The YouTube channel of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) already has the video summary of the act of admission as full academician of José María Baldasano, doctor of Chemical Sciences andprofessor of Environmental Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, held on July 1 in the Assembly Hall of the Catalan labor Promotion of National Work, headquarters of the Academy. The recipient read the admission speech “Una visión holística de la crisis climática” (A holistic view of the climate crisis). On behalf of the Royal Corporation answered the full academician and professor of Financial Economics and Accounting at the University of Barcelona José María Gay de Liebana. The event was followed by more than a hundred participants and 25 academicians.
In his speech, the new academician addressed the acceleration of development and the human population since the 19th century, thanks to the industrial revolution, the increase in life expectancy, the global exploitation of fossil waste and the technological revolution, a united development to Earth’s pollution and climate change. Faced with this situation, generated in just 300 years, Baldasano analyzed the possible ways that man must explore to reverse the current situation and make sustainable development a reality.
Baldasano has been director of the Department of Engineering Projects of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, director of the Spanish Institute of Applied Petrochemistry and the Institute of Technology and Environmental Modeling. He founded and directed the doctoral program in Environmental Engineering, first in Spain. He founded and codirected the Master in Environmental Engineering and the Department of Earth Sciences of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. He was responsible for the legislative development on industrial waste in the Catalan Government and member of the Advisory Council of the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition, among other positions related to the Administration. He is a consultant to the United Nations Environment Program and the World Bank.
