Fred Guterl discusses the nature of today's human safety and sustainable world security. Security today cannot come at the expense of security tomorrow. Long-term planning is needed to "win the future," and the earth will be a beneficiary of any effective comprehensive security program. Without the food, water and energy resources that fuel human society, traditional defense is meaningless. Sustainability is a core part of the security picture."
Bio
Sylvia Earle
Sylvia Alice Earle is an American oceanographer. She was chief scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 1990-1992. She is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, sometimes called "Her Deepness" or "The Sturgeon General".
Earle received a B.S. degree from Florida State University (1955), M.S. (1956) and PhD. from Duke University (1966). She was Curator of Phycology at the California Academy of Sciences (1979-1986) and a Research Associate at the University of California, Berkeley (1969-1981), Radcliff Institute Scholar (1967-1969) and Research Fellow or Associate at Harvard University (1967-1981). She led the first team of women aquanauts during the Tektite Project in 1970.
Earle has led more than 60 expeditions worldwide involving in excess of 7000 hours underwater in connection with her research. From 1998 to 2002 she led the Sustainable Seas Expeditions, a five year program to study the United States National Marine Sanctuary sponsored by the National Geographic Society and funded by the Goldman Foundation. An expert on the impact of oil spills, she was called upon to lead several research trips during the Gulf War and following the spills of the ships, Exxon Valdez and Mega Borg.
She is the author of more than 125 publications concerning marine science and technology including the books Exploring the Deep Frontier, Sea Change (1995), Wild Ocean: America's Parks Under the Sea (1999) and The Atlas of the Ocean (2001), she has participated in numerous television productions and given scientific, technical, and general interest lectures in more than 60 countries.
Fred Guterl
Fred Guterl is the executive editor of Scientific American. Previously, Guterl was the deputy editor of Newsweek, where he wrote and edited a wide range of stories for both print and digital media. He was Newsweek International’s first science and technology editor, writing and editing dozens of cover packages and special issues on climate change, global health, energy, biotechnology and other subjects. His writing and editing have contributed to numerous awards and nominations from the American Society of Magazine Editors. His article “Riddles in the Sand,” in Discover, was named best magazine article in 1998 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and his Newsweek article “The Wasteland,” on Russia’s plan to accept the world’s nuclear waste, was honored by the Overseas Press Club for environmental writing. He has been a guest on CNN, MSNBC, Charlie Rose, The Today Show and other television venues. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Rochester and has taught science writing at Princeton University.
Martin Lees
Martin Lees graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Cambridge University in 1964 and has a Diploma in European Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges. After some years in industry, he joined OECD to manage programs on Cooperation in Science and Technology and on Innovation in the Procedures and Structures of Government. In 1972, he was responsible at OECD for the design and launching of the "Futures Project" on the Future of the Advanced Industrial Societies in Harmony with that of the Developing Countries. He then served at the United Nations as Executive Director of the Financing System for Science and Technology for Development and in 1982 was appointed Assistant Secretary General. During this period he was responsible for the establishment of the InterAction Council of former Heads of State and Government. Since 1983, he has managed several high level advisory programs for the leadership of China, including "China and the World in the Nineties"from 1988 to 1998 and the establishment in 1991 of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED). From 1991-1996 he managed programs of cooperation with the Newly Independent States of the Former Soviet Union and from 1995 to 2008 he was Moderator of the International Advisory Board of the Toyota Motor Corporation. From 2001 to 2005 he was Rector of the University for Peace of the United Nations in Costa Rica, guiding its revitalization and launching Masters programs on issues of peace, security and sustainable development. From 2008 to 2010 he was Secretary General of the Club of Rome. He speaks and lectures in many parts of the world and is now engaged in international projects on climate change, sustainable development, international relations and peace and security.
Wolfgang Lutz
Wolfgang Lutz is Founding Director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (a new collaboration between IIASA, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the WU-Vienna University of Economics and Business). He joined IIASA in October 1985 where he is leader of the World Population Program. Since 2002 he is also director of the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and since 2008 Full Professor of Applied Statistics (part time) at the WU. He is also Professorial Research Fellow at the Oxford Martin School for 21st Century Studies.
Professor Lutz studied philosophy, theology, mathematics and statistics at the Universities of Munich, Vienna and Helsinki and holds a Ph.D. in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania (1983) and a second doctorate (Habilitation) in Statistics from the University of Vienna.
He has worked on family demography, fertility analysis, population projection, and the interaction between population and environment. He has been conducting a series of in-depth studies on population-development-environment interactions in Mexico, several African countries, and Asia. He is the author of the series of world population projections produced at IIASA and has developed approaches for projecting education and human capital. He is also principal investigator of the Asian MetaCentre for Population and Sustainable Development Analysis. Lutz is author and editor of 28 books and more than 200 refereed articles, including seven in "Science" and "Nature". In 2008 he received an ERC Advanced Grant, in 2009 the Mattei Dogan Award of the IUSSP and in 2010 the Wittgenstein Prize, the highest Austrian science award.
George Polk
George Polk has been applying his skills as an institution builder, investor, and philanthropist to the challenge of creating a viable and vibrant low carbon society since 2007, when he stepped out of a successful career as a technology entrepreneur to focus on tackling climate change. George's first work on climate was philanthropic. He founded and was Chairman of the European Climate Foundation (the largest funder of initiatives to change European policy on climate), was a Senior Advisor to the ClimateWorks Foundation (globally the largest philanthropic funder of work on climate), and founded Project Catalyst (the most significant effort to jumpstart low carbon growth plans for countries). George also worked with Richard Branson and his team to help found the Carbon War Room (where he is a Director), and with a number of other very high net worth individuals to design and implement major philanthropic strategies related to climate. In 2008, George began to focus on how to deploy more capital into the low carbon economy. He first acted as Senior Advisor on Climate Change to McKinsey, where he advised policy makers on how to create economically credible climate policy and with the Cleantech practice advising technology businesses on how to grow their businesses more rapidly. In 2009 and 2010, George worked closely with George Soros to plan the allocation of $1 billion to climate related private equity investments and served as the Soros representative on the board of the Powerspan Corporation, a carbon capture technology company which was one of Soros' personal investments. In late 2010, started working with a wider range of high net worth families and in 2011, George founded the Tulum Trust, which invests on behalf of family offices tin deals wich deliver high returns while building the new low carbon economy, with a principal focus on industrial energy efficiency projects and businesses. Crowley Carbon and Recycled Energy Development are the first two portfolio companies under this umbrella.
George Polk, founder and CEO of The Catalyst Project, discusses two paths people are pursuing to mitigate the impact of climate change. He explains that many people have given up on saving the planet, and are instead attempting to advance technology to the point where we won’t need the planet at all.
