On the afternoon of March 9, The 65th ''Tsinghua Forum was held in the reception hall of the main building. Dr. Richard Horton, the chief editor of the world famous medical journals 'The Lancet' attended the Forum and delivered a lecture titled "The Future of Humanity：Rational Optimism or Hopeful Pessimism?"

In the lecture, Dr. Horton began with the origin of life and the evolution of humanity, put forward his viewpoint that human beings must think about their future, and aroused everyone's attention to the health of the planet.

Pic 1. Dr. Richard Horton was talking about the future of humanity

Dr. Horton talked about that many of the crisis that the human beings are facing is global, we must work together between nations or within countries to find ways to solve these crisis. For example, the consequences of climate change and epidemics are often global and dynamic, which can't be solved by a single organization or a country. Also, many human health problems can not be solved by the power of doctors, such as the remaining high mortality rate of world's maternal and neonatal.

At present, although for many diseases, the medical treatment has been more mature, but because of policy and economic reasons, the overall situation of current human health and disease treatment is still not optimistic. The United Nations has made 17 'After 2015' sustainable development goals by 2015, and we should not look at each goal in isolation, but rather integrate each goal into a whole and achieve them better. Such as promoting economic development, reducing poverty and promoting health by raising the level of public education and basic medical conditions.

He further pointed out that the university is the core that is able to influence the future of mankind, as China's top university, Tsinghua University is aware of its own task in the study of planet health. Following the presentation of "China's Urbanization and Health" by Prof. Gong Peng of Tsinghua University in 2012, the research report "Health and Climate Change: Strategies to Protect Human Health", with Tsinghua University participated in the compiling work as a joint unit, was published on the Lancet on June 23, 2015. And the special report "China City Health" led by Prof. Gong Peng, will also be published on the Lancet in the second half of 2017. The report aims to review the research and practice works of China, especially developing countries, in "Healthy Cities", to create new knowledge, new concepts, new platforms and new information, and to put forward countermeasures.

After the speech, Mr. Horton answered the questions raised by the audience. Horton argues that guiding the changes through education and cooperation is not conducive to personal health and the habit of the environment, environmental and health problems need to take preventive measures to improve the ability to prevent. We must take preventive measures to the environmental and health problems and improve the ability to prevent them.

Pic 3. Director of DESS Peng Gong award Dr. Horton Tsinghua Forum Memorial Certificate

"Tsinghua Forum" is established and hosted by the Academic Committee of Tsinghua University. It is a high-level academic forum of Tsinghua University with strategic, cutting-edge and innovative features. Dr. Horton's speech was hosted by the Department of Earth System Sciences.

Pic 4. Tsinghua Forum site

Richard Horton is the chief editor of The Lancet. During the time he served in the Lancet, he broke through the passive acceptance model, toke the initiative to invite scientists to write guest papers, and provide editing services for the invited scientists during the whole process to ensure the quality of the invitation papers and the higher acceptance rate. He was also committed to promoting the cooperation between this top international medical magazine and China: on the one hand he helped to improve the level of Chinese medical research, to develop health policy for the Chinese government, to provide evidence-based medical evidence as a support for Chinese doctors; on the other hand, he introduced China's progress and achievements in medical and health fields to the world, and enhanced China's influence in the international medical academia. In recent years, he promoted the release of the Chinese version of the Lancet, that is, publishing the selected papers in Chinese; and set up a special editor of Asia, and set the only Asian office in China; he also founded the Chinese album, an important bridge between China and the world. In 2015, he won the "Chinese Government Friendship" award, and received by Premier Li Keqiang.