Tuesday, August 5, 2008

[EQ] 2008 State of the Future

2008 State of the Future

 

The future continues to get better for most of the world, but a series of tipping points could drastically alter global prospects…

according to the 12th annual report card on the future.

 

Executive Summary: English, Russian, Spanish

ISBN: 978-0-9818941-0-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 98-646672

Website: http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/sof2008.html

“…..Half the world is vulnerable to social instability and violence due to rising food and energy prices, failing states, falling water tables, climate change, decreasing water-food-energy supply per person, desertification, and increasing migrations due to political, environmental, and economic conditions, says this report published by the Millennium Project, a global participatory futures research think tank affiliated with the World Federation of UN Associations.

However, it notes that "Ours is the first generation with the means for many to know the world as a whole, identify global improvement systems, and seek to improve such systems. We are the first people to act via Internet with like-minded individuals around the world. We have the ability to connect the right ideas to resources and people to help address our global and local challenges."

The report is a "global overview of our technological, environmental, social, economic future prospects, strategies to address them -- what the educated person should know about the world and what to do to improve it," says co-author and Millennium Project Director Jerome C. Glenn.

The report identifies 15 global challenges, ranging from water and energy to organized crime and global ethics. Other chapters include a global collective intelligence for energy, State of the Future Index, global assessment techniques, government future strategy units around the world, and environmental security….”

 

Table of content

The 2008 State of the Future is composed of two parts: print and CD. The print book contains the executive summary of each of the studies conducted in 2007–08. The enclosed CD of about 6,300 pages contains the cumulative work of the Millennium Project since 1996 and details of the studies included in the print section.

Table of Contents – Print Section

Table of Contents – CD

List of Figures and Boxes
 

Table of Contents – Print Section
ForewordAcknowledgments
Executive Summary -
1. Global Challenges
2. State of the Future Index -
3. Real-Time Delphi Technique
4. Government Future Strategy Units and Some Potentials for International Strategic Coordination
5. Global Energy Collective Intelligence
6. Emerging Environmental Security Issues -
Appendix
  Millennium Project Participants Demographics

Table of Contents – CD-ROM Section


Executive Summary (10 pages)

1. Global Challenges (1,100 pages)

2. State of the Future Index Section
2.1 Global SOFI (286 pages)
2.2 National SOFIs (89 pages)
2.3 Global Challenges Assessment (94 pages)

3. Global Scenarios
3.1 Normative Scenario to the Year 2050 (21 pages)
3.2 Exploratory Scenarios (41 pages)
3.3 Very Long-Range Scenarios-1,000 years (23 pages)
3.4 Counterterrorism-Scenarios, Actions, and Policies (40 pages)
3.5 Science and Technology 2025 Global Scenarios (21 pages)
3.6 Global Energy Scenarios 2020 (103 pages)
3.7 Middle East Peace Scenarios (91 pages)

4. Governance-related Studies
4.1 Government Future Strategy Units and Some Potentials for International Strategic Coordination
4.2 Global Goals for the Year 2050 (24 pages)
4.3 World Leaders on Global Challenges (42 pages)

5. Science and Technology
5.1 Future S&T Management and Policy Issues (400 pages)
5.2 Nanotechnology: Future Military Environmental Health Considerations (21 pages)

6. Global Energy Collective Intelligence

7. Education and Learning 2030 (59 pages)

8. Measuring and Promoting Sustainable Development
8.1 Measuring Sustainable Development (61 pages)
8.2 Quality and Sustainability of Life Indicators (9 pages)
8.3 Partnership for Sustainable Development (48 pages)
8.4 A Marshall Plan for Haiti (12 pages)

9. Environmental Security
9.1 Emerging Environmental Security Issues
9.2 Environmental Security: Emerging International Definitions, Perceptions, and Policy Considerations (42 pages)
9.3 Environmental Security: UN Doctrine for Managing Environmental Issues in Military Actions (113 pages)
9.4 Environmental Crimes in Military Actions and the International Criminal Court (ICC)—UN Perspectives (31 pages)
9.5 Environmental Security and Potential Military Requirements (44 pages)

10. Future Ethical Issues (69 pages)

11. Factors Required for Successful Implementation of Futures Research in Decisionmaking (55 pages)

Appendices
Appendix A: Millennium Project Participants
Appendix B: State of the Future Index Section
Appendix C: Global Scenarios
Appendix D: Science and Technology
Appendix E: Global Energy Collective Intelligence
Appendix F: Government Future Strategy Units
Appendix G: Education and Learning 2030
Appendix H: Global Ethics
Appendix I: Global Goals for the Year 2050
Appendix J: World Leaders on Global Challenges
Appendix K: Environmental Security Studies
Appendix L: Measuring and Promoting Sustainable Development
Appendix M: Factors Required for Successful Implementation of Futures Research in Decisionmaking
Appendix N: Real Time Delphi Process
Appendix O: Annotated Bibliography of About 700 Scenario Sets
Appendix P: Other Annotated Bibliographies:
          Ethics Related Organizations
          Global Energy Scenarios and Related Research
          Women/Gender Organizations
Appendix R: Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary of the State of the Future and the Millennium Project
Appendix S: Publications of the Millennium Project

