The USA Club of Rome regrets to announce the death of an extremely valued member, John Jay Harris IV.

An obituary is available for download.

For independent evaluations of the "Limits to Growth" study, the USA Club of Rome suggests the following list of publications.

The 54th Conference on the Status of Women will be held at the United Nations in New York on March 10, 2010 at 10:15. The Conference is hosted by the USACOR, UNIFEM and the Human Lactation Center. A luncheon is scheduled at 12:15 at Diplomats Lounge in United Nations Secretariat Building. All Club of Rome members are welcome to both presentations and luncheon. RSVP at bottom of attached program. Download the program.

Cynthia Woods Mitchell, a longtime USACOR member and recipient of the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award, passed away on Dec. 27th, 2009. The obituary is available for download.

The USACOR held a luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, November 18th 2009, at 1.00pm. Dr. Francesco Stipo, an active member of the National Press Club, presented his book "World Federalist Manifesto. Guide to Political Globalization". Professor Herman Daly and Professor Andrew Oerke received the USA Club of Rome Lifetime Achievement Award.

The USACOR meeting at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, November 18th 2009, featured a speech of Dr. Francesco Stipo on his book "World Federalist Manifesto. Guide to Political Globalization". His presentation was met with enthusiastic questions from the assembled members.
Next a Lifetime Acheivement Award was made to Professor Herman Daly, who has shaped the dialogue on the values and costs of natural resources into our global economic system through a prolific series of prolific books and writings such as "Beyond Growth." and “For the Common Good" and hundreds of articles with many other books. Herman has remolded thoughts within the United Nations systems through his work for almost a decade at the World Bank wherein actual values were placed on forests, water, minerals, fisheries and other resource commodities which included the replacement and patrimony value not simply their present market prices. The awards for this work to Daly have been significant including the Sophia Award ( Norway), the Honorary Right Livelihood Award, the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science, and the Grawmeyer award (USA).
Finally, a Lifetime Acheivement Award was presented to Andrew Oerke, who has three times achieved a major breakthrough each time at important global “tipping points”. First, his work with the poorest of the poor has developed since his joint original work in Kakimega, Kenya in 1966 with David Skull, a series of tested and tried methods for Micro-credit finance methods which he organized and managed, which expansion he led to become a major micro-credit programs in more than 60 nations around the world from 1966 to 1988, including Asia, Africa ( 33 nations), Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. He did this within the organization he directed, Partners for Productivity. He now leads thought about micro-credit in his newest concept to make micro-credit sustainable demonstrated in his Haiti microcredit program. Second, Andrew created the original concept of the USA Peace Corps which concept he gave to Senator Proxmire and Congressman Ruess in Milwaukee. The three ( Oerke, Proxmire and Ruess) took this to the John F. Kennedy Campaign. In several weeks, the Peace Corps concept was announced at the University of Michigan later as well as a key part of the presidential campaign. Oerke was sent letters thanking him. Under the Kennedy/Johnson Administrations, Oerke led Peace Corps programs in Africa and The Caribbean, which included the first African health programs. Third, Oerke has now been devoting himself to creating how to think “outside the box” in a world increasingly becoming the product of the linear, prose-like language which the computer, engineering, and current life has placed itself. Poetry creates such ability to “think outside the box”. The multifaceted solutions, necessary to overcome the current global and regional problems are not solutions for linear thinking. Oerke’s 9 books of poetry and his many hundreds of published poems lead his readers into thinking more deeply and creatively about subjects from pollution of the environment to relations of man with his fellow travelers. In 2005, Oerke was awarded the United Nations Writers and Artists Association Award for Literature as well as Peace Corps Writers Award for his poetry books, “African Siltdancer” and “San Miguel de Allende”.

