Book Club for the Twenty First Century

High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them

By: J. F. Rischard

Review by Anastasia Pokholok

In his book, High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, J. F. Rischard highlights for the reader what he believes are the twenty most important and pressing issues for the human race to solve in the next twenty years.

He starts his books by explaining the “two big forces” that are already having and will have an (even bigger) effect on our planet in the next century—the demographic explosion and the emerging new world economy.

The exponentially growing population of the world is predicted to be 9-10 billion by the year 2025, and this population boom, which for the most part happens in developing countries creates immense problems for the world—problems such as the spread of disease, pollution, food and energy shortages, depletion of natural resources and poverty.

The new world economy that is emerging as a result of the capitalistic economic system which is now accepted by almost all countries in the world, also brings its own problems as well as benefits. The technological and informational boom that has happened over the past 20 years has helped create an economy, which connects the whole world and creates a more efficient, connected and innovative international business environment. This economy brings with it all new markets, products and processes as well as the extinction of inflation, due to the hypercompetitive nature of business which prevents prices from sticking like they used to, and a different business cycle, not as heavily influenced by the old consumption/manufacturing model. However, along with the benefits there are stresses that this new economy brings: the need to adapt to this new model, the growing inequalities between countries and excessive trust in the market, which can lead to huge inefficiencies and failures.

The author then goes on to discuss the new complexity that had been created in the world as a result of all these new developments. He points to the fact that human institutions are not up to par to deal with the demographic explosion and new world economy that have emerged. He suggests that these institutions need to adapt by forming networks, as opposed to the old system of hierarchy, and the need for the nation-state to adapt to the new trans-national economic, political and environmental systems.

Rischard then goes into the bulk of his book, describing the twenty global problems, which he divides into three categories: issues involving the global commons, issues requiring global commitment and issues needing a global regulatory approach.

The first set of problems: global warming, ecosystem losses, fisheries depletion, deforestation, water deficits and maritime pollution. The interesting aspect of these issues is that all of them are interconnected. Global warming, being a principal issue, is very much connected to ecosystem losses (for example, in the arctic), water deficits (due to rising temperatures in already water scarce and population dense regions), and deforestation (which in turn also leads to ecosystem losses). The author point to the fact that despite global efforts to prevent the spread of these issues, they have been largely fruitless and uses this to support his argument for the need for better institutions.

The second set of problems: poverty, peacekeeping/terrorism, education for all, infectious diseases, digital divide and natural disaster prevention. Out of all of these issues under the category of “sharing our humanity,” Rischard points to poverty as the root for many of the others, and therefore being the most important. It is poverty and leads many people to turn to violence, causing terrorism and ethnic conflicts, and fuels the spread of infectious diseases and the huge gap in technology and education accessibility. It is nearly impossible to tackle the problems of education, terrorism or infectious diseases without first raising half of the world population from poverty—living on less than two dollars a day.

The third set of problems: reinventing taxation, biotechnology rules, global financial architecture, illegal drugs, trade, investment and competition rules, intellectual property rights, e-commerce rules and international labor and migrations rules. All of these problems have to do with the new interconnected world and the fact that nation-states are less and less capable to dealing with international problems individually. For example, it is impossible to target illegal drug trade for one country alone, there needs to be a collective effort on the part of many to bring down a powerful drug cartel whose influence extends past the borders of any one nation. The same way, new rules need to be created for taxation (for companies who do business in several countries), investment, trade, commerce, intellectual property, all of which transcend nation-state boarders. Due to this new international system, there also needs to be a new financial structure to deal with a new set of financial and economic problems that are emerging from the new world economy. In addition, new scientific discoveries that are being made need some sort of guidelines, since they are now bring made with international teams and therefore affect different countries.

The author admits that this list is not a final one and that perhaps one can give or take (most likely give) five. However, the issues on the list are important and on the list for several reasons. They are, indeed, global (and greatly affect the relationships between nation-states), they are urgent, not particularly expensive to solve (with the right tools) on a global scale, and most importantly of all, none of them can be solved with the current international setup. There have been attempts at solving these issues with efforts such as treaties, conventions, intergovernmental conferences, G8-type groupings and global multilateral institutions. However, all of these have proven to be insufficient because they are too slow, do not follow up, have a lack of knowledge or are unable to work independently.

The author suggestion is the creation of networked governance, which would minimize complication and hierarchy and expediting solution times. These global issues networks would each have their own issue to tackle but at the same time would work together to achieve maximum success and cooperation. The author breaks down their make-up timeline into three periods. First, there is the constitutional phase during which the networks would recruit members from governments, civil societies and businesses and come up with a code of conduct. Second, in the norm-producing phase brainstorming of the different parties should occur as to the best methods to tackle the issues at hand, using a method of “rough consensus” to vote on the best ways to achieve success. The final phase, would be the implementation phase in which the members of the networks would work with respective countries and industries to implement the plans. There would be a rating system for success in the countries, as well as a “naming-and-shaming” system to guarantee the efforts of all countries.

The author argues that this system of networked governance produces the speed, legitimacy, diversity and compatibility with traditional institutions that is required for its success. He admits that the tasks are not easy and that the democratic representation of people (through the electronic town meetings) will need some work before it functions the way it should. However, the issues which the author lists are indeed very important and pressing and, although the author’s approach to them may seem a bit naïve and simplistic, it is a starting point to thinking.

The hardest part of solving today’s global problems is coming up with a solution that will get results and setting up institutions that can implement decisions effectively and with transparency. Rischard’s book seems to lay out a very fine start to that brainstorming and sets a firm foundation to work from.