Acronyms and Abbreviations

List of Figures and Boxes

Figures

Figure 1. SOFI 2007 with alternative projections by trend impact analysis
Figure 2. Global surface temperature anomalies (0C)
Figure 3. Global trends of freedom
Figure 4. Regional internet population growth
Figure 5. Share of people living on less than $1 a day (%)
Figure 6. Physicians density (per 10 000 population)
Figure 7. Growth of international organizations (NGOs and IGOs)
Figure 8. Global trends in armed conflict, 1946-2007
Figure 9. Women in national parliaments (percentage)
Figure 10. Global challenges and SOFI process
Figure 11. SOFI 2007 with trend impact analysis
Figure 12. Unemployment with trend impact analysis
Figure 13. Correlation between poverty, unemployment, and population growth (income less than $1 per day) (low- and mid-income countries
Figure 14. SOFI using IFs data in the Millennium Project template
Figure 15. SOFI comparison with IFs data and Millennium Project data
Figure 16. South Korea SOFI using IFs data and Millennium Project data
Figure 17. SOFI of the Republic of South Korea
Figure 18. Screen-shots of the SOFI presentation
Figure 19. Screen-shot of a Real-Time Delphi questionnaire
Figure 20. Demographics of RTD participants since 2006
Figure 21. Possible representation of the global energy elements
Figure 22. Example of a unit of information, with column of choices about the information
Figure 23. Argument-structured information overview of an issue
Figure 24. Recursive linked interface
Figure 25. Politician and staff member, GENIS flow diagram
Figure 26. Energy dash board example for a question during a legislative hearing
Figure 27. Failed States Index 2008
Figure 28. Expenditures and estimated costs of various programs
Figure 29. Ratifications of 12 multilateral environmental agreements, by UNEP GEO regions
Figure 30. Number of parties to multilateral environmental agreements, 1975–2008
Figure 31. Participants in the 2007–08 program
Figure 32. Participants since 1996

Boxes

Box 1. Where is humanity winning and losing
Box 2. SOFI variables
Box 3. SOFI 2007–08 study
Box 4. Systemic SOFI and 2008 SOFI
Box 5. SOFI variables for the Republic of South Korea
Box 6. Some accords and regulations related to environmental security recently adopted, strengthened, in negotiation, or proposed

 

What Is New in This Year’s Report

·         Both the short and long versions of the 15 Global Challenges were updated.

·         Climate change has received increased emphasis in Challenge 1 on Sustainable Development.

·         The State of the Future Index was improved for enhancing its capabilities to identify promising policies and actions, and it is being used to assess the use of the International Futures econometric model for automatically computing global and national SOFIs.

·         SOFIs were computed for the Republic of South Korea and for South Africa.

·         The Real-Time Delphi technique was further developed for increasing its analytical capabilities, and a user-friendly interface was developed for the questionnaires' easy set-up. The new features were successfully tested in studies for assessing SOFI variables and for collecting expert views for studies conducted by other organizations (e.g., UNESCO, WFUNA, and the World Bank).

·         The Government Future Strategies Units chapter presents brief overviews of 10 government units with suggestions for upgrading their capabilities and international coordination. Chapter 4 in the CD has the overviews of over 30 countries' future strategy systems.

·         The Global Energy Collective Intelligence chapter provides basic concepts and software options for a collective intelligence system to support political decisionmaking, research, and public understanding. The concepts and software can be adapted for other areas such as climate change, water, and the other challenges described in Chapter 1.

·         More than 200 items related to environmental security were identified, assessed, and organized over the past year. A distilled version is presented in Chapter 6 and the full text of over 1,100 items identified since 2002 is available in CD Chapter 9.1.

·         The CD includes details and research that support the print version; it also includes the complete text of previous Millennium Project research:
• Global exploratory, normative, and very-long range scenarios, along with an introduction describing their development.
• Three Middle East Peace scenarios based on a three-round Delphi study.
• Science and Technology scenarios and the two-year supporting study.
• Four Global Energy Scenarios and supporting study.
• An analysis of the statements by world leaders delivered at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
• Environmental security definitions, threats, related treaties; UN military doctrine on environmental issues; potential military environmental crimes and the International Criminal Court; changing environmental security military requirements in 2010–25.
• Two studies to create indexes and maps of the status of sustainable development, and an international review of the concept of creating a "Partnership for Sustainable Development."
• Study of factors required for successful implementation of futures research in decisionmaking.
• An Annotated Scenarios Bibliography of over 700 scenarios or scenario sets.

