Saturday September 06, 2003 at 12:30 AM
High Noon: 20 global issues, 20 years to solve them
Appearing in The Environment
In his book, High Noon: 20 global issues, 20 years to solve them, J.F. Rischard outlines the planet’s most pressing problems and why current governmental structures are incapable of solving them. In addition to describing the limitations of traditional nation-states and hierarchical governments, Rischards also borrows ideas from the Open-Source movement to suggest the idea of networked governance as a method for addressing the issues with the requisite speed and effectiveness.
Of particular interest is his suggestion that “reputational effects” can be used to coerce traditional governments and even whole societies into compliance with agreed upon conventions. At the heart of this argument is the notion that most people are fundamentally anxious about the precarious state of the world and would therefore be willing to make the necessary lifestyle adaptations if only there was an negotiated set of rules and guidelines.
Rischard’s divides the issues into three sub-groups and briefly describes each one. His list includes:
Sharing our planet
- Global warming
- Biodiversity and ecosystem loss
- Fisheries depletion
- Deforestation
- Water deficits
- Maritime safety and pollution
Sharing our humanity
- Massive step-up in the fight against poverty
- Peacekeeping, conflict prevention, combating terrorism
- Education for all
- Global infectious diseases
- Digital divide
- Natural disaster prevention and mitigation
Sharing our rule book
- Reinventing taxation
- Biotechnology rules
- Global financial architecture
- Illegal drugs
- Trade, investment, and competition rules
- Intellectual property rights
- E-commerce rules
- International labor and migration rules
Needless to say, it’s an overwhelming list. What is most disturbing and frustrating however, is that none of these issues are consistently acted upon by our governments or widely debated upon by the citizenry.
These are the critical issues of our time. How we deal with them will severely impact the future of all life on this planet and yet, they are largely ignored by our leaders and disregarded by the populace.
