Dr.habil. Luis Inostroza

Hace ya treinta años que el premio nobel de química Ilya Prigogine se refirió a la ciudad como un sistema disipativo lejos del equilibrio, incluso proponiendo en su libro Order out of Chaos (Orden desde el caos, 1984) un modelo simplificado de urbanización basado en este principio. El estado lejos del equilibrio al que se refiere Prigogine es desde luego en el aspecto térmico, donde no hay homogeneidad en la temperatura interna de las ciudades, lo que produce un alto dinamismo interno con la consecuente disipación de calor hacia el exterior. Este es un principio básico que establece una relación …

As I’m getting older, I’m also becoming more prone to emotional crashes. During this week, I was often forced to hide my emotions behind a smile, a joke or a simple silence while dealing with feelings of immense gratitude or sadness. Life has been so generous to me, the eternal latecomer, giving me the opportunity to meet interact with, and learn from intellectual giants and beautiful persons. Yesterday (Thursday 21.11.2024) I witnessed Dolf de Groot’s farewell ceremony during the closing plenary of the 5th Ecosystem Services Partnership European Conference. Two times I was forced by strong emotions, to escape out …

Last week was intense. I chaired the ESP-LAC conference in La Serena, from 6 to 10 November. It was a bilingual conference for the first time. I had the honour to count on my side with the Vice-rector Jiri Skladanka and the Dean of my faculty Jiri Schneider, indeed such distinguished support. I also had a team of 9 students from Mendel University. In addition, with the excellent work done by the ESP secretariat, we ensured a high-quality conference, as it has been the seal of ESP conferences for so many years. An extra challenge this year was the bilingual …

Recently, I had the beautiful opportunity to attend the IALE World Congress 2023 in Nairobi—an exhilarating week filled with stimulating exchanges of ideas, networking, and boundless learning. Engaging with remarkable colleagues, we delved into our shared passions, with nature conservation at the very heart of our discussions. Among the many ponderings that continuously captivate my mind is the perplexing misperception of our human nature. How we misconceive human nature often leads to misguided interpretations of concepts like ecosystem services. I must admit, the notion that humans can transcend their very humanity when it comes to our relationship with other species …

The common language used in non-scientific environments tends to be largely vague, at times inconsistent, elusive and recursive. What one person is saying or writing can hold almost uncountable different interpretations. Rather than being a defect, such ambiguity and imprecision underpin the success of language as a communication instrument. These features indeed enrich communication, foster imagination and lubricate social interaction. Language is a fundamental component of human life, making us what we are as animals. Science has a fundamental and undeniable dependence on language. However, scientific language is not perse neutral, objective and free of the aforementioned shortcomings. On the …