home in self-isolation in the Colombian Amazon, Koreguaje Indigenous leader Juven Piranga recently told me: “Our Elders agree that Mother Earth is causing this pandemic to clean the present state of the world, to rid us of the bad energies, and to counteract the pervasive greed and exploitation and disrespect. White people come here to our territories to exploit Mother Earth, for gold and timber and much more, and this affects everyone, and it is our responsibility to protect Mother Earth, so we are also punished. We need to reinforce our autonomy to stop these practices and restore balance.” While still not garnering nearly as much attention as it deserves, Indigenous Peoples’ role as partners in climate change mitigation is fairly well established in research, and gaining more attention internationally from both policymakers and the general public. The “Guardians of the Forest” paradigm recognizes Indigenous communities as stewards of the immense biodiversity and “ecosystem services” (or better, ecosystem functions) of tropical forests. Globally, the forested territories of Indigenous communities store at least 300 billion metric tons of carbon, above and below ground. Mounting evidence has shown that Indigenous communities with secure rights and tenure to their collectively held lands have extremely low rates of deforestation and land degradation. Additionally, while...

Tropical mountain glaciers are rapidly melting around the world (up to 99% are in South America), but those that remain in Colombia could be entirely gone before 2050. Colombia has six remaining designated glaciers, in four distinct glacierized areas. The four areas are the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Sierra Nevada de El Cocuy, Nevado del Huila volcano and three glaciated volcanoes within Los Nevados National Park (Nevado del Santa Isabel, Nevado del Tolima and Nevado del Ruiz). The volcanoes of Los Nevados National park and Nevado del Huila are part of the Cordillera Central of the Andes, Sierra Nevada de El Cocuy is part of the Cordillera Oriental of the Andes and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a coastal mountain range independent from the Andes. These glaciers have been losing ice mass for more than 150 years, since the “Little Ice Age”(LIA), but the scale and speed of this glacial melt has grown exponentially over the past 20-50 years. Since the end of the LIA (estimated to have occured around 1850, 90% of Colombia’s ice mass has been lost, from an estimated total of 374 square kilometers (144 square miles) to only 37 square kilometers (14 square miles) in 2017, according to Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM). In the 20th century, eight glaciers disappeared, all on mountains whose peaks are below 4,800 meters (15,750 feet). These eight extinct glaciers had an estimated 24 square kilometers (9.3 square miles) of glacierized area at the end of the LIA. The remaining glaciated mountains in Colombia are between 4,950 meters (16,240 feet) for Santa Isabel and 5,775 meters (18,947 feet) for Pico Cristobal Colon in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which is world’s highest coastal mountain. The decline of the six remaining glaciers has...