Global Threats Global Futures

A work of political economy from the perspective of an anthropologist who has made a career of studying poverty and displaced people, Global Threats, Global Futures will prove rewarding reading for anyone concerned with issues of economic development, environmental and cultural degradation, and the causes and solutions of poverty. Most of all, Thayer Scudder illuminates a path, not only possible but plausible, through a destructive maze of humankind s own making if only the political will can be found to tread it. Engineering & Science Thayer Scudder is one of those gifted authors who have the experience and the vision to span multiple sectors and far flung sites in assessing where humankind and its habitat are heading. His restless curiosity in everything around him has led him to become not simply the world s leading authority on the impacts on the lives of people resettled by dam-building projects but an innovative thinker about development anthropology and the threats to the globe from poverty, fundamentalism in all its pernicious forms and environmental degradation. This iconoclastic book assails sacred cows ranging from the World Bank to the malign role of Buddhist priests in the late civil war in Sri Lanka. The work is not reassuring. But its conclusion that humans can learn to live with declining living standards is more uplifting than doom-laden. David McDowell, Former Director General of the IUCN and New Zealand Ambassador to the United Nations Neither Pollyanna nor Prophet of Doom, Professor Scudder has drawn on his 55 years of international experience and presented a clear, hard hitting, extraordinarily well documented analysis of the critical and urgent global challenges that face humankind and of the transformations that will be required to meet those challenges. This is a very important book. It should be read by an informed public, but most particularly by leaders and policy makers of the world s governments, international organizations, educational and religious institutions. Lee Talbot, George Mason University, US This is an extraordinary, bold, and exceptionally well thought out prospectus on the next century of the human condition. Declining living standards, consequential to the pervasive pursuit of growth in terms of Gross Domestic Product, is a central theme that is thoroughly documented and engagingly articulated. The decisive role in the decline of living standards played by global threats including poverty, fundamentalism, environmental degradation, wars, and excess consumption, is compellingly presented from the perspective of the author s unique career. Burton Singer, Princeton University, US This impressive study of the progressive impoverishment of the world s resources speaks with the authority of Thayer Scudder s fifty years of experience with international programs for technological development, especially those that involve river basin development and resulting population displacement and resettlement. Case studies from different continents provide the evidence for the likelihood that the majority in future generations will lead more meager lives than their twentieth century ancestors. He points to what has gone wrong in our approach to the world and its resources and to the measures necessary to offset the damage already caused. If only citizens have the political will to adopt them. Elizabeth Colson, University of California, Berkeley, US This is an important book. It has to be listened to, and for two reasons. The first is the expertise of the author: the guy has been there: this is an anthropologist who is constantly in the field. And he possesses a wide range of skills: part ethnographer, part biologist, as much a humanist as a scientist. The combination of experience and expertise is as powerful as it is unusual. Sadly, a second force in favor of this book is the temper of the times. The giddiness of the last century has been driven underground by the perils of this. Ro

Global Governance Futures addresses the crucial importance of thinking through the future of global governance arrangements. It considers the prospects for the governance of world order approaching the middle of the twenty-first century by exploring today’s most pressing and enduring health, social, ecological, economic, and political challenges. Each of the expert contributors considers the drivers of continuity and change within systems of governance and how actors, agents, mechanisms, and resources are and could be mobilized. The aim is not merely to understand state, intergovernmental, and non-state actors. It is also to draw attention to those underappreciated aspects of global governance that push understanding beyond strictures of traditional conceptualizations and offer better insights into the future of world order. The book’s three parts enable readers to appreciate better the sum of forces likely to shape world order in the near and not-so-near future: “Planetary” encompasses changes wrought by continuing human domination of the earth; war; current and future geopolitical, civilizational, and regional contestations; and life in and between urban and non-urban environments. “Divides” includes threats to human rights gains; the plight of migrants; those who have and those who do not; persistent racial, gender, religious, and sexualorientation-based discrimination; and those who govern and those who are governed. “Challenges” involves food and health insecurities; ongoing environmental degradation and species loss; the current and future politics of international assistance and data; and the wrong turns taken in the control of illicit drugs and crime. Designed to engage advanced undergraduate and graduate students in international relations, organization, law, and political economy as well as a general audience, this book invites readers to adopt both a backward- and forward-looking view of global governance. It will spark discussion and debate as to how dystopic futures might be avoided and change agents mobilized.

This innovative volume gathers some of the world’s best scholars to analyse the world’s collective international efforts to address globalised threats through global security governance. Addressing global and planetary forms of insecurity that include nuclear weapons, conventional arms, gender violence, climate change, disease, bio weapons, cyber-conflict, children in conflict, crimes against humanity, and refugees, this timely book critiques how they are addressed by global institutions and regimes, and advocates important conceptual, institutional, and policy reforms. This is an invaluable resource for students, scholars and policymakers in international health, security and development.

Artificial Intelligence and Global Security: Future Trends, Threats and Considerations brings a much-needed perspective on the impact of the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in military affairs. Experts forecast that AI will shape future military operations in ways that will revolutionize warfare.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

The 2013-14 State of the Future is the most compelling overview of humanity's situation, potentials for the future, and what we should do today - in clear, precise, and readable text with unparalleled breadth and depth. It is the 17th annual report card on the future of the world produced by The Millennium Project, an accumulated intelligence from over 4,500 thought leaders selected by its 50 Nodes around the world. It covers the global landscape with a short overviews with regional considerations of 15 global challenges such as energy, food, water, science & technology, ethics, economics, health, education, organized crime, decisionmaking and foresight, gender relations, demographics, war & peace, and others. Together with the executive summary, they are ideal for busy executives, thought leaders, corporate strategic planners, public policy experts, policy advisers, non-profit issues organizations, teachers and professors of world issues, and anyone interested in a global overview of our prospects for the future – with discussions of problems and potential solutions.

This work looks beyond the problems of accelerating globalization to examine how humanity can shape it. The contributors suggest a variety of perspectives, changes, policies and institutional reforms to strive for in our increasingly inter-connected world.