<<April 1, 2008>>
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Jeffrey D. Sachs
<sachs@columbia.edu>
Grete K. Hovelsrud, PhD
<g.k.hovelsrud@cicero.uio.no>
Professor Seth G.
Neugroschl <SN23@columbia.edu>
Dr. Jim Hays <jimhays@ldeo.columbia.edu>
Andrew Morton <andrew.morton@unep.ch>
Reference:
(a) ÒState
of the Planet 08: Real People, Real Places, Real SolutionsÓ
March 27 and 28, 2008, Columbia University
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sop2008/?id=agenda
(b) Economic ideas: ÒSachs appeal,Ó March 27, 2008
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10917990
(c) OBITUARY, Arthur
C. Clarke, The
relentless star-gazer who kept his feet on the ground
Mar 27th 2008,
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10918055
Dear Prof. Sachs:
(1) My wholehearted congratulations to the tremendous success of your wonderful
conference mentioned above.
I thoroughly enjoyed attending it.
(2) I think that all panelists and attendees confirmed what Hans Blix said;
(3) Alleviating global warming and attaining global peace are most urgent and
complex problems of our time. However, I regretted not having heard any
mechanism to cope with ever more getting fierce crash/conflict of interest on
various global matters.
Although both cannot be solved over-night, we must have appropriate mechanism
to understand their causes and prepare our youngsters to cope with them.
By the nature of the issues, it is imperative to have long range visions
and holistic strategies — particularly on preparation of youngsters (or
the so-called would-be decision-makers) who have to face with those conflicts
of interests in the years to come.
(4) You may be interested in reading through the following paper (about 8 pages
with several diagrams), which describes our endeavor along this line for the
past 35 years or so;
Synopsis
of Globally Collaborative Environmental Peace Gaming (GCEPG)
<http://tinyurl.com/3cver8>
This approach may respond to your appeal — Reference (b) above. My
wholehearted congratulations to this wonderful book.
Dear
E-Colleagues:
BTW, you may be interested in reading the obituary for Arthur C. Clarke in
Reference (c) above, who was the two year senior of the same award I received,
ÒLaureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance EducationÓ — as
mentioned in Section 3.1 of the above paper.
I would be very happy to come up to your office to describe how our GCEPG
project could be of some help to your activities, particularly in relation with
your desire of conducting world-wide videoconferencing which you mentioned
during your closing remark. We have done many ÒGlobal Lecture Hall (GLH)Ó
multipoint-to-multipoint, multimedia interactive videoconferencing with hybrid
technologies as spanning around the globe, as mentioned in Section 3.1 of the
above paper. We received many WOWs and appraisals, and then encountered
with ÒWhatÕs next?,Ó and ÒCan you do it regularly?Ó Our GCEPG is the
direction to meet with these expectations for globally collaborative,
distributed hands-on experiential learning.
As said in Section 2.2 of this paper, the following is the variation of and the
initiation of the GCEPG project;
Global
Socio-Economic-Energy-Environment Development (GSEEED) Project:
<http://tinyurl.com/337nrn>
You can find in the ANNEX I of this web site, many prominent scholars of
socio-economic simulation models around the world.
(5) As responding to your closing remarks, you may consider to set up a Center
for Conflict Resolution with the GCEPG project at your Earth Institute.
BTW, we have a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with Polytechnic University in
Brooklyn, NY, for this project, which will become the Polytechnic Institute of
the New York University when its merger negotiation will be consummated in this
coming summer.
We also have a MOU with the University of Tampere in Finland for our Global
University System (GUS) project.
Both MOU can be viewed at <http://tinyurl.com/yr7qbk>.
Our Russian colleague is now preparing to hold our first workshop of this
GSEEED project in Novosibirsk, Siberia, the Intellectual Capital of Russia
— hopefully in this coming fall.
I look forward to receiving your response soon.
Dear Dr. Hovelsrud:
(6) It was my great pleasure to have met with you at the conference. I
was delighted to hear of your mentioning the Law of Sea.
