For the Science for Peace Annual General Meeting 2017
By Metta Spencer
The past year has been full and mostly gratifying. But before we consider the details, we should pause for a moment to remember five beloved allies who have left us this year. Some of you may have known them all, but I’ll say a bit about each one.
David Bell was a political scientist and environmentalist. He was dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York until he retired. He served on the National Round Table on Environment and Economy and, when it was abolished, became chair of an umbrella organization, Learning for a Sustainable Future. He had intended to initiate and co-chair our working group on climate change education but died prematurely a few months ago.
Robert Campbell was a lawyer in Toronto for 45 years. A kindly, quiet man of short stature, he had served as chair of the Civil Justice Sub-Section of the Canadian Bar Association. He had served on our board of directors in 2006-7. He died at the age of 100 in the Sunnybrook Veterans retirement home.
Ursula Franklin was well-known as metallurgist and Quaker pacifist. Her book, The Real World of Technology, was based on her Massey Lectures. She was a professor at U of T for more than 40 years and she kept an office at Massey College after retiring. She and her husband Fred lived at Christie Gardens, where it seems that most old Toronto peaceniks go to spend their last years together.
Calvin Gotlieb. Kelly, as he was known, was also sometimes called the “father of Canadian computing.” He was a professor in the department of computer science and lived to be 96. Just four or five years ago I heard him deliver an extremely effective lecture at Senior College. He had been active in the committee that developed the Toronto Resolution, an ethical code for scientists. After a lapse of some years, he re-joined Science for Peace a couple of years ago when I was hoping to re-establish an ethics committee. That did not happen but he enjoyed his renewed contact with us.
Douglas Scott was a lawyer in Hamilton who founded an organization called the Markland Group to study nuclear weapons-related issues. Until a couple of years ago he enjoyed coming to Toronto to plays. I’d pick him up at the Go bus and we’d have dinner and go to the theatre. He never married but after his death I learned that he had been active in Big Brothers, and had served as a dear surrogate father for the man who wrote his obituary in the Globe and Mail.
These five people were devoted to repairing the world, and they went about their tasks faithfully. Can we please stand for a moment of silent remembrance of their lives.
Now let’s get down to our own tasks and review our accomplishment and our prospects for the future. Although in numbers we have continued to diminish, we have greatly expanded the number and range of our activities. We now have twelve working groups, about half of which have developed a core of reliable and willing members.
The biggest news of our year was that we received a generous bequest from the estate of Edith Fowke, a Toronto broadcaster and folklorist who left a considerable amount of money to be divided among ten Canadian peace groups, which were chosen by Hanna Newcombe before her own death. We have received $150,000 of that money so far and expect to receive several thousand more after the legal proceedings are completed. The board of directors has decided never to spend the capital, but only the annual interest, which may come to about $10,000 per year.
We should subdue our fantasies, since, although the wonderful gift will help pay for our lively program, it will not go very far, as our treasurer will explain. We must undertake a fundraising campaign and a drive to revive our lagging levels of membership. Working Groups Chairs Climate Change Education Jose Etcheverry Cold War II? Leon Kosals Community Sustainability Lloyd Helferty Cyber Security Jack Gemmell Drones Michel Duguay Freedom for Research Chandler Davis Good Global Governance Helmut Burkhardt Middle East Mohamad Tavakoli Militarism Judy Deutsch Nonviolence and Civil Society Ellie Kirzner Nuclear Weapons Rob Acheson Oceans Venilla Rajaguru
You can read the individual reports submitted by these groups, but I’ll offer my impressions too. I think seven have taken root and are functioning well, while five have not met regularly or attracted a consistent group of active participants, so we’ll need to build them up or else decide to let them go. These five less developed ones are:
Climate Change Education, which José took on single-handedly after David Bell’s passing. It has not attracted enough members yet, but we surely don’t want to let it go. Climate change is one of the two key issues that SfP must address, so we must find ways to make it succeed.
