Oct 22, 2009: The Lakeville Journal: Salisbury Forum: Planet’s Prognosis Not Good
October 30, 2009 by Admin
By Patrick L. Sullivan, October, 22, 2009
Reprinted with permission, The Lakeville Journal, © Copyright 2009.
SALISBURY — Jeffrey Sachs, an economist, and Bill Blakemore of ABC News delivered a rather gloomy assessment of the state of the planet at the opening of this season’s lectures sponsored by the Salisbury Forum Friday, Oct. 16.
The talk was held at the Salisbury School. Blakemore “interviewed” Sachs on “Four Global Crises: Money, Security, Heat, Psychology.”
Sachs, director of The Earth Institute, professor at Columbia University and an advisor to the United Nations, began by responding to Blakemore’s question of the economic impact of global warming, saying that insurance companies are paying billions of dollars in climate-related claims.
But the conversation quickly branched out in several directions.
“We’re a very crowded planet now, from 3 billion in 1965 to 7 billion today,” he stated. “This massive increase in population, plus the desire for a higher standard of living on a crowded, productive planet is happening very fast.
“We don’t know how to handle it.”
Of the recession, Sachs said the problems are “not impossible to solve. A good brainstorming society would take up the challenge. America has been able to rally in the past.”
Referring back to the environment, “the key idea is to find technologies that can keep existing living standards without the high costs to the planet. And we need a new type of economy that gives the right signals.”
Sachs said he was in favor of developing not just wind and solar power, but nuclear as well.
“I don’t like not having electricity, by the way. We’d better get back to nuclear, which we suspended 30 years ago after Three-Mile Island.”
Failure to do so leaves us with what he called “the inertia of coal plants, which are certainly dangerous.”
On politics, Sachs was acerbic. “It’s like science fiction, watching lobbyists eat up Congress each year.” In talking with Obama administration officials, Sachs said “it’s top-to-bottom special interests.
“And there’s not a serious thought in Congress.”
Sachs said he was “disgusted” at a recent briefing on the political prospects of the Cap and Trade legislation in the Senate. “I learned what every senator is demanding as his pound of flesh. ‘The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body’ is wrecked right now.”
Sachs advocated a wholesale change in America’s foreign policy.
“These problems are not unsolvable but they’re tough. None of them will be solved militarily. We can’t win the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. The only thing we can do is work with other countries.
“The problem isn’t that we’re doomed, the problem is to open our eyes.”
The evening ended with a question from the audience about the concept of national security in an interconnected world.
Sachs said the core of most problems worldwide is hunger, lack of jobs and lack of education.
“Anybody who spends a day in a camel herder village will tell you: Don’t send the Army, send the Army Corps of Engineers.”
October 13, 2009: Frontline: Obama’s War | PBS
October 11, 2009 by Admin
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Recent Salisbury Forum speaker and FRONTLINE producer, Martin Smith, has a documentary airing on Tuesday, October 13, 2009, at 9P.M. ET on PBS: Obama’s War.
Tens of thousands of fresh American troops are now on the move in Afghanistan, led by a new commander and armed with a counter-insurgency plan that builds on the lessons of Iraq. But can U.S. forces succeed in a land long known as the “graveyard of empires?” FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith makes the dangerous journey to the front lines of America’s biggest fight. For a preview and more, visit www.frontline.org.
November 6, 2009: Immigration in America: What’s in Store?
October 7, 2009 by Admin
7:30 p.m. at Housatonic Valley Regional High School on November 6, 2009
Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Senior Fellow of the Migration Policy Institute will speak on “Immigration in America: What’s in Store?”
As a Senior Fellow at MPI, Doris Meissner directs MPI’s work on US immigration policy. She also contributes to the Institute’s work on immigration and national security, the politics of immigration, administering immigration systems and government agencies, and cooperation with other countries.
Ms. Meissner has authored and co-authored numerous reports, articles, and op-eds and is frequently quoted in the media. She recently served as director of MPI’s Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future, a bipartisan group of distinguished leaders. The group’s report and recommendations address how to harness the advantages of immigration for a 21st century economy and society.
From 1993 to 2000, she served in the Clinton administration as Commissioner of the INS, then part of the US Department of Justice. Her accomplishments included reforming the nation’s asylum system; creating new strategies for managing US borders; improving services for immigrants; and shaping new responses to migration and humanitarian emergencies. She first joined the Department of Justice in 1973 as a White House Fellow and special assistant to the Attorney General and then served in various senior policy posts at Justice, including acting commissioner and executive associate commissioner of INS.
In 1986, she joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a senior associate. Ms. Meissner created the Endowment’s Immigration Policy Project, which became MPI in 2001.
Ms. Meissner’s board memberships include vice-chair of CARE-USA and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. She is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA).
Her most recent awards are the Legacy of Leadership Award given by the White House Fellows Foundation and the UW Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
She earned BA and MA degrees at UW-Madison, where she began her professional career as assistant director of student financial aids. She was also the first executive director of the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC).
Suggested Reading
Who Are New England’s Immigrants?
By Mamie Marcuss with Ricardo Borgos
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Fall 2004
http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev/c&b/2004/fall/Immigrants.pdf
Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States
By Aaron Terrazas and Jeanne Batalova
Migration Policy Institute, October 2009
http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=747
Immigrants and Health Care Reform: What’s Really at Stake
By Randy Capps, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Michael Fix
Migration Policy Institute, October 2009
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/healthcare-Oct09.pdf
Migration and the Global Recession: A Report Commissioned by the BBC World Service
By Michael Fix, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Jeanne Batalova, Aaron Terrazas, Serena Yi-Ying Lin, and Michelle Mittelstadt
Migration Policy Institute, September 2009
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/MPI-BBCreport-Sept09.pdf
Immigrants and the Current Economic Crisis: Research Evidence, Policy Challenges, and Implications
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Aaron Terrazas
Migration Policy Institute, January 2009
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/lmi_recessionJan09.pdf
DHS and Immigration: Taking Stock and Correcting Course
By Doris Meissner and Donald Kerwin
Migration Policy Institute, February 2009
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/DHS_Feb09.pdf
Uneven Progress: The Employment Pathways of Skilled Immigrants in the United States
By Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix with Peter A. Creticos
Migration Policy Institute, October 2008
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/BrainWasteOct08.pdf
Spotlight on Refugees and Asylees in the United States
By Jeanne Batalova
Migration Policy Institute, July 2009
http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=734
Resources
Source US Immigration Policy Resources PDF (222 KB)
MPI Data Hub Connecticut Immigration Statistics PDF (126.5 KB)
MPI Data Hub Massachusetts Immigration Statistics PDF (127.1 KB)
MPI Data Hub United States Immigration Statistics PDF (124.1 KB)