Editorial. La quimera de la sostenibilidad

Just as the mythological being from which it takes its name, the chimera of sustainability is formed of a diversity of parts taken from fields such as sociology, ecology, engineering, and economy, to name but a few. It could not be otherwise. To a fair degree the heir of the concept “sustainable development”, the aim of sustainability is to redirect the trajectories of complex socioenvironmental problems so as to delay or minimise their most negative consequences. If this definition sounds rather pessimistic it is only because it is neither rationally, nor technically possible to completely arrest such tendencies. 

Concern about climate change and therefore, UNAM’s commitment to sustainability, are two roads that cross every university territory, knowledge, program, building, even the community itself, in every direction. If there are transversal themes in UNAM’s work in every area, climate change and sustainability are a paradigmatic example. This issue of UNAM Internacional presents a broad—but never complete, which would be an impossible task—panorama of efforts made by our university all around Mexico and further beyond to understand climate change, to make the country capable of coping with its challenges and to look for adaptation and mitigation solutions needed by sustainable development as it is conceived in our classrooms, laboratories, research centers, conservation zones and almost every space of the University. 

The main section, “Encuadre”, includes eight deep articles covering different areas of sustainable development in the face of climate change scenarios. UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda 2030 are critically analyzed, as are the interdisciplinary approaches in the realm of Earth, environmental, soil and development sciences, giving us a picture of the severe risks and challenges we face: we have to deal with tremendous perils; global situation is in the limits of human action, but there are reasons to remain hopeful if, as a society we are able to establish the adequate policies and take the correct decisions. It is in these scenarios where the role of universities becomes essential, especially that of UNAM in Mexico. 

Very important areas that not always are seen when speaking about climate change, have found their way through these pages: impacts of climate change on human health, and especially on inequalities such as that of gender; light pollution on the night skies which have lost their darkness affecting both wild and urban fauna, as well as human health and the very possibility to observe and research the night skies. Even if we cannot stop electric light (which is an indicator of societies’ productivity) from growing, we may redirect it reducing its growth rates and mitigating its consequences. 

This third installment of UNAM Internacional magazine includes among its different sections, a collection of articles and interviews dealing with a diversity of problems and solutions commensurate to the diversity and complexity of this chimera. From night light pollution to rational use of water; from traditional knowledge for improving food production to the development and management of field stations for inter- and multidisciplinary studies; from  renewable energies to the engineering of new structure solutions for coastal areas; from the coexistence of humans and urban fauna—including a photographic note on the Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve, inside Ciudad Universitaria—to the aesthetic representation of chaotic urban development and its environmental problems, or from the application of geosciences to the many, and also diverse measures taken by UNAM to become sustainable. In the following pages we will be exposed to reviews and invitations that it is heeding—or reading—as a tiny sample of the complex reality of the science and practice of sustainability from UNAM. 

Inter- and multidisciplinary approaches are one of the highlights in this issue, as is the reflection on concerns of the common people towards stopping the climate change process as well as understanding that we cannot live with the huge burden of guilt about it. All these subjects are broadly set and analyzed in this issue. 

This time, UNAM Internacional brings two pieces of poetry and, as it is becoming usual, there are texts on virtual exchange as an alternative to academic internationalization, especially through the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) methodology. 

We believe that this UNAM Internacional issue’s content will not only help us understand the endless efforts taken from UNAM towards keeping the Earth inhabitable, but also to understand where our responsibilities lie and what can we do in the place where we live.