Harmony Institute for Earth Care: Understand the Earth to Secure our Future

Mission Statement

Our mission is to tap into the bilingual skills in the climate science community to advance education and research on the stability of the Earth's Climate System under anthropogenic forcing, in particular the exchange and collaboration between the U.S. and China in this area. Our vision is that a deeper and more shared understanding of the working of the Earth' Climate System will lead to a more secure and harmonious world. Our value is that the future of the Earth rests on the actions of individual residents of the planet.

The climate system is a composite system consisting of five components: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere, and the biosphere. These components interact and thereby maintain an always changing, yet relatively stable environment that sustains life --the most precious and complex thing in the universe .

A fundamental question about the climate system is why its state is always changing, yet it has so far avoided a runaway instability that could destroy all life. It is also against this background that the importance of understanding human impact on the state of the climate system better emerges. With our industrial activity changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, are we prodding a "lamb" who poses no harm, or a "beast" who may react to devour all of us?