Science for Peace, in its wisdom, has made me its President. It will be a formidable challenge to do justice to this office that was held by Eric Fawcett, Anatol Rapoport, George Ignatieff, Derek Paul, Terry Gardner, Mel Watkins, and many other distinguished advocates of peace, justice, and sustainability.
Fortunately, I have an experienced Executive on my side. With the help of Metta Spencer (VP), Paul Hamel (Secretary), Nina Seahra (Treasurer), Carolyn Langdon (Executive Director), Terry Gardner, Chandler Davis, Mel Watkins, John Valleau, and Joe Vise (members) we can activate Science for Peace to fulfil its mandate. However, we shall need the support of our responsible Board, and we rely on the initiatives of each individual Science for Peace member, and the advice of our Advisory Council.
As an interdisciplinary organization, Science for Peace has the mandate to look at the full spectrum of issues facing Canada and the World: ecological sustainability, peace and social justice, and individual rights and duties. That is a tall order, and one might question the wisdom of such a wide-angle view of the world. Are we going to lose depth in spreading our efforts that wide?
I believe, Science for Peace has the brainpower to ask all the pertinent questions that need to be asked, and it is part of our task to avoid tunnel vision. The specialists, who have the in-depth knowledge of partial truths, play a different role in our society. Together, specialists could supply the answers to the wide range of questions.
In my vision, the mandate of Science for Peace is to pool the scattered knowledge of academia and use it to design policy options, and to disseminate our conclusions to politicians, business leaders, educators, and the public.
The integration of knowledge, and the design of solutions can be done in Science for Peace working groups. In order to address all the high priority issues, we need to establish more working groups. The expansion of working groups’ activity can be achieved by the use of the Internet, which allows for national and global input. Our plan is to approach all Canadian Universities to encourage their faculty to become members of Science for Peace, and to contribute to our knowledge, integration and application project.
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