Globalization and Ecological Security: The Next Twenty Years
Overview
Cosponsored by the Environmental Change and Security Project,
the Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda at the University of Maryland,
and the University of British Columbia
November 16-17, 2000—More than twenty years ago, U.S. President Jimmy Carter ordered a major review of long-range planning within the U.S. government. The resulting Global 2000 Report painted a picture of poor coordination and mutually exclusive predictions about future trends among different government agencies and departments. The report also brought together a number of environmental, technological, demographic, and economic forecasts for the state of the world in the year 2000.
"Globalization and Ecological Security: The New Twenty Years," a conference held at the University of Maryland, analyzed the process and predictions of Global 2000 Report in an effort to emphasize the need for continued and increased coordination among U.S. government departments. The conference also offered a rare opportunity to look ahead systematically another twenty years in the same critical areas addressed by the Report.
Wilson Center Flum Scholar David Rejeski established a framework for the conference with a presentation on how workers in institutions need peripheral vision. Rejeski detailed the many bureaucratic disincentives and educational traditions that prevent us from taking views that are wider than our department or profession. Citing examples of under-appreciated technology in the areas of microprocessors, genetics, sensors, and manufacturing, Rejeski demonstrated how the widespread inability to know and understand developments in other sectors will necessarily limit civil society and policymakers to reactive, after-the-fact responses.
The necessity for peripheral vision dominated subsequent discussions. Panelists discussed the major factors that in the next twenty years will impact population growth, migration, population "graying," health, energy use, climate change, globalization, and institutions. Gerry Barney, the lead author of the Global 2000 Report, remarked during the conference that it had been 19 years since he had addressed an audience honestly interested in how long-range planning affected environmental processes. However, there was little optimism among participants that coordinated planning and modeling had improved or would improve greatly in the coming twenty years.
Conference Program:
Taking Stock: From Limits to Growth to Ecological Insecurity
Dennis Pirages, University of Maryland
David Rejeski, Woodrow Wilson Center
Gerry Barney, Millennium Institute
Demographic Change
Geoffrey Dabelko, Woodrow Wilson Center
Amy Coen, Population Action International
Chet Cooper, Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Martin Heisler, University of Maryland
Luncheon Address
Herman Daly, University of Maryland
Future Energy Sources and Global Warming
Paul Runci, University of Maryland
Matthias Ruth, University of Maryland
Barry Worthington, United States Energy Agency
Technology and Alternative Energy Sources
Kenneth Hunter, University of Maryland
Graham Molitor, Public Policy Forecasting
Robert Olson, Institute for Alternative Futures
Eldon Boes, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Water, Food and Biodiversity
Theresa DeGeest, University of Maryland
Marc Cohen, International Food Policy Research Institute
David Inouye, University of Maryland
Olav Slaymaker, University of British Columbia
Disease and Microsecurity
Jordan Kassalow, Council on Foreign Relations
Stephen Morse, Columbia University
Michael Moodie, Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute
Andrew Price Smith, University of North Dakota
Robert Sprinkle, University of Maryland
Sarah Glasgow, University of Maryland
Luncheon Addresses
Stephen Morse, Columbia University
Norman P. Neureiter, Department of State
Global Environmental Governance - Multilateral or Unilateral?
Pamela Doughman, University of Maryland
David Hunter, Center for International Environmental Law
Hilary French, Worldwatch Institute
Jacob Park, University of Maryland
Innovative Responses to Global Environmental Governance
Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Woodrow Wilson Center,
Margaret Keck, Johns Hopkins University / Woodrow Wilson Center
Frances Seymour, World Resources Institute
Virginia Haufler, University of Maryland
Mark Zacher, University of British Columbia
Hosted By
Environmental Change and Security Program
The Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) explores the connections between environmental change, health, and population dynamics and their links to conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy. Read more
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