Vienna: Life in Cyberspace:
The Formation of Social Capital in Virtual Worlds

Symposium: Life in Cyberspace

Brussels: 43rd Aurelio Peccei Lecture by Jacques de Selliers, Guy Reinaud and Jacques de Gerlache

Nigerian Students Power up their Laptops

students using the OLPC laptop

Vienna: Economic Development in the Balkan Region

Uwe Möller

June 15th, 2007: Uwe Möller, Secretary-General of the Club of Rome, chaired a session at a conference on "Economic Developments in the Balkan Region" held at Bank Austria Creditanstalt. In his introductory statement he referred to the Limits to Growth and outlined the role of education for achieving a sustainable development. The event was organized by Forum Alpbach and INEA.

Eberhard von Koerber Discusses G8 Summit

Eberhard von Koerber

June 7th, 2007: Eberhard von Koerber, Vice-President of the Club of Rome, discussed on German TV ZDF the results of the G8 Summit. He questioned the composition of the Summit which does not include China and India, emphasized the role of Public Private Partnerships for development and criticized European trade barriers to agricultural goods from developing countries. Referring to “Limits to Growth” and to more recent positions of the Club of Rome von Koerber commented that non-binding declarations are not enough to stop climate change. The G8 compromise to consider the reduction of CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050 would be too little and too late, von Koerber criticised.

The video (in German language) is available via this external link. (Times for statements in the video are at 11.04:G8 composition, 27.37: PPP, 43.20: agriculture and 50.30: climate).

CACOR Luncheon with Nicole Schwartz-Morgan

June 4th, 2007: The presentation focused on the impact of globalization on human ecology, conceived not only as the bodies of human individuals but also as a social body including the state and other organizations.
Dr. Schwartz-Morgan is currently Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada here she has taught political philosophy in the Department of Politics and Economics since 2001.
Further information is available on the Website of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome.

Win 2 Conference

June 2nd, 2007: The Club of Rome International was among the partners of the Win 2 future conference in Vienna. Joerg Geier, Deputy Secretary-General, gave a speech which is available for download (German language).

CACOR Proceedings May 2007

May 31st, 2007: The new edition of the Proceedings is available from the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR). It includes an article by Rennie Whitehead "Honoring the past and Facing the Future", a speech on climate change by Matthias Hopfner, "Toward World Community" by Charles Beaubien, "Turning the Elephant around" by Fred Thompson, "The Present Moment" by Jerzy Wojciechovski and information about William Hammond and Alexander King summarized by Buzz Nixon. The publication is available for download.

European Network for Global Research Founded

Endre Kiss, President of the network

May 31st, 2007: Upon invitation by the Centre for Intercultural Studies, European scientists met in Fürstenfeld, Austria, and founded the European Network for Global Research. The members will deal with the evaluation of existing and with the creation of new theories on globalization. Both the composition and the working style of the group are interdisciplinary. The scientists presented their work and discussed how theory building on globalisation in Europe is expected to differ from work in other world regions. Prof. Endre Kiss, member of the Hungarian Association of the Club of Rome, was elected as President of the networking initiative for a period of three years.

Brussels: 42nd Aurelio Peccei Lecture by Dean Peterson and Nancy Bertler

May 30th, 2007: "Antarctica and Climate Change - Research in New Zealand" was the title of the presentation by Dean Peterson and Nancy Bertler". Advancing knowledge, appreciation and conservation, of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean is the aim of Antarctica New Zealand. It is responsible for developing, managing, and administering New Zealand's activities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, particularly the Ross Sea region.

Details are available for download.

Brussels: 41st Aurelio Peccei Lecture by Florence Devouard

May 24th, 2007: "Wikipedia and the Educational Landscape" was the title of the presentation by the Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. Wikipedia is a project to build free encyclopaedias in all languages of the world.

The Video of the presentation can be viewed on the Website of Brussels-EU Chapter (please scroll down in order to find it).

"Aurelio Peccei Website" Launched

May 2007: On the occasion of the Annual Aurelio Peccei Lecture in Rome, a website has been launched which presents the biography of Aurelio Peccei and describes his work for the Club of Rome.

