Our first conversation of 2011 took place at Norwood on February 25th. I talked to the global adventurer-scholar Parag Khanna, whose latest book How to Run The World is a bold account of our current global chaos as well as a road map for creating a truly resilient and stable world.
For those of you who don’t know Khanna, he is the Director of The Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation, has spoken at TED (about the root causes of border conflicts worldwide), and was named one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st Century by Esquire. He is also the author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order(2008).
According to Khanna, the world is entering a perfect storm of calamities: environmental stress, scarce natural resources, financial instability, historic political shifts in the Middle East (most recently, of course, the pro-Democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia), and ultimately failing states. In our current multi-polar, multi-civilizational world, every empire, city-state, multi-national corporation or mercenary army is out for itself. He argues that in some respects, what we face now isn’t much different from that medieval landscape of almost a millennium ago.
Later in the evening Khanna’s wife Ayesha will introduce the Hybrid Reality Institute, an innovative think-tank that explores the co-evolution between humans and technology and the implications for society, business and politics. The Khannas, who founded the institution last year, will explain the relevance of their findings.The event is free and starts at 6.30pm. Norwood maintains a very strict door policy, and capacity is limited, so please RSVP here.
Our latest salon, held on the top floor of New York’s Norwood Club, was a veritable Who’s Who of New York City’s green leaders. Before Zipcar co-founder (and founder of the savvy new ride share site GoLoco) Robin Chase and the Economist’s Vijay Vaitheeswaran, author of Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, took to the stage, I had a beer and checked out the crowd.
I said hello to Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-First Century and Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Global Governance Initiative of the New America Foundation and caught site of his wife Ayesha, a partner at strategic consulting firm Fitzgerald Analytics.
Janera was deep in a conversation with Shayne Macquaid, owner of Voltaic, a solar energy company that makes laptop-charging bags and Marissa Feinberg, a partner the environmental PR firm Green Spaces. The place was getting crowded and I looked around to see Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger.com, as well as frequent New York Times contributors Liesl Schillinger and Katherine Zoepf. I began a conversation with architect Cassim Shephard, director of Urban Omnibus, and artist and new media teacher Rachel Stevens about urban design consultant Jan Gehl and how he is helping to make New York City a more bike-friendly place.
At 8 P.M., Janera welcomed everyone and invited Tonya Muro Phillips, director of programs at the Global Nomads Group, to say a word. The Global Nomads Group, our sponsor for the evening, is an international NGO that creates interactive educational programs for students about global issues. Though our audiences are different, the subjects we cover are not—and we’re very excited about this collaboration. Phillips said the children GNG works with in developing countries will watch our Green Transportation salon later this week, as soon as FORA.tv posts it. (Check back on our home page—we will post it soon.)
Robin and Vijay had an illuminating dialogue. They talked about the great global challenge to curb environmental degradation, balance the collective good against individual mobility and why Robin is, in her words,“the queen of hypocrites.” My favorite moment was when Vijay asked Robin why we couldn’t have a melange of solutions to the oil-powered car problem? Why couldn’t we do a mix of car-sharing and carpooling, electric cars, hybrid vehicles, and a gas tax (for those stubborn or wealthy individuals who simply cannot give up their gas powered car)? Robin paused a minute, as if she had no answer. “Wow. I’d never thought of that before!” she said, looking bewildered.
And then: “Sure, why not? I’m a big fan of diversity.”
