Robert Musil, author of Hope for a Heated Planetand Senior Fellow at American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, joined the Council Tuesday night to present strategies for combating climate change. Musil said he prefers to be an optimistic environmentalist, rather than emphasize “gloom and doom” like so much of what’s found in today’s media. He acknowledged many problems that the world is facing, such as the spread of malaria and the rise of sea-levels, but spent the majority of his time focusing on positive solutions, like the increasing global investment in alternative energy and the changes the Obama administration is making in environmental policy. Musil also discussed the current Boxer-Kerry “cap and trade” bill that is making its way through the Senate and he encouraged the audience to write Senator Boxer to ask her to keep plans for new nuclear plants out of the bill. However, of all the solutions Musil has for fighting climate change, his biggest is getting the general public involved. He cited numerous groups all across the political spectrum that are doing good things for the environment and said the only way we can slow global warming is to become involved ourselves.
2009 has been an amazing year at the World Affairs Council. Here’s a collection of highlights from just a few of our engaging speakers, including Nicholas Kristof, Michael Pollan, and Madeleine Albright.
Next Monday the Council will be joined by Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute and renowned environmentalist. He will be speaking about two pressing issues: climate change and global food insecurity.
Last week, the New York Times‘ Room for Debate blog featured the opinions of six experts about biotech food and its potential to cure world hunger. Before coming to our program with Brown, read what they had to say about ending hunger here.
Acknowledging the diverse feelings Americans have about the United Nations, Dr. Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, spoke to a large audience about the many ways the UN and the United States interact. Brimmer used examples relevant to California, such as aviation and shipping, intellectual property rights, and communications, to illustrate the support given to the UN by the US and the protection and oversight of US interests by various UN agencies. Brimmer also discussed President Obama’s call for an “Era of Engagement,” which is already bringing about changes in nuclear nonproliferation policy, climate change negotiations, and food security initiatives. While responding to audience questions, Brimmer devoted time to explaining the Obama administration’s decision to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council as well as the continued concerns about HRC members’ compliance with the organization’s mission. Brimmer was optimistic throughout the program and ended by expressing her joy at seeing the Islamic world’s positive reception of Obama’s June speech in Cairo.
To listen to the entire program, please visit our audio archive. Learn more about the United States’ involvement with the UNHRC here. Finally, you can watch a clip of the program below.
Washington Post Associate Editor and Chief Foreign Correspondent Jim Hoagland joined the North American Forum again this year as a participant. One of his most recent columns draws from this year’s discussions at the Forum in Ottawa and advises President Obama to work with Canada and Mexico to form a “more perfect economic union to deal with a lingering international financial crisis that drains the U.S. dollar of value and credibility and that fuels rising unemployment.”
October has been a busy month at the Council. We’ve had programs about issues ranging from the resource curse of oil to the ways game theory can be applied to national security challenges. There was one region, the Middle East, which was given particular attention as we strove to provide the community with multiple perspectives of the region, its people, and the challenges they face.
On October 15, we welcomed Ambassador Hossam Zaki, Senior Political Advisor to Egypt’s Foreign Minister. He spoke about the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as Egypt’s work to aid peace and stability in the Palestinian territories. Dalia Mogahed, Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, joined us on October 21 to discuss the results and findings of Gallup’s recent survey of 50,000 Muslims from more than 35 countries.
Then, on October 22, we hosted a conversation between the former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert and Council CEO Jane Wales. Olmert responded to questions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza, but particularly focused on the peace proposal he made to the Palestinians in September 2008. We concluded our Middle East perspectives series on October 27 with a program featuring Ambassador Maen Areikat, PLO Representative to the United States. Areikat discussed the ongoing hardships that Palestinians endure under occupation as well as how the Palestinians must heal internal divisions between Hamas and Fatah in order to secure a Palestinian state.
If you missed a program, check our online archive. To learn more about Gallup’s survey of Muslims, go to MuslimWestFacts.com. You can also read an editorial by Maen Areikat from the SF Chronicle here.
“Game theory is a transparent form of logic that, with data, can predict the future,” according to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, the Council’s speaker on October 26 and author of the recent book The Predictioneer’s Game. Bueno de Mesquita said his models, which have a 90 percent accuracy rate, require four basic pieces of information to make a prediction about a given group or person’s likely actions: What does it say it wants? How important is that issue? How resolved is it in its opinion? How much clout does it bring to the table?