According to Late Mr. Don Straus, former President of American Association of
Arbitration (AAA), scientists of Massachusetts Institute of Technology helped
the revision of the law in 1970s to 80s. They brought a small Macintosh
computer (*) with gaming/simulation model constructed with System Dynamics
methodology to the United Nations delegates from small island nations, and
showed them the results of executions of the models with Òwhat ifÓ scenarios.
(*)
There was no commercial Internet at that time.
I think that this is the best example of applying scientific methodology with
Òfacts and figuresÓ to the construction of such a law.
After
our peace gaming demonstration mentioned in Section 3.2 of the paper mentioned
in Item (4) above, Mr. Straus introduce me to the Columbia University monthly
seminar on ÒComputer, Man and SocietyÓ which is co-chaired by Professor Seth G.
Neugroschl and Prof. Jim Hays (retired) of the Earth Institute. Since
then, I have been its associate member for over two decades. Prof.
Neugroschl recently received a distinguished Tannenbaum-Warner award. The
first recipient of this annual Award, in 1992, was
William Vickrey, a Nobel Laureate in Economics and a Member
of our Seminar.
(7) Why did they help revising the Law of Sea? I was very fascinated to
watch a documentary TV broadcasting a few years back.
There was an implosion of the most advanced Soviet nuclear submarine out of
Newfoundland, which should have a secret code. CIAÕs planned to salvage the
code in the submarine, but afraid it might cause a nuclear war with Soviet.
CIA then fabricated a story about the collision of a planet to Mar some
million years ago, which let manganese nodule fly out to Hawaiian Sea, which
precious metal was vital necessity for the development of high-tech industry --
to divert the SovietÕs attention from Newfoundland.
CIA then hired an eccentric Howard Hughes to construct a salvage ship, but
alas, its folk to uplift the submarine was broken during its operation and
hence could not bring up the half of the submarine which should have contained
the secret code.
A side benefit of this operation was a discovery of Titanic by Dr. Ballad from
Billings, Montana, who went to Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, my
alma mater, before MIT.
(8) Next time, I will tell you about a NorwegianÕs inquiry initiated my effort
of deregulating Japanese telecom policies for the use of email, which triggered
the de-monopolization and privatization of Japanese telecommunications industries.
This movement has later been emulated in many other countries, as having more
than one billion email users around the world nowadays, as mentioned in Section
3.1 of the Item (4) paper above.
Dear Mr. Morton:
(9) It was my great pleasure to have met with you at the conference, too.
Should you (or any of your people at the UNEP) find any interest in our GCEPG
project mentioned above, pls let me know.
Keep in touch.
Best, Tak
List
of Distribution
Jeffrey D.
Sachs
Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy
and Management
Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Columbia University in the City of New York
314 Low Library, Mail Code 4327
535 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10027
212‑854‑8704
Fax 212‑854‑8702
sachs@columbia.edu
http://sachs.earth.columbia.edu
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sop2008/?id=agenda
Grete K. Hovelsrud, PhD
Research Director
CICERO Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo
P.B. 1129 Blindern, 0318 OSLO
Mobile: +47 95 80 6046
Fax +47 22 85 8751
Phone: +47 22 85 8769
e-mail: g.k.hovelsrud@cicero.uio.no
www.cicero.uio.no
Professor Seth G.
Neugroschl
Co-chair Columbia University Seminar on Computers, Man and Society
Columbia University
1349 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10128
212-876-7674
212-722-4046 -- after 6 pm
SN23@columbia.edu
Dr. Jim Hays
The Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, New York 10964
jimhays@ldeo.columbia.edu
Andrew Morton
Programme Development and Assessment Coordinator
UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (UNEP)
Post‑Conflict & Disaster Management Branch
International Environment House
11‑15, Chemin des Anemones
CH‑1219 Ch‹telaine
Geneva, Switzerland
Tel.: +41(0)22 917 8774
Fax: +41(0)22 917 8064
Mobile: +41(0)79 445 13 54
andrew.morton@unep.ch
http://postconflict.unep.ch
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* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA
*
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)
*
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education
*
* Founder and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of
*
* Global University System (GUS)
*
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-5913, U.S.A.
*
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Email: utsumi@columbia.edu
*
* http://www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook/search/display.asp?Quest=8032562&lang=en
*
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/
*
* Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676
*
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