Club of Rome

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The Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR) was founded in Toronto in 1973. CACOR identifies itself as "one of over twenty national associations whose members have interests in common with The Europe-based Club of Rome, an international organization founded in 1968 by Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist, along with Alexander King, a British scientist, and some 30 other scientists, educators, industrialists, and international civil servants gathered in Rome to share their concerns for the complex of global problems, which they named the 'world problematique' - the predicament of humankind."

According to the European-based Club of Rome's web site, the Club of Rome is a "global think tank and centre of innovation and initiative. As a non-profit, non governmental organisation (NGO), it brings together scientists, economists, businessmen, international high civil servants, heads of state and former heads of state from all five continents who are convinced that the future of humankind is not determined once and for all and that each human being can contribute to the improvement of our societies."[1]

"The meeting at the Accademia dei Lincei was not a success, partly due to the difficulty of the participants to focus on a distant future. After the meeting, there was an informal gathering of a few people in Peccei’s home, which included Erich Jantsch, Alexander King, and Hugo Thieman. The Club of Rome grew out of this meeting of minds and people who were focused on the same problem." [1] They are a founding partner of the Creating the New Civilization Initiative which was launched in 2005.

In 1968 Alexander Christakis was co-founder of the Club of Rome, where he was a collaborator of Aurelio Peccei, Erich Jantsch and Hasan Özbekhan.

Criticism

Robert Golub and Joe Townsend write in their article "Malthus, multinationals and the Club of Rome," Social Studies of Science, 7, (1977) that:

"Our argument is that, during the decade of the sixties, the international economic (and many national financial) systems became increasingly unstable and the systems by which the advanced countries control and dominate the underdeveloped countries were growing more fragile..., at the same time as (and in some cases as a result of) the multinational firms were becoming more significant in the international and national economies. These increasing instabilities and uncertainties made the economic environment more threatening to the multinational firms themselves, and this situation was initially and most strongly perceived by those 'second rank' multinationals whose governments were too weak to adequately provide the 'public functions' listed by Murray. As a result of this, the Forrester and Meadows 'scientific' studies were commissioned as 'tools of communication and control' to operate the 'transmission pulley' of public opinion in order to force the governments of the industrialized societies to institute a 'new world moderator' (with 'stern rules about voting') which would have sufficient power to stabilize the international economic situation and ensure a constant supply of raw materials." (p.216)

Critical Resources

Mission

Club of Rome website:

"The Club of Rome's mission is to act as a global catalyst of change that is free of any political, ideological or business interest ... The Club of Rome contributes to the solution of what it calls the world problematique, the complex set of the most crucial problems - political, social, economic, technological, environmental, psychological and cultural - facing humanity ...

It does so taking a global, long term and interdisciplinary perspective aware of the increasing interdependence of nations and the globalisation of problems that pose predicaments beyond the capacity of individual countries."

Publications

Executive Board [2]

Executive Committee (April 2018) [3]

Former Committee (2012) Accessed April 2012: [4]

Executive Committee (2004)

Members

Honorary Members

Accessed April 2012: [5]

Honorary Members (U.S.)

Contact

CLUB OF ROME
Rissener Landstr. 193
22559 Hamburg, Germany
Tel. +49 40 81960714
Fax +49 40 81960715
Email info@clubofrome.org
URL: http://www.clubofrome.org

External links

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

References

  1. Talk, Club of Rome, accessed November 11, 2009.
  2. Club of Rome Executive committee, organizational web page, accessed October 13, 2019.
  3. Club of Rome Board, organizational web page, accessed April 14, 2018.
  4. Club of Rome Executive Committee, organizational web page, accessed April 12, 2012.
  5. Club of Rome Honorary Members, organizational web page, accessed April 12, 2012.