Three expert-moderated seminars: Energy Controversies, Global Financial Crisis, and Web 3.0, were offered to Socrates participants on February 12-15 in Aspen, CO.
Energy Controversies: How can the United States manage its interests and obligations to help solve the global energy problem and address the climate change challenge?
Must nuclear be part of the mix? Can nuclear, including the waste cycle, be made safe? Is coal clean now, or can it be made clean? When and at what cost? Can efficiency and new generating capability keep up with increasing demand from China and India? What are the risk tradeoffs with the possibility of catastrophic climate change? How can we accelerate the transition to a more stable energy future?
Moderator: Sue Sheridan, adjunct professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and former Chief Counsel to the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
The Global Financial Crisis and the Developing World: How has the global economic crisis affected the world’s emerging economies?
Can emerging markets prosper when developed markets suffer? How has the meltdown in the global markets altered the role between governance and the market in poor economies? How much more aid is needed to protect emerging economies in troubling times, where will it come from, and who should be monitoring its use? Which emerging countries will likely reemerge as economic leaders?
Moderator: Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School
Changing Models of Culture and Communication in the Web 3.0 World
This seminar explores how Web 3.0 phenomena such as Facebook, Linked-in, and Twitter are changing the expectations and models for communication and collaboration. New media models from YouTube, iTunes, and Pandora are changing our models of the video and music arts. How have blogs, newsfeeds, and tag clouds changed our notions of how we get our news and form our opinions about the world?
Moderator: Elizabeth Stark, Visiting Fellow, Yale Information Society Project