Cold War II? Leon Kosals chairs this group but he lives about half the year in Moscow, where he is a professor of economic sociology. The purpose of the group is to hold a video-conferencing conversation at each meeting with a well-informed person in Russia. We have to hold the meetings during our noon hour because of the eight- or nine-hour time difference. Sometimes there is good attendance but much can be improved if we find a co-chair and set a specific day of each month to meet. Regularity and predictability make a huge difference, and no single chairperson can always be present.
Cyber Security is a new working group that we will also need to maintain in response to the growing threat of computer hacking for seriously malevolent purposes. If we all pitch in, we can surely recruit some people who are interested in this problem. Fortunately, we have one distant but regular member: Paul Meyer, the former disarmament ambassador, who joins us by videoconferencing from Vancouver.
Drones is chaired by Michel Duguay and meets entirely by videoconferencing. I don’t think it has met regularly this year. Today Michel can outline his plans for the group’s future.
Middle East is chaired by Mohamad Tavakoli. Although it has met a couple of times during the noon hour, attendance has been sparse, which is surprising in view of the amount of public controversy about that region.
The remaining seven working groups seem to be functioning well. They are: Community Sustainability; Freedom for Research; Good Global Governance; Militarism: Nonviolence and Civil Society; Nuclear Weapons; and Ocean Frontiers.
Unfortunately, Chandler Davis will not be able to continue chairing the Freedom for Research Group. Let’s thank him for his successful work in building that working group. I suggest that we ask Margrit Eichler succeed him. She founded a separate, non-charitable organization, Our Right to Know, during the Harper years, while there was risk of our losing charitable status if we engaged in political activism. The two groups have worked closely together and can hold most of their meetings jointly. Our Right to Know is incorporated and must maintain its own board and separate funds, but we think that most projects and meetings can be done together.
I want to congratulate Helmut Burkhardt for forming a working partnership with the new Toronto chapter of the World Federalists. The cooperation seems to be fruitful, as the two groups are meeting and working together.
Energizing working groups. Here are some practices that make working groups effective:
Pick a co-chair, since no one person can always be present and when the chair is absent, the co-chair (or secretary) can fill the gap. The co-chair should ordinarily be a member of Science for Peace, and there should be a couple of other SfP members as well in each working group. Tell us the name of your co-chair today—or at least next week.
Pick a certain day of the month for meetings (e.g. the third Thursday) at the beginning of the year, enter it into our calendar, and remain consistent. Everyone should be able to enter the dates for the whole year in their calendar. However, when picking recurring dates, note whether another SfP group has already picked that time slot, or whether one of your preferred dates falls on a holiday, election night, or some other unpromising occasion. Change it at the outset of the year, not later. Don’t schedule working group meetings on Wednesday evenings, for that is when the weekly lectures are scheduled. If you start skipping monthly meetings — even once during the summer — your participation rate will begin to decline, so try to be fanatically consistent. (You can add special public events, of course, but only add – don’t subtract.)
Assign a task to each member of your working group. To make that possible, your group needs to be working on at least one clear project at all times. The main duty of the chairperson is to invent specific duties for each participant to carry out and make sure they get done. Some of the roles that are available consist of:
Hosting weekly lectures, by proposing speakers who are expert in your topic; publicizing their lectures; bringing friends to hear their talks; and joining the speakers at supper in the nearby pub after the lecture.
Reporting to the Bulletin. Every issue of The Bulletin should have an article (or at least a paragraph) about your group’s activities or possibly an article about your topic. Assign someone the duty of producing these articles for the editor.
Updating your web page. Each working group is entitled to a page on the SfP web site, and you should keep it updated (ask the webmaster if you need assistance). Announce your future meetings there.
Publicizing your events and lectures. The amount of publicity that can be done is infinite. One helpful routine is to join Twitter and Facebook groups. When an event is coming up, you can make a new event (click on the little box called “Create an Event”.) Be sure to put the name of the speaker and the date on the title line, for it may not be visible otherwise. Share this new posting with all of the groups you’ve joined. (I belong to about 50 Toronto groups and share most of our events to most of their Facebook newsfeeds.)
Reaching out and inviting others to your working group. Joining a working group is the best route into full membership in Science for Peace. It costs nothing and is open to everyone. You can press all your regular participants to invite a friend or colleague to each meeting.
Managing contacts with members who want to participate by Zoom. We have a video-conferencing tool that is superior to Skype, and we hope that all working group chairs and at least one other member of their group will learn to use it. Then you can make participation possible for people who live in Halifax or Nunavut—or just too far north of Bloor to make their attendance easy. Our office coordinator will gladly offer instruction in the use of Zoom, and we have all the computer equipment that you need in the office. It’s in a suitcase on wheels.
Letter-writing and lobbying. My favorite way is to phone a member of parliament every weekday. It soon becomes a habit.
The Bulletin
This year Tom Davis and Mila Shutova were co-editors of our newsletter. However, both of them took new and demanding jobs, so there was only one issue of the Bulletin this year. Mila has found it necessary to give up her role, but Tom will continue as sole editor. However, he will certainly welcome any SfP member who wishes to assist him. Check the Members’ Directory for his coordinates and phone him to discuss it.
Weekly Lectures
The lecture series this year (almost all are available as videos on YouTube and Facebook):September 14, 2016Sam Lanfranco Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar (Economics), York U“Digital Disruption and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”September 21, 2016Alex Belyakov The Roots Collaborative, Founding Member“Sustainability: Are We Missing the Point?”YouTube video: 2016-09-21 Alex Belyakov lectureSeptember 28, 2016Mitu Sengupta Associate Professor of Political Science, Ryerson University“Are the UN SDGs Worth the Cost and Effort?”YouTube video: 2016-09-28 Mitu Sengupta lectureOctober 5, 2016Mark Winfield Professor of Environmental Studies, York University“The Prospects for an Effective National Climate Change Strategy in Canada”October 12, 2016Martin Klein Professor Emeritus of History, University of Toronto“What is Terror, Who are the Terrorists, and Why do they Use Terror?”YouTube video: 2016-10-12 Martin Klein lectureOctober 19, 2016Genevieve Vaughan Semiotician and author based in Rome and Texas“Women and the Gift Economy: The Alternative Paradigm”YouTube video: 2016-10-19 Genevieve Vaughan lectureOctober 26, 2016Gail Russel Course Instructor, Canadian Studies program, U of T.“IQ Policy and Development in Nunavut”YouTube video: 2016-10-26 Gail Russel lectureNovember 2, 2016Alison Kemper Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship & Strategy, Ryerson U.“The Overvaluation Trap”YouTube video: 2016-11-02 Alison Kemper lectureNovember 9, 2016Richard Sandbrook Prof. Emeritus of Political Science, U of Toronto“Towards This Generation’s New Left: Impediments and Possibilities”YouTube video: 2016-11-09 Richard Sandbrook lectureNovember 16, 2016“Gandhian Village Movement in India: Women and Nonviolence”Lyn Adamson nonviolence trainer and activist and Lee Ann McKenna trainer, facilitator, mediator, and authorYouTube video: 2016-11-16 Adamson/McKenna lectureNovember 23, 2016Stephen Bocking Professor of Environmental History, Trent University“Cold Science: The Cold War and Environmental Science in the Canadian Arctic”YouTube video: 2016-11-23 Stephen Bocking lectureNovember 30, 2016Mustafa Koc Professor of Sociology, Ryerson University“Turkey’s Struggle for Democracy”YouTube video: 2016-11-30 Mustafa Koc lectureJanuary 11, 2017Joseph Carens Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto“The Ethics of Immigration”YouTube video: 2017-01-11 Joseph Carens lectureJanuary 18, 2017Fergus Watt Executive Director, World Federalist Movement of Canada“Building a World Community: Principles, Strategy, Advocacy”YouTube video: 2017-01-18 Fergus Watt lectureJanuary 25, 2017Sandy Smith Professor of Forestry, University of Toronto“Invasive species in our Forests” YouTube video: 2017-01-25 Sandy Smith lectureFebruary 1, 2017John McLaughlin Professor of Public Health, Dalla Lana School, University of Toronto“Scientific Realism and Other Forces that Influence Research on Environment and Health”YouTube video: 2017-02-01 John McLaughlin lectureFebruary 8, 2017Olivia Ward Journalist and Filmmaker“Truth, Lies and Democracy: Journalism after Trump”YouTube video: 2017-02-08 Olivia Ward lectureFebruary 15, 2017Blake Poland Associate Professor of Public Health, Dalla Lana School, University of Toronto“Social Movements as Agents of Change”YouTube video: 2017-02-15 Blake Poland lectureMarch 1, 2017Miloud Chennoufi Department of Defence Studies, Canadian Forces College“Tragedy in Syria: Is There a Solution?”YouTube video: 2017-03-01 Milloud Chennoufi lectureMarch 8, 2017Emmay Mah, coordinator, People’s Climate Movement; director, Enviromentum, a project of Tides Canada“A Different Shade of