The website is a joint initiative by the Fondazione Aurelio Peccei and the European Support Centre of the Club of Rome.

The site can be accessed via http://www.clubofrome.at/peccei/

Future Oriented Studies

The article by Wladyslaw Switalski, Member of the Polish Association for the Club of Rome, is available for download.

Welt mit Zukunft - Ueberleben im 21. Jahrhundert

The book by Franz Josef Radermacher, Member of the Club of Rome, and Gert Beyers is available for purchase via this external link.

Zukunft fairantworten

May 23rd, 2007: tt30 Germany organized a round table in co-operation with the Bertelsmann Foundation. Partner for discussion was Werner Taiber, member of the Board of WestLB. More information is available on the website of tt30 Germany.

Rome: Aurelio Peccei Lecture 2007 by Norman Myers

May 17th, 2007: Norman Myers discussed the challenge of maintaining biodiversity. Myers was among the first scientists to alert the global community to tropical deforestation, an impending mass extinction, and environmental security.

Norman Myers

Norman Myers was introduced by Roberto Peccei (President of the Fondazione Aurelio Peccei).

Roberto Peccei

The presentation was followed by contributions by Luigi Boitani (Direttore Dipartimento Biologia Animale e dell’Uomo Università degli Studi La Sapienza, Roma) Gianfranco Bologna (Secretary-General of the Fondazione Aurelio Peccei) and Riccardo Valentini (Direttore Dipartimento Scienze dell'Ambiente Forestale, Università della Tuscia, Viterbo).

Gianfranco Bologna

The slides of the presentations are available on the Aurelio Peccei Website ("events" section)

Ottawa: CACOR Luncheon with Magnus Schoenning

May 14th, 2007: The First Secretary at the Embassy of Sweden in Ottawa discussed "The Transition from Fossil Fuel: The Case of Sweden". He talked about Sweden's environmental policy and how a long-term commitment to the move away from fossil fuels have contributed to a sustainably sound energy mix with a focus mainly on climate change.

Ambassador John W. McDonald receives Docorate honoris causa

May 13th, 2007: USACOR member Ambassador John W. McDonald, lawyer, diplomat, was honoured by John's University, Minnesota, with its Doctorate of Laws honoris causa. Ambassador John W. McDonald, long-time international civil servant, development expert and peace builder, is co-founder and chairman of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Washington, D. C., established in 1992.

Milano: Science, Society and Politics - The Legacy of Umberto Colombo

May 14th, 2007: The event called attention to the work of Umberto Colombo, who was a Member of the Club of Rome, and discussed his positions and achievements. The following statements are available for download
(all in Italian language):
Andrea Aparo
Gianni Cervetti
Marcello Colitti
Riccardo Galli
Vittorio Gregotti
Guiseppe Lanzavecchia
Guido Martinotti
Marco Vitale
Salomon Wald
G. B. Zorzoli

Brussels: 40th Aurelio Peccei Lecture by Tapio Kanninen

May 9th, 2007: The lecture discussed how the international community could conceptualise, understand and react to global and regional threats. The recent United Nations’ (UN) High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and other world commissions, have outlined the increased threats to humanity in the 21st century. A framework was presented to assess the trends of the future with illustrative examples of its application. This framework could become more systematic, or quantified, based on the history of similar efforts in economic, social, environmental and political fields. Finally, a tentative global response system was presented, based on the framework, to react to emerging threats to the international community in the years and decades to come.

Details are available for download.

UK: Alexander King - Teledialogue

On May 5th, a get-together / teledialogue was organized by SMART PARTNERSHIP. The participants discussed Alexander King's work and his autobiography "Let the Cat Turn Around". A broschure with background information and CDs with the statements from the teleconference are available from SMART PARTNERSHIP. Please contact Club of Rome Member Mihaela Smith smart.partnership@cptm.org

Den Haag: Erasmus Lecture by Jacqueline Kramer

May 7th, 2007: Jacqueline Kramer, Minister of the Environment and Spacial Planning of the Netherlands, talked about the consequences which climate change will have for the re-organisation of energy supply. There is the ambition to make the energy supply system in the Netherlands the most sustainable in Europe. This will requre changes in production and consumption and therefore the dialogue with stakeholders will be intensified.