 

The Press Release is available in PDF at:  http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/2008SOF%20Press%20Release.pdf

and plain text at:  http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/press.html#sof2008 

 

----

 

We've seen the future ... and we may not be doomed

UN report finds life is getting better for people worldwide – but that governments are failing to grasp the opportunities offered at 'a unique time'.
 Geoffrey Lean and Jonathan Owen report, 13 July 2008

The Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/weve-seen-the-future--and-we-may-unotu-be-doomed-866486.html

 

Humanity stands on the threshold of a peaceful and prosperous future, with an unprecedented ability to extend lifespans and increase the power of ordinary people – but is likely to blow it through inequality, violence and environmental degradation. And governments are not equipped to ensure that the opportunities are seized and disasters averted.

 

 

 

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This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
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[EQ] "It's The Skin You're In": African-American Women Talk About Their Experiences of Racism

"It's The Skin You're In": African-American Women Talk About Their Experiences of Racism.
An Exploratory Study to Develop Measures of Racism for Birth Outcome Studies.


Nuru-Jeter A, Dominguez TP, Hammond WP, Leu J, Skaff M, Egerter S, Jones CP, Braveman P. Amani Nuru-Jeter1 , Tyan Parker Dominguez2 , Wizdom Powell Hammond3 , Janxin Leu4 , Marilyn Skaff5 , Susan Egerter6 , Camara P. Jones7  and Paula Braveman6

 

(1)  Divisions of Community Health and Human Development; and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, CA, USA

(2)  School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

(3)  School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

(4)  Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle,  USA

(5)  Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco,  San Francisco, CA, USA

(6)  Department of Family and Community Medicine and Center on Social Disparities in Health, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

(7)  Social Determinants of Health, Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion,
       Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, , Atlanta, GA, USA

Matern Child Health J. 2008 May 8: http://www.springerlink.com/content/v14717828v36j4k4/?p=aff31069203a428697e14568d6eee8b9&pi=0

Objectives Stress due to experiences of racism could contribute to African-American women's adverse birth outcomes, but systematic efforts to measure relevant experiences among childbearing women have been limited. We explored the racism experiences of childbearing African-American women to inform subsequent development of improved measures for birth outcomes research. Methods Six focus groups were conducted with a total of 40 socioeconomically diverse African-American women of childbearing age in four northern California cities.

Results Women reported experiencing racism
(1) throughout the lifecourse, with childhood experiences seeming particularly salient and to have especially enduring effects
(2) directly and vicariously, particularly in relation to their children;
(3) in interpersonal, institutional, and internalized forms;
(4) across different life domains;
(5) with active and passive responses; and
(6) with pervasive vigilance, anticipating threats to themselves and their children.

Conclusions This exploratory study's findings support the need for measures reflecting the complexity of childbearing African-American women's racism experiences. In addition to discrete, interpersonal experiences across multiple domains and active/passive responses, which have been measured, birth outcomes research should also measure women's childhood experiences and their potentially enduring impact, perceptions of institutionalized racism and internalized negative stereotypes, vicarious experiences related to their children, vigilance in anticipating future racism events, as well as the pervasiveness and chronicity of racism exposure, all of which could be sources of ongoing stress with potentially serious implications for birth outcomes. Measures of racism addressing these issues should be developed and formally tested.

Amani Nuru-Jeter, Ph.D., M.P.H. Assistant Professor - UC Berkeley School of Public Health
287 University Hall (office)
50 University Hall (mail) Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 - Fax: 510-643-6426 - anjeter@berkeley.edu

 

 

 

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This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  
[Knowledge Management and Communications  DD/KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.

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    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.  

[EQ] A methodological note on modeling the effects of race: the case of psychological distress

A methodological note on modeling the effects of race: the case of psychological distress

 

Amani Nuru-Jeter,1,*,† Chyvette T. Williams2 and Thomas A. LaVeist3

1 School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

2 School of Public Health, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA

3 Center for Health Disparities Solutions; Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

 

Stress and Health (2008) - Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/smi.1215 - May 2008

 

Website: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120841385/abstract

 

"……Psychological distress is an important indicator of the mental well-being of the population. Findings regarding racial differences in distress are inconclusive but may represent an important pathway through which disparities exist across a number of physical health outcomes. We used data from the 1994 Minority Health Survey, a nationally representative multiracial/ethnic sample of adults in US households, to examine racial/ethnic differences in psychological distress (n n 3623). Our primary study aim was to examine differences between additive and multiplicative models in assessing the infl uence of income and gender on the race/distress relationship.

 

We hypothesized that additive models do not sufficiently account for potential interactions of race with income and gender, and may therefore mask important differences in distress between racial groups. The results suggest that our hypotheses were supported. After adjusting for income, there were no statistically signifi cant differences in distress levels between racial groups. However, significant differences emerge when multiplicative models are used demonstrating the complexities of the intersection of race, income and gender in predicting psychological distress. Black men and women of higher income status represent a particularly vulnerable group, whereas Hispanic men are especially hardy. We discuss the implications of our findings for future work on racial health disparities…."

 

*      *      *     *

This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  
[Knowledge Management and Communications  DD/KMC Area]

"Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members".

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    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.