Dinner with Japan´s Finance Minister Koji Omi and the STS Forum
Last night I had dinner with Japan´s Finance Minister Koji Omi at the home of Ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa in Madrid. During dinner we spoke at about the coming STS Forum in Kyoto that Minister Omi chairs and I will attend. This global conference --whose objective is to raise awareness on key challenges to the sustainability of our planet-- has already been held 3 times before. Around 30% of the participants are Japanese and the rest from all over the world.
Personally, I found Minister Koji Omi to be a man with a strong sense of moral commitment to improve the state of the planet. His interest is to transcend beyond Japanese politics and to have global impact. This is good because Japan currently has an developmental model that is more friendly to the environment than the United States and its environmental footprint per dollar of GDP is among the lowest in the world.
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Posted at General el 2007, April 29 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
When Will The US Government Make The Connection?
Between the widespread availbility of firearms and mass murders.
Posted at General el 2007, April 17 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
We Fear China For The Wrong Reasons
In this video I talk about my conversations with top Taiwanese and Chinese entrepreneurs and my own tentative conclusions. I describe paradoxes presented by the Taiwan/China situation. One for example is that presently many more people migrate from Taiwan to China, that is from democratic to undemocratic, than the other way around. Another paradox is that after talking to many people in Taiwan and China I have come to the conclusion that China should be feared more for its desire to be like America rather than its alleged desire to antagonize America. Many in the West are concerned that China will become a military power that will eventually clash with the United States. I used to think that as well. But after my conversations with different business leaders in the region I have changed my mind. I believe that it is unlikely that China will seek military confrontation and instead what worries me is not only China does not hate America but the opposite is true. The Chinese love America and especially the American way of life and that is a threat to the planet. China likes America so much that it is copying the American model. Unfortunately it is not copying what is good about America, democracy, but it´s copying what is bad about America, its unsustainable developmental model. By copying America´s developmental model China is making the planet already shaking from America´s incredibly high pollution per person, even less sustainable. To me the greatest risk about China has little to do with business, little to do with politics, even less to do with geopolitics and a lot to do with the environment. As Al Gore frequently argues America´s disregard for the environment is already creating the world greatest threat to our survival. Now that China has chosen to develop along the American model the damage created by these two powers combine will greatly accelerate the problems that European and Japanese among others are trying to manage.
Posted at General el 2007, April 7 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Is Israel worth the attention?
I am in Israel now. In Tel Aviv. I came to attend Kinnernet, Yossi Vardi's tech fest.
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Posted at General el 2007, March 15 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
When Civilians Are More Militaristic Than The Military
I grew up in Argentina in the 70s. At that time the military had staged a military coup and committed tremendous atrocities, including killing my cousin David Varsavsky and nearly killing my father, a Harvard trained physicist whose only crime was to stand for democracy.
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Posted at General el 2007, February 25 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Why Is It That Immigrants Have So Many Children?
El Pais, Spain's leading newspaper, reveals today that while 10 years ago 1.81% of all new babies were born out of immigrant families, the figure last year was 17.6% and is rapidly rising. Since immigrants represent only 8.5% of the population, these figures show a huge difference between the number of babies that native-born Spaniards and immigrants have.
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Posted at General el 2007, February 17 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
World´s View of USA From Bad To Worse :(
Many of us share the perception that the world´s view of the United States was much better in the 90s than now. Now BBC has released a poll entitled "World View of the US goes from Bad to Worse" that shows that respondents in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the very United States agree on this
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Posted at General el 2007, January 26 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Why Is Bombing Acceptable And Placing Bombs Isn´t?
I just read the news on Reuters/Yahoo that the USA entered Somalia with an AC 130 plane and bombed the village of Hayo because there was "at least one Al Qaeda suspect". The result? Reuters sources says: "I understand there are many dead bodies and animals in the village".
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Posted at General el 2007, January 9 | # Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
