[asia-apec 1732] IFG Teach-In on Technology and Globalization

[Anuradha Mittal]

To our members,

Come to this special, in-depth seminar and discussion on the present and 
future of our technologically driven society, the IFG Teach-In on 
Technology and  Globalization, at Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, New 
York Saturday and Sunday, February 24 and 25. 

Among those participating are Food First's Co-director Anuradha Mittal, 
recently returned from testifying for New Zealand's Royal Commission on  
Genetic Engineering, Food First's founder Frances Moore LappŽ who with 
her daughter has just completed a new book, and Food First Board members 
Walden Bellow (Executive Director - Focus on the Global South) and Jerry 
Mander(President - International Forum on Globalization).


The International Forum on Globalization, New York Open Center, 
The International Center for Technology Assessment, The Turning Point
Project, Lapis Magazine, and the Nation Institute 

Present a Teach-In on
Technology and Globalization

Saturday, February 24 & Sunday, February 25, 2001
Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue New York City
40 Speakers + 25 Workshops

Our society places all its bets on technology as the panacea for our 
ills. But it may be time to reconsider. Far from Paradise-on-Earth, we 
are rolling toward ecological collapse: rapid climate change and rising 
seas; ozone holes; loss of species and habitat; accelerated cancer 
rates; terminal forms of air, water, and soil pollution, as well as 
unprecedented levels of social, political, and personal alienation and 
despair. All are rooted in the excesses of technology.

Now a terrifying new generation of technologies - from biotechnology to 
eugenics to robotics to nanotechnology - are raising the stakes and 
bringing unprecedented new threats to the planet. Meanwhile the new 
telecommunications technologies that we had hoped would bring democracy 
and empowerment may be producing the opposite: rampant 
commercialization, global corporate concentration and mergers, and 
centralization rather than decentralization.

In the era of economic globalization, the problems are magnified a 
millionfold. All-powerful global bureaucracies such as the World Trade 
Organization (WTO) and others are preventing the ability of  communities 
or nation-states to slow the rate at which giant global corporations 
freely exploit the planet, dominate social systems, destroy local 
economies, and deploy the most powerful and dangerous technologies in 
history.

This dynamic interaction between new technology, economic globalization, 
and centralized global power is arguably the most important condition of 
the New Millennium, but it's rarely publicly debated or exposed to 
democratic processes.

This landmark event at Hunter College, February 24 and 25, 2001, hopes 
to launch that debate. 

Who should control the evolution of technology? What are the intrinsic 
consequences of certain technologies in terms of health, the 
environment, social justice and democracy, religion, and how we view 
ourselves and the cosmos? Has science failed? Why have there been no 
referenda on the most dangerous technological trends: nuclear, 
biotechnology, transport, the globalization of industrial agriculture, 
corporate power, and global media concentration? Do the new 
telecommunications serve democracy or the opposite? How can we change
paths?  How can we create more viable, local democratic systems that 
serve different values? These are a few of the questions to be discussed 
in two days of
plenaries and workshops, led by some of the worldâs greatest thinkers on
technology, globalization, and democracy. Please join us. 

For Tickets contact the New York Open Center Registration  212-219-2527 
ext. 110; 
or 1-888-629-9269 fax: 212-226-4056; email: nyocreg at aol.com 
For Information visit the IFG website at www.ifg.org
TICKET PRICES: Saturday $30, Sunday $25, Both days $50
Half price for students, IFG & NYOC members.

