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Scholars at Kyung Hee’s peace forum say 'integrative perspectives' needed to solve global risks

Published: 19 Sep. 2025, 19:29 Updated: 22 Sep. 2025, 13:52

LEE SOO-JUNG
[email protected]

Choue In-won, chancellor of the Kyung Hee University System, right, speaks during the Peace BAR Festival at Kyung Hee University’s Peace Hall in eastern Seoul on Sept. 19. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Kyung Hee University System Chancellor Choue In-won on Friday urged people to reflect on why decades-long global efforts and policies to tackle climate change have seemingly failed to yield anticipated outcomes, namely peace between human beings, the environment and the universe.

During the Peace BAR Festival at Kyung Hee University’s Peace Hall in eastern Seoul, Choue said humanity should embrace an "integrative perspective" and discover interrelated dynamics between separate issues to resolve three imminent risks: climate change, nuclear weapons and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

Kyung Hee University's Peace BAR Festival is a yearly celebration to honor the International Day of Peace, which was designated by the United Nations in 1981. This year's version centered on the theme, "The Moment of Chaos: The Planetary Consciousness and Future Politics."

"The Paris Agreement in 2015 pledged to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century," Choue said, referring to the international treaty on climate change. "However, the World Meteorological Organization reported that last year was likely to be the 'first calendar year to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era,' leaving concerns that the 2015 Agreement is losing momentum."

Choue pointed out that "a rationale supporting economic growth" have been prioritized since the industrialization — at the expense of other public agendas, which included climate change and the well-being of humanity.

Calling the three threats "unprecedented challenges," Choue called on humanity to expand the meaning of peace in a way that incorporates dynamics between human beings and other organisms, the Earth and other planets and even the cosmos.

In a keynote speech, Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University who joined the event virtually, criticized materialism in modern capitalism as a cause of today's entangled crises — mixed with inequality, security and environment.

Oreskes said people in the modern era are constantly exposed to messages encouraging people to buy products, noting that they tend to seek satisfaction through consumption.

"We are often identified not so much as citizens, but as consumers," Oreskes said. "Capitalism requires us to be consumers, because this is how our economy works. If we do not buy the stuff that manufacturers are producing, the economy fails."

In a following special dialogue session, Oreskes suggested a "holistic" view as a solution, asking people to consider the "larger social context" rather than breaking and analyzing issues into separate disciplines and fields.

Panelists join the Peace BAR Festival held at Kyung Hee University’s Peace Hall in eastern Seoul on Sept. 19. [PARK SANG-MOON]

John Ikenberry, a politics professor from Princeton University and a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University who also joined Friday's discussion virtually, stressed that "confidence" is a key to help the world unite and devise a solution for the crisis.

"What we are seeing in human civilization is a loss of a sense of confidence, [of] a sense of optimistic possibility that we can rise above our crises," Ikenberry said.

"But confidence is what builds civilization and what creates commitment […] to educate the next generation, to rethink the way we produce and consume and the way we interact with each other."

Ikenberry added, "We are confronted with a fundamental issue […] but there is a better future only if we work together."

The Peace BAR Festival runs through Saturday with scholars, student leaders and civil society representatives set to discuss civic values and the idea of "planetary citizenship" as an avenue for sustainability.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [[email protected]]