Responding to an audience member’s question, Bueno de Mesquita spoke about the ways policies can be shaped by a prediction as well as the ways the model itself can use different variables to simulate more positive outcomes. While his computer model may not be 100 percent accurate, Bueno de Mesquita was quick to point out that it performs much better than a team of analysts because of its greatly increased capacity to crunch a large set of numbers.
You can hear the full program at our online archive. If you would like to try Bueno de Mesquita’s model, you can use a trial version on his website at www.PredictioneersGame.com. To learn more about Bueno de Mesquita’s predictions, including those about the upcoming Copenhagen summit, check out his article in the current issue of Foreign Policy. Remember that becoming a member of the Council entitles you to a free subscription to Foreign Policy magazine.
Next Wednesday, October 28, the Council will be joined by Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari. In 2007, Esfandiari was imprisoned in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison because the Iranian government believed her to be a part of an American conspiracy for “regime change” in Iran. Her arrest sparked international outrage and protests from the likes of Barack Obama and Madeleine Albright. She will present her story and a view of Iran today and how it came to be.
This week Iran sentenced a friend of Esfandiari’s, Iranian-American academic Kian Tajbakhsh, to a 12-year prison term on account of his alleged involvement in the summer’s election demonstrations. Esfandiari spoke on NPR’s All Things Considered program this week about the case. You can listen to the interview or read the transcript here.
Speaking to a capacity crowd at the Fairmont Hotel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof said, “We’ve all won the lottery of birth, and with that comes some real responsibility.” Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, are the authors of a new book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide. He joined the Council and the International Museum of Women last Wednesday for a discussion with Council CEO Jane Wales. The book project began as a way for the authors to look through the “prism of gender” at issues that are rarely reported by the international media. As they traveled and met with women in many countries, they learned that there are 60-100 million “missing girls” across the globe, girls who have died as a result of gender discrimination. Kristof spoke on numerous topics, including methods of ending coerced prostitution, the need for more foreign aid to be directed at local grassroots efforts, and the economic advantages associated with educating and employing women and girls. He noted the Western tendency to condemn low wage labor, but remarked that “the only thing worse than being exploited in a sweatshop is not being exploited in a sweatshop,” as girls whose jobs are taken away often end up in prostitution to replace their lost income. Kristof ended the program by discussing the decision to take his three teenage children to Southeast Asia and show them the brothels he had visited while writing the book. He said that he and his wife feel strongly that “the way you come to think about the world is when you…see these things and they make an impact on you” and that it is important, as parents, to try to teach their children “empathy, compassion, a notion of involvement, a sense that they can make a difference, [and] the joys of social entrepreneurship.”
To listen to the entire program with Nicholas Kristof, visit our audio archive here.
Zachary Karabell, noted author and economic trend analyst, will be joining the Council on October 21 to discuss the economic relationship between China and the United States and the speed at which it is changing. This week Karabell wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Deficits and the Chinese Challenge,” which uses the post-war British experience to warn of the challenges faced by a superpower in debt.
In the first of two programs this month about oil, Peter Maass spoke last Thursday about his latest book, Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil. The book took him around the world as he searched for the stories most never hear: the heavily polluted waterways from the Amazon to the Niger Delta; the impoverished villages mere feet from high-tech refineries; and the dictators, such as Equatorial Guinea’s president Teodoro Obiang, who have remained solidly in power because of foreign dependence on their oil. The talk was attended by a number of high school students, many of whom had met with Maass beforehand as part of the Council’s Schools Program, and a number of them inquired of Maass about the best gas to buy, asking if there are any “blood-free” companies. There are, Maass noted, but he added that all oil has problems, mostly environmental, even if it comes from politically-stable countries like Canada or Norway. Maass ended on an optimistic note, citing transparency as the key to changing the way the world treats oil. The more open governments are about their policies and practices, the better choices consumers can make.
Tomorrow evening the Council will host Rayola Dougher, Senior Economic Advisor at the American Petroleum Institute. Dougher will speak to the benefits of further developing the United States’ petroleum resources.
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