Green: The New Face of the Climate Movement”YouTube video: 2017-03-08 Emmay Mah lectureMarch 15, 2017Judith Teichman Professor of Political Science and International Development, University of Toronto“The U.S. Election and the Implications for Mexico”YouTube video: 2017-03-15 Judith Teichman lectureMarch 22, 2017Ernie Regehr Senior Fellow, The Simons Foundation Vancouver“Disarming Conflict: How Wars End”YouTube video: 2017-02-22 Ernie Regehr lectureMarch 29, 2017Paul Kingston Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto“Syria: Past, Present, Future”April 5, 2017Vanessa Oliver and the research team “Transformation Action Graffiti” Department of Youth Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford.“Community Healing Art Mural: Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Student Collaboration” YouTube video: 2017-04-05 TAG lecture
Our practice is for the working groups chairs and the working group manager to participate in choosing an initial list of potential speakers. The weekly lecture manager then spends the summer contacting them and lining up dates. Unfortunately, we haven’t lately been assigned our preferred room at University College, but we manage. We videotape the lectures unless the speaker objects, and post them onto our web site and onto Facebook. We had fallen behind in editing and posting the videos, but we area almost caught up now. (Facebook users actually like to watch videos, offering us a fine way to spread the word about peace. Please share them onto your own newsfeed and the groups to which you belong. And post them to Twitter too.) We take each speaker out to supper in a pub after our Wednesday evening meetings and encourage people in the audience to join us. Usually four or five do so.
I wish the weekly lectures were popular occasions for SfP members to get together and share ideas. Regrettably, that is not the case. Many attendees are strangers who never become regular. Please bring a friend to at least one or two of the talks each term. Most of the talks are really excellent.
Lately we have been offering certificates to people who attend and participate in the discussions of eight of the 12 lectures per term. It seems that students love to collect certificates, so that is the main way we attract young people to the lectures. If you’re a professor, please announce to your students that they can receive certificates for attending.
Special Events
About once a month, on the average, SfP has held an additional public event of some kind. Here are the ones for which we engaged this year: 15-Jun-16 Drones and Killer Robots: a panel organized by the Drones working group. Video available 27-Jun-16 Maciej Bartkowski and David Last discussed the possibility of fighting ISIS with nonviolence. This was an after-dinner talk for about 50 persons at the Hot House Cafe Restaurant. 06-Aug-16 Hiroshima Day. Nathan Phillips Square. We distributed maybe 100,000 paper cranes that had been sent from Japan. (People there seem to spend all their spare time folding paper.) 10-Sep-16 Sustainable Development Day. We organized a day-long public event at the Bahen Center. Over 100 persons attended – many of them students. The Campus SfP Group managed the event and held their annual elections there. 24-Oct-16 Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons held its annual meeting in Ottawa and two SfP members attended: Rob Acheson and Metta Spencer, who delivered an invited talk there. 27-Oct-16 Eric Fawcett Day Lecture by Ambassador Paul Meyer on “Cyber Peace.” This event is produced on alternate years by Pugwash but it was our turn. We held a reception afterward, then took Meyer and his wife to dinner in a restaurant. 22-Apr-17 March for Science. We joined the demonstration at Nathan Phillips Square and marched to Queens Park with our new banner. 29-Mar-17 Screening of a film about Syrian refugees, organized with Professor Mustafa Koc of Ryerson University. 18-May-17 Five SfP members participated in a colloquium on nuclear weapons organized by Senior College 28-Apr-17 The Ocean Frontiers WG co-sponsored a one-day workshop on Oceans at York University, with support of a York Institute. About 20 participants were present. 24-May-17 Ocean Frontiers working group organized a panel at OISE that about 30 scholars attended. 11-Jun-17 The Militarism working groups held a public meeting at Friends House to plan a public vigil protesting Canada’s absence from the UN conference to develop a convention banning nuclear weapons. 17-Jun-17 The Militarism and Nuclear Weapons working groups, along with VOW organized a vigil outside the Foreign Minister’s riding office. 19-Jun-17 The Nonviolence WG hosts a potluck supper and panel discussion at OISE with four visiting Gandhian leaders from India.
