Asia and the Great Convergence

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:28:00 -0600

The complex interaction of trade, capital, information, and technology is leading to an unprecedented level of human interconnectedness. This highly networked global society means record numbers of the world's population are moving into the middle class, especially in Asia. However, as illustrated by the global financial crisis, interconnectedness carries risks of contagion as well. Kishore Mahbubani argues that new policies and approaches to governance are needed to solve pervasive problems such as financial volatility and health and climate issues. How does Asia, which accounts for over 60 percent of the world’s population and a significant portion of the emerging global middle class, fit into this era of convergence?

Kishore Mahbubani is the dean and professor in the practice of public policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. From 1971 to 2004 he served in the Singapore Foreign Ministry, where he was permanent secretary from 1993 to 1998, served twice as Singapore’s ambassador to the UN, and in January 2001 and May 2002 served as president of the UN Security Council. Mahbubani is the author of Can Asians Think?, Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World, and The New Asian Hemisphere: the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines have listed him as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world, and in 2009 the Financial Times included him on their list of the top 50 individuals who would shape the debate on the future of capitalism.

His most recent book is, The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World.

Recorded live Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at The Chicago Club.

Al Gore's crystal ball

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 09:00:00 -0600

Video streaming by Ustream

Al Gore has been thinking. Since the former Vice President’s fateful 2000 presidential bid, he has tried writing, documentary filmmaking, broadcast journalism, and venture capital — among other things — largely to keep one message in the national conversation: climate change is a serious and immediate threat to society.

That campaign has made his name an epithet in some conservative circles, while many typically left-leaning climate activists view him as somewhat of an icon. Gore has apparently grown accustomed to his assumed role as cultural touchstone, bestowing his new book, which he discussed at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Friday, with the sagely title The Future.

Six factors will drive change in the years to come, Gore said, and the ability of society to cope with them will determine its fate.

Gore considered many topics — he jumped from cataloguing advances in life sciences (goats that produce spider silk) to globalization and the mania of modern high-speed trading — but he ultimately deferred to the democratizing power of the internet to inspire individual action and organization.

“Short-termism,” he said, has come to dominate political planning, while a two-dimensional view of economic growth has served as “a mental shortcut” preventing the emergence of a sustainable way forward.

“We’re going to see growth that wrecks our supply of freshwater and topsoil,” he said, “that destroys the web of living species with which we share this land and on which we depend.” He likened current inaction on climate change to 19^th century city-dwellers tracing the cause of cholera to contaminated drinking water, yet refusing to cap or abandon the poisonous well.

Gore levied much of the blame on a political system corrupted by economic disparity and unequal political access.

He said growing up he knew the battle for civil rights had been won when he heard people standing up against off-hand racist remarks. He placed his faith for the future in the power of such “individual conservations,” touting the disruptive power of the internet, where he said ideas trump clout.

“New reform movements are thriving on the internet, leading to dramatic change,” Gore said. “I know we can win conversations about the future.”

WBEZ | climate

Asia and the Great Convergence

Al Gore's crystal ball