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Event

Globalization and Ecological Security: The Next Twenty Years

Date & Time

Wednesday
Nov. 15, 2000
10:00pm – 10:00pm ET

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

Tagged

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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