Our Work with Other Groups
International Peace Bureau. As always, SfP has worked this year with a number of partner organizations. For example, we remain a member of the International Peace Bureau, and are represented there by Steven Staples.
Science for Peace Campus Group. Our affiliate organization, the Science for Peace Campus group, includes not only students but people from the community. Indeed, our position as a University of Toronto organization depends on our relationship to this Campus Group, which participated in sponsoring the Sustainable Development Day in September of 2016. The Campus Group’s AGM was held there and the current president, Kiruba Krishnaswamy, was elected. Later, Kiruba worked with a team of people from other campus groups who were planning to screen a film about the Congo on campus during April. In the end, they decided to delay that screening until next fall, since it will entail some significant expenditures. Kiruba also organized a poster-making party in preparation for our March for Science. She went out to the street and corralled passing students to come inside and make colorful posters.
Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. This is an umbrella organization of Canadian organizations that work toward nuclear disarmament. There is normally at least one meeting per year for a day or two, and Rob Acheson and I have been attending it. This year has been exceptional, in that everyone has worked hard to persuade the Canadian government to attend and support the UN conferences where a legally binding treaty is being negotiated that will ban nuclear weapons from the planet permanently. We engaged in a letter-writing campaign to urge Prime Minister Trudeau to send a delegation to promote this effort; I personally spent about five hours almost every day throughout the summer, and I think we got 3,000 or more letters directed to the Prime Minister’s office, but he forwarded them all to Minister Dion and later Minister Chrystia Freeland, who both insisted incorrectly that, as a member of NATO, Canada cannot take a stand against those weapons. Our campaign on this matter will be a large part of SfP’s agenda next year and probably beyond.
Hiroshima Day Coalition. As usual, Science for Peace participated in the Hiroshima Day observances at Nathan Phillips Square, staffing a table there and speaking on the program. The coalition is now planning to lobby the Toronto City Councillors who are responsible for maintaining the public health of this city, and we will be represented in that delegation.
Public Health in a Nuclear Age
For several years I have been teaching a fourth year undergraduate course called “Public Health in a Nuclear Age” at University College. Usually my 15 or 16 students say they had known almost nothing about nuclear weapons until taking the course. At the end, they all are aware of the problem facing humankind. Their comments about the course are generally favorable.This year, after I had completed the winter-term course, I was informed that I will not be permitted to offer it again because the undergraduate faculty has decided not to allow anyone to teach a course without stipend henceforth. I don’t want to be paid. What disturbs me most is that I have not found any other course on nuclear weapons being offered at the University of Toronto. A graduate course at the Munk Centre on “Security” gives two or three lectures on nuclear weapons, but surely students should have access to this information in many different formats. Principal Ainslie suggests that I offer to give guest lectures in many different courses, but one lecture per course is inadequate. I have numerous Power Point documents, DVDs, and lecture notes for the course and gladly will share them with any Science for Peace member who has a good use for them.
New Tools for Activists
We have several new online tools that can make it easier for members and officers to perform well. I urge you all to try them out.
Our Email Listservs: Science for Peace maintains several listservs for specific purposes. We have recently re-named two listservs (“notices,” and “members” ) which were misleading titles. You can no longer use those. The new listservs are:
sfpdiscuss@listserv.physics.uroronto.ca (Use this for sharing any information or opinions with others.) But do not use:
sfpannounce@listserv.physics.utoronto.ca] , which is for the office to use.
On our website: There are two ways to access the tools that are on the website. If you just want to read one of those documents, you can go to our web site and click on the “members” button. This section of the web site is password controlled—but with a very memorable password: “science.” The username is simply “member.” No sensitive information is kept there.
(If you need to *write to one of these documents, you will need access to it through Google Drive. If you have a Google account (e.g. gmail) you can open Google Drive. On the left side you will see a list of files. Open the one called “Shared with me” to see most of these documents and alter them. Working Group Chairs will need to write things, but most other members and directors will not, so you can just go to the “members” section instead.)
Having opened the members’ section of our website, you will find the following documents:
Calendar of meetings and activities. Please consult this when planning any event so as to “de-conflict” your schedule with other existing plans. Enter your events on your chosen dates (entering future working group meeting dates at the time of the AGM each year), indicating what kind of room you will need and for how many persons. As the date approaches, the office coordinator will book a room for you and show the room number after it has been confirmed.
Common to-do list. So far, officers have not been using this much, though it would improve our coordination and save time if they do so. We should enter our chores and requests to other people and then show the date when each assignment has been completed. By checking it, we can see whether others are falling if so, what is delaying them. However, this works only if people habitually check the common to-do list almost daily.
Members’ Directory. Members of Science for Peace sometimes need other members’ email addresses and phone numbers. Instead of calling me, please look in the members’ directory. If the other member has not filled out the form, please remind him to do so ASAP.
How to Run Science for Peace. I have produced a 50-page-long online “user’s manual” for all members—especially officers. Please use it. It is alphabetical, like an encyclopedia.
Duties of Officers and Staff. If in doubt, this list will remind you briefly what your job involves. For greater detail, see the “How to Run” manual.
Working Groups. This is just a list of existing working groups. For details of any one group, see its separate page by clicking the button called “working groups.” (Such pages are open to the public without passwords.)
Internal documents: Science for Peace bylaws and Science for Peace policies (the latter document is not ready yet).
Re-allocation of Duties, Mandates of Committees
Science for Peace is accomplishing more work, but too much of it is done by a few people. With your consent, we intend to assign more duties.
The Executive Committee:
As our by-laws prescribe, we will continue to have a president, a vice president, a secretary, a treasurer, and three members-at-large. However, several of these roles will be defined and given appropriate titles.
The president will be responsible for seeing “the big picture,” and for representing and steering our organization vis a vis the wider world.
The vice-president will be responsible for supervising the internal functioning of our organization.
The secretary and treasurer will continue in their customary roles.
One member-at-large will be the “working group manager,” supervising the functioning of all the working groups.
One member-at-large will be the “Academic peace research liaison,” keeping us in contact with scholars and academic organizations.
One member at large will be the “Events manager” who will chair the organizing committees formed to produce any special events. She will also liaise with most of our partner peace organizations.
In addition, there will be a “weekly lectures manager” who will not officially be a member of the executive committee and who will not vote, but who will attend meetings and help provide continuity, at least for a while. (With your consent I will continue performing that role.)
Other Committees:
We already have several committees, but these will be expanded. During the AGM every board member will be expected (or at least urged) to sign onto either a committee or one of the working groups, if they have not already done so. Most committees probably will require about 3-5 hours a month of their members’ time — though the amount will vary and is not very predictable. The Executive Committee will appoint chairpersons. Blumenfeld Advertises grant possibilities, appraises and awards Bulletin Assists the editor in preparing our newsletter Endorsements Responds to requests for endorsements by other organizations Events Works with Events Manager to produce special events. Fundraising Applies for grants, organizes appeal for donations Internships Determines useful roles for interns, hires, supervises them. Investment Manages our funds Membership Conducts annual membership drive to double our numbers Nominations Seeks nominees for directors and officers, holds poll and election Publication Arranges publication of papers and books, possibly in digital form Publicity Informs public about SfP events, mainly through social media
Our Challenges and Opportunities
I am grateful for the opportunity to have served as your president and I’m delighted to pass my responsibilities on to outstanding successors. I expect to continue serving as weekly lecture manager, though I don’t want to hold any voting position on the Executive Committee.