The Lecture was organized by the Dutch Association for the Club of Rome (Erasmus Liga). Details are available for download.

Ashok Khosla is Acting President of the Club of Rome

April 2007: The Executive Committee of the Club of Rome has asked Ashok Khosla to be Acting President of the Club of Rome.

Ashok Khosla is Chairman of the Development Alternatives Group, a consortium of social enterprises based in India whose mission is to create technologies, businesses and markets for large scale generation of sustainable livelihoods. Earlier, he was Director of the Office of Environment, Government of India, and then Director, Infoterra in the United Nations Environment Programme.

He has been a Member of the Governing Bodies of the World Economic Forum in Davos, IUCN, WWF, IISD, the Stockholm Environment Institute, WETV, EXPO 2000 and several other international organizations. He was Special Advisor to the Brundtland Commission and Chairman of the NGO Forum at the ‘92 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. He has been board member of many government, industry and NGO bodies in India, including the National Security Advisory Board, the Science Advisory Committee to the Cabinet and the National Environment Council.

Ashok Khosla studied at the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard. He was awarded the Stockholm Challenge Award in 2002, the UN Sasakawa Environment Prize in 2002 and the Schwab Foundation’s Award for Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in 2004.

George Soros: Age of Fallibility - Consequences of the War on Terror

April 27th, 2007: The Czech Association for the Club of Rome and CESES were among the organizers of an event with George Soros in Prague. Recently Soros has been analysing the situation in the U.S.A. and its influence on the development in the world. He is sure that after 11/9/2001 the U.S.A. set out on a wrong journey – and not only in consequence of the policy of Bush administration. Even some aspects of the contemporary American society itself could threaten an open society that can not be reduced to the general criteria of liberal democracy.

Further details are available:
- invitation (English)
- background (Czech)
- background (English)

Ottawa: CACOR Luncheon with H.E. Anthony Cary CMG

April 25th, 2007: The British High Commissioner to Canada talked about "Climate Change - when does an environmental issue become a security one?"

Further information is available on the website of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome

Video:
Hazel Henderson interviewed Aurelio Peccei at the World Futures Conference in Caracas 1983

The video has now been made available online by "Ethical Markets". For viewing it, please follow this link. (Videostream works with IE. Firefox users are kindly asked to download the video via the direct link http://68.56.125.166/ethicalmarkets/caracas.wmv)

On the website of Ethical Markets you can find a large number of interesting videos and can download a browser toolbar with information about the programme.

About Meso-Level Dimensions of Globalization

The article by Endre Kiss, Member of the Hungarian Association of the Club of Rome, is available for download.

Ser europeu hoje; caminho para a identidade entre o passado e o futuro

The statement by Mario Soares, Honorary Member of the Club of Rome, is available for download.

Argentinian Chapter of the Club of Rome Presents Website

Information about the Argentinian Chapter is available on the Website http://esc.clubofrome.org/argentina/. Details include the principles of work, objectives, priority themes and a list of the members of the Board. Within the next months, the website will be further elaborated.

Sauberer Strom aus den Wüsten...

For viewing the statements by Gerhard Knies, co-ordinator of the Trec project of the German Association of the Club of Rome, please follow the external link.

More information about TREC is available on the website of the German Association for the Club of Rome.

Information Technology, Competitiveness and the Environment
Thomas Schauer, Markus Neuvonen, Matti Penttilä (ed.)

For download of the proceedings please
follow this Link.

Brussels: 39th Aurelio Peccei Lecture by Anne-Rachel Inné and Giovanni Seppia

April 4th, 2007: "ICANN: Achievements and Challenges of a Multi-Stakeholder, Bottom up, Transparent Model" was the title of the lecture. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. These include domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .UK), as well as the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols. Computers use these identifiers to reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. The lecture will provide insight in the work of ICANN, especially the African and the European Regional Liaison.

More information is available for download