Participating Speakers
Jeremy Rifkin  Foundation on Economic Trends; Author, The Biotech
Century; Biosphere Politics
Vandana Shiva  Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Ecology
(India); Author, Monoculture of the Mind; Biopiracy: the Plunder of
Nature and Knowledge; Stolen Harvest 
Jerry Mander  International Forum on Globalization; Author, Case Against
the Global Economy; In the Absence of the Sacred; Four Arguments for the
Elimination of Television
Andrew Kimbrell  International Center for Technology Assessment; Author,
The Human Body Shop
Paul Hawken  Author, Natural Capitalism; The Ecology of Commerce
Fritjof Capra  Center for Ecoliteracy, Author; The Tao of Physics; The
Turning Point
Helena Norberg-Hodge  International Society for Ecology and Culture;
Author, Lessons from Ladakh
Kirkpatrick Sale  Author, Rebels Against the Future; Human Scale;
Conquest of Paradise
David Ehrenfeld  Rutgers University; Author, The Arrogance of Humanism
Maude Barlow  Council of Canadians
David Suzuki  Host, "The Nature of Things" (Canadian Broadcast
Corporation); Author, The Sacred Balance 
Richard Hayes  Exploratory Initiative on the New Human Genetic
Technologies
Mark Crispin Miller  Project on Media Ownership; Author, Boxed In: The
Culture of TV
Joan Gussow  Former Chair, Department of Nutrition, Columbia University
Debra Harry  Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialism
Martin Teitel  Council for Responsible Genetics; Author, Genetically
Engineered Food: Changing the Nature of Nature; Rainforest in Your
Kitchen
Anuradha Mittal Co-Director, Institute for Food and Development Policy 
(Food First);
Author, America Needs Human Rights
Satish Kumar  Editor, Resurgence Magazine
Lori Wallach  Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch; Co-Author, Whose
Trade Organization?
Steve Talbott  The Nature Institute; Author, The Future Does Not Compute
Langdon Winner  Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst.; Author, Autonymous
Technology; The Whale and the Reactor
John Cavanagh  Inst. for Policy Studies; Author, Global Dreams
Chet Bowers  Portland State U.; Author, Let Them Eat Data
Walden Bello  Focus on the Global South; Author, Dragons in Distress:
Asiaâs Miracle Economics in Crisis
Frances Moore LappŽ  Author, Diet for a Small Planet
Charlene Spretnak  Author, Resurgence of the Real
Randy Hayes  Rainforest Action Network
Karl Grossman  State University of New York; Author, The Wrong Stuff;
Weapons in Space
Jackie Cabasso  Western States Legal Foundation
Jane Healey  Author, Endangered Minds
Bruce Gagnon  Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Pat Roy Mooney  Rural Advancement Foundation International
William L. Rukeyser  Learning in the Real World
Dr. Arpad Pusztai  Former Senior Scientist, Rowett Research Institute
And many others

Saturday, February 24, 2001
Plenary Panels & Presentations:  9 am - 10 pm
Technology & Globalization

Overviews on the symbiotic relationship between new technology, global
corporations, global bureaucracies, and their effects on social,
political, and environmental concerns. 

Technology & the homogenization of global consciousness & culture
The cultural and political consequences of global telecommunications,
especially in the age of corporate consolidation. We will discuss global
TV, the internet, e-commerce, and the impacts of technology in
education. 

Systems of control: corporations & the bretton woods model
Free trade and globalization are not inevitable, like evolution. We look
at the systems that gave corporations dominance, and what we can do
about it. 

New military technology & control from space
Alarming new technologies will enable the U.S. military to carry out its
stated new goal to function as protector (from space) of global
corporations and their investments. 

Globalization of industrial agriculture & food
Mechanized, high-intensive, corporate monocultural agriculture is being
promoted as the only way to feed the world, but in fact, it promotes
hunger, drives farmers off their lands, creates ecological havoc, and
lowers food quality. 

Technology, globalization & nature
The prime victim of the technology-globalization symbiosis is the
natural world. Through trade deals, nature loses its protection; through
technology, nature is assaulted as never before. Media, meanwhile, train
our world view so we think this is perfectly normal. 

Special evening panel:
biotechnology & the post biological sciences
Remaking the nature of nature, science now takes us beyond the
biological realm to a post biological era that includes promoting 
biotechnology, 
eugenics, nanotechnology, and robotics. This leads us to consider
crucial questions about the irreversible alteration of all life on
earth. 

Sunday, February 25, 2001
Workshops & Presentations:  9 am - 5 pm
Partial List

Flawed Paradigms of Science
The Precautionary Principle: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
In Perspective: Gandhi, Mumford, Ellul
Systems of Agriculture: Global to Local
Technology in the Third World
Technology, Globalization, and Our Changing Concept of Nature
Television and the Cloning of Cultures
The Casino Economy: Instant Global Financial Movement & Speculation
Is Technology Neutral?
Computers in the Classroom
Corporations as Technology
The Merging of Humans and Machines
Virtuality versus Community and Culture
Indigenous Alternatives to Globalization
Computers, Surveillance, and Privacy
Computers and Work
The Viability of Alternative Systems

(Program subject to change)
This event is not sponsored by or afÞliated with Hunter College

Join the fight against hunger. For more information contact foodfirst at foodfirst.org.

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