A
CENTRE FOR
THE STUDY OF
EMERGENCIES WORLDWIDE
(CSEW)
Executive Summary
The Context –
In less than two decades, the world around us has changed drastically, and the sociological, political and economical changes keep incurring at a fast pace. In our actual multipolar world, the seeking of agreeable solutions to the very serious crises we are facing has become nearly impossible in view of widely diverging economic and political interests. The UN plays of course an important moderating role but is still hampered as it reflects all the divergences in the national and regional interests.
The USA and the EU are in turmoil and, in their panic, are cutting funds on the few aspects that could ensure keeping their supremacy in the next couple of centuries, such as research in science and technology. The new emerging superpowers follow an agenda of their own, Russia is still positioning itself and its evolution will heavily depend on the importance of the role retained by the Western World. And now people have taken to the streets all over the planet, protesting and manifesting against their political and economic conditions, as is witnessed by the Arab Spring and the Wall street protests.
Meanwhile, the planetary problems confronting us all, such as Energy, Climate, Pollution, Security, Infectious Diseases, Overpopulation and Old Age and natural catastrophes are simply not being addressed as they should.
The CSEW Proposal –
Nowhere in the world can one find a Centre dedicated to the study of these emergencies and their solution. Such a centre would need to be independent from political influences and lobbying efforts and should represent a worldwide co-operative effort to propose to the political powers the means to increase the quality of life of their population, taking into consideration the importance given by each in its moral and social values in everyday’s life. To attain such an objective, the three components most important to the development of a civil society, in step with its great achievements, must be reunited:
Science, Technology and Culture
Scientific research and its applications, better known as technological research, must be focalised on a common priority goal: increase the level of the quality of life, whether to resolve the daily problems with their multiple complex requirements or to give to all, taking into consideration cultural values, to choose in accordance with the supreme values of our existence. Culture is essential as it always reminds us that we are the only form of living matter endowed with reason.
The CSEW has also as an objective to confront, study and resolve the problems inherent to the actual system of world equilibrium between nations where, once the danger of a Nuclear Holocaust from the USA – USSR confrontation was overcome, the various multipolar components which emerged continue to prevail with the main motivation of confronting the enemy with the resulting arms race: It is as if the Wall which was felled in Berlin had been reconstructed in each nation of the multipolar world.
The CSEW Project would be pure utopia unless one could rely on existing independent structures, involved for many decades in global scientific, technological and cultural activities, which have consistently demonstrated their capability of innovation to promote new activities related to the common priority goal of increasing the level of the quality of life.
And here are the structures which would constitute the core of CSEW:
· The World Federation of Scientists (WFS), the largest independent association of scientists based on “scientific volunteering”. The WFS has studied the Planetary Emergencies and classified them into 15 groups for a total of 63 emergencies. The WFS has successfully implemented 43 scientific research centres and a hundred pilot projects in 50 countries throughout the world, in co-operation with their local and regional scientific communities. This was to prove to the governments of our planet that, if there is a political will, it is indeed possible to fight and overcome the Planetary Emergencies, and was made possible through the signing of collaborative agreements with 20 governments and 65 scientific institutes. Permanent Monitoring Panels (PMPs) were established, back in 1998, for the monitoring of the emergencies, and should play a seminal role in the CSEW project, such as:
Ø The Energy PMP
Ø The Climate PMP
Ø The Water PMP
Ø The Information Security PMP
Ø The Mitigation against Terrorists Acts PMP
Ø The Motivations for Terrorism PMP
Ø The Defence against Cosmic Objects PMP
Ø The Brain and Behaviour PMP
Ø The Mother and Child PMP
Ø The Limits of Development PMP
· The “Ettore Majorana” Centre for Scientific Culture (EMCSC) in Erice, which succeeded in giving life to a new spirit of international scientific collaboration for a “Science without secrets or frontiers” by involving in its activities over the last half century 110’000 scientists from 140 countries and over 900 laboratories and universities. The Centre has had, since its foundation, three fundamental pillars: Scientific Excellence, Meritocracy and Scientific Volunteering with a minimum of bureaucracy. The “Spirit of Erice” was determining in the success of the multidisciplinary International Seminars for Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies, held in co-operation with the WFS, in avoiding a nuclear holocaust in the early 80’s.
· The CERN in Geneva, the largest laboratory in the world of a Galilean inspiration. The CERN represents the scientific unification of Europe based on the political actions of great European physicists, and is an example of a structure based on meritocracy and scientific excellence, with a minimum of bureaucracy.
· The “Enrico Fermi” Centre for Studies and Research (EFCSR), which should act as the originating and co-ordinating centre for scientific, technological and cultural activities of the CSEW project.
Mechanisms of Co-operation for the CSEW -
The Core Group – constituted by the 4 institutes WFS, EMCSC, CERN and EFCSR.
The Driving Committee – constituted by one delegate from each of the Core Group institutes. The Committee is the highest decision-making authority of the Core Group.
The Projects – Projects are established in collaboration with international laboratories and institutes and are conducted under the auspices of the CSEW Core Group. Each party funds its own activities.
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