During my lengthy two terms as president, I have learned a few things that I want to share as advice now. (Humor me, please!)
People join SfP from a desire to do something useful, but they are busy, so few of them actually volunteer to do anything. We are tempted, therefore, either to reduce our activities or pile all the work onto those who are willing to do the jobs. Either response is a mistake. If we scale back our projects to match the number of proactive volunteers, we will run downhill and disappoint those reluctant volunteers themselves. Instead, let’s keep expanding, though this requires us to prod, as well as praise, each other.
But please: Reply to your darned messages! The most serious obstacle to running Science for Peace is our prevailing slouchiness about responding to emails. Frankly, I discourage anyone from accepting a position as board member or executive officer unless they are willing to read and reply to their emails every day. Every Day! Otherwise, you’ll complicate the work of everyone else.
We face three urgent challenges.
We must hire a full time office coordinator. Our new president and vice-president are full-time professors with other public service commitments, so they cannot manage our multiple projects. But hiring a full-time, resourceful coordinator will be expensive.
We must fundraise. Science for Peace is capable now of doing big things, but they’ll cost money. Our dues are insufficient and we are going to conserve our bequest money. We need a committee and let’s set ambitious goals.
We must increase our membership, partly because attrition has continued for several years without any energetic recruitment campaign. We can’t afford a full-time coordinator without additional revenue from dues. We can easily double our membership in one year because our expanded activities have made us well known at the University of Toronto. Izzeldin Abuelaish, who is the only nominee to become president, is world-famous. He inspires people wherever he speaks, and I expect he will attract applicants to Science for Peace. There are good reasons for our by-law requiring that two-thirds of our members be scholars, scientists, engineers, or technologists. We need various kinds of expertise, so we have to be somewhat selective. However, everyone can join a working group or the campus group; no expertise is required, and not even any fees. So let’s welcome vast hordes of people to our campus and working groups, while also doubling the number of professionals and scientists in Science for Peace itself.
Let’s hold a big conference this year. I have an idea that is not ready to bring up for approval. I will only allude to it briefly here. Science for Peace is blessed with numerous resources that enable us to undertake an extraordinarily ambitious project. This is partly because we are a “fox” organization.
Isaiah Berlin famously described two types of persons – foxes and hedgehogs: “A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one big thing.” There has often been a debate in Science for Peace as to whether we ought to be a hedgehog-type or a fox-type organization. I personally am a fox, knowing a little about a lot of topics. Science for Peace has the same tendency. Newcomers who advise us to focus exclusively on one big thing always are defeated. Although our members do focus on matters of existential importance to humankind, there are several such issues and as an organization we try to cover them all. That’s great!
Because our members have such a diversity of expertise, we are uniquely suited to develop a comprehensive platform of action involving all existential threats to human survival. And someone needs to do this. Others have compiled general and broad lists, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, which consist of 17 different vague but admirable goals, or the “Leap Manifesto,” ;which is not enumerated at all.
What would be more useful is a list of the absolutely essential challenges—of which there are about five, with global warming and nuclear weapons as the top two. For each one we should compile a “to-do” list of concrete, practical interventions that, if all performed adequately, may save humankind.
I hope our conference will consider the whole array of problems that have to be solved to save the world—but none other than the existential problems. Here are the five:
Climate change. (Let’s use Paul Hawken’s new book, Drawdown, which lists 100 practical interventions to reverse climate change.)
Nuclear Weapons;
Domination by “Big Money” and “Big States;
Techno-economic Loss of Jobs (impending);
Cyber Threats (mostly impending).
I suggest that we assign some of our working groups the task of appraising potential practical interventions to solve these problems. For this we need to team up with other groups and experts to prepare a major conference, which will produce a comprehensive “platform for survival.” Thereafter, we’ll need a strategy for promoting it to other civil society organizations, as well as political groups. Quite a project!
I expect this idea will be considered by our new Executive and, no doubt, amended. This was just your first peek at it.
Thanks for letting me be your president. I’ve loved every minute of it.
Now, onward!
Metta