Systemic Risk - Network For Church Monitoring

Co-operation in a world of scarce resources

Posted by N4CM Population Stress 12 Feb 2012

Source: Al Jazeera. From competition among hunter-gatherers for wild game to imperialist wars over precious minerals, resource wars have been fought throughout history; today, however, the competition appears set to enter a new – and perhaps unprecedented – phase. As natural resources deplete, and as the earth’s climate becomes less stable, the world’s nations will likely compete ever more desperately for access to [...]

Talking to the Enemy: An Alternative Approach to Ending Intractable Conflicts

Posted by N4CM Features 11 Feb 2012

Source: Solutions Online. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union shattered the brief illusion of a stable, bipolar world, most of humanity has been engaged in a massive, media-driven political awakening. Many, especially the young, are searching for respect and meaning, and they are forming their identities in global political cultures through peer-to-peer relationships. One such culture [...]

Climate Change, Migration and Conflict: Addressing Complex Crisis Scenarios in the 21st Century

Posted by N4CM Climate change 19 Jan 2012

Source: ThinkProgress. The costs and consequences of climate change on our world will define the 21st century. Even if nations across our planet were to take immediate steps to rein in carbon emissions—an unlikely prospect—a warmer climate is inevitable. As the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, noted in 2007, human-created “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, [...]

The streets of 2012

Posted by N4CM Features, Freedom of the presss 3 Jan 2012

Source: Al Jazeera. What does the New Year hold for the global wave of protest that erupted in 2011? Did the surge of anger that began in Tunisia crest in lower Manhattan, or is 2012 likely to see an escalation of the politics of dissent? The answers are alarming, but quite predictable: We are likely to see much greater centralisation of top-down suppression – and a rash of laws around the developed and developing world that [...]

Existential Risk

Posted by N4CM Futurism 10 Dec 2011

Source: Lesswrong.com. On September 26, 1983, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov saved the world. Three weeks earlier, Soviet interceptors had shot down a commercial jet, thinking it was on a spy mission. All 269 passengers were killed, including active U.S. senator Lawrence McDonald. President Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in response. It was one of the most intense periods of the Cold War.

To Conservatives, Climate Change is Trojan Horse to Abolish Capitalism

Posted by N4CM Climate change 28 Nov 2011

Source: The Nation. There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland’s Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually “an attack on middle-class American capitalism.” His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, [...]

Global issues in an age of 7 billion

Posted by N4CM Population Stress 31 Oct 2011

Source: mongabay.com. Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about Halloween this year is not the ghouls and goblins taking to the streets, but a baby born somewhere in the world. It’s not the baby’s or the parent’s fault, of course, but this child will become a part of an artificial, but still important, milestone : according to the UN, the Earth’s seventh billionth person will be born today. That’s seven billion people who require, [...]

Faster, Deadlier And Harder To Predict: Professor Ian Goldin On The Future In 2011

Posted by N4CM Features, Futurism 22 Oct 2011

Source: The Huffington Post UK. The future, almost by definition, is a scary and uncertain place – and these days there is no shortage of pundits who are willing to go on television and predict the various ways it may end in financial, political or climactic disaster. But for some academics, pretty much the only thing you can predict about the future is that prediction is going to get more difficult.

Gordon Brown + Avaaz to G20: Green Jobs and Stimulus Now

Posted by N4CM Futurism, Take action 19 Jun 2011

Source: Avaaz. This week, we could turn the tide of the global recession which is threatening progress on everything we care about, including strong action on climate change. It has already plunged 100 million people into poverty and unemployment. Right now, French President Sarkozy, the new chair of the G20 group of the world’s largest economies, is deciding the group’s agenda.

Martin Rees: Are we all doomed?

Posted by N4CM Climate change, Opinion 13 Jun 2011

Source: New Statesman. We have entered an era when human beings pose a greater threat than nature to the earth’s future. This started with the invention of nuclear weapons. Robert McNamara, US defence secretary during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, later said: “We came within a hair’s-breadth of nuclear war without realising it. It’s no credit to us that we escaped [...]