The Association for Conflict Resolution will award the Peacemaker Award to Ambassador John W. McDonald at its 9th Annual Conference in Atlanta, GA, October 7-10, 2009. McDonald was nominated for the honor based on his work on peace-building projects around the world during his diplomatic career, his co-founding of an organization that focuses on conflict resolution in nation and international ethnic conflicts, and his diverse career achievements in supporting creative conflict-transformation projects. Established in 2001, The Peacemaker Award honors significant and sustained contributions by an individual or organization to the cause of peace. The award recognizes the efforts of an individual or organization to bring peace through various conflict resolution approaches to ethnic, religious and civil conflicts that have raged domestically and outside the United States. McDonald joins a notable group of Peacemaker Award recipients that includes Lee H. Hamilton, Sen. George Mitchell and Conflict Resolution Network Canada. McDonald spent 20 years of his diplomatic career in Western Europe and the Middle East, and worked for 16 years on United Nations missions around the world. A former senior adviser to George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and president of the Iowa Peace Institute, McDonald co-founded the "Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy" (IMTD) in Washington, D.C in 1992, focusing on national and international ethnic conflicts. Through IMTD, McDonald has worked on creative conflict transformation projects in Cyprus, Israel-Palestine, Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, East Africa, Liberia, Nepal, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Libya, India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Recognizing the strong link between access to water and peace, he also founded "Global Water" in 1982 to address international drinking water and sanitation issues.

All interested should contact athorhaug@msn.com so that sufficient room for seating and lunch will be available. The morning speakers "Progress Report to CaCOR on the Future of the Western hemisphere Project" tentatively are Dr. Anitra Thorhaug overview and population, food, and environment, Robert Hoffman, economic issues, Andrew Oerke, poverty alleviation, and language art and culture.

E. Jackson Allison, MD member of USACOR, was nominated for Shriver Award 2009. Information available at the following link.

Five members of USA COR met with the International Affairs Committee Ranking member of Congress Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Washington D.C. to discuss a series of FUTURES problems: Haiti and its poverty and infant mortality, flow of illegal peoples and substances among nations, the carbon-based energy shortages facing the Western Hemisphere and the realistic solutions available immediately in non-carbon based fuels, the growth of the population in Northern Central and Andean South America, impending fisheries collapse with factory ships poaching fish of the hemisphere with need for more mariculture in the Caribbean and South America, children's abuse and education especially in rural areas, language and culture diminution as an important source of present and upcoming ethnic conflict including our recent calculation of at least 50 million totally indigenous and more than 300 million partially indigenous peoples, and the international problems of governance in the hemisphere including corruption, lack of environmental governance, and deforestation, exacerbating the climate change. The US Congressional House priorities written for us by Ranking Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen for better governance in the American Hemisphere were discussed.

In the Club Industriales, in Mexico City the USA CoR President, Professor Anitra Thorhaug and USA CoR member Andrew Oerke gave the overview of Future of the Western Hemisphere, a work in progress, including committee work by population, energy, environment, health, food, language art and culture, poverty alleviation, and legal issues. Presiding and organizing the meeting was Lic. Gerado Gil Valdivia, Director General de Planning and Analysis of the Mexican Human Rights Commission. Attending were Prof. Susanna Chacon, Antonio Alonso Concheiro, Ariel Buira Seira, Lic. Julio Faesler (former Mexican Ambassodor to India), Lic. Julio Millan B., Antonio Saldivar, Luis Manuel Orci Gandara, Prudencia Lopez Martinez, and Servando Lopez Jr. and Sr. download.

Jan 31, Feb 1: The American Chapter of the Club of Rome will hold this conference in Miami to present its preliminary report on the future of the American Hemisphere in which it analyzes the social, economic, legal and environmental issues and projections for the next 50 years.

USACOR Founding Member Senator Claiborne Pell passed away on Jan 1st, 2009. Please read the obituary by Anitra Thorhaug, President of the US Association for the Club of Rome. The document is available for download.

July, 26th, 2008: The US Association for the Club of Rome invited to a meeting which was introduced by Ambassador John W. McDonald. Among the speakers, there were

July 5th, 2008: The US Association for the Club of Rome regrets to announce the death of an extremely valued member of USACOR, John Jacob Weaver.

An obituary is available for download.

May, 30th, 2008: The US Association for the Club of Rome regrets to announce the death of an extremely valued member of USACOR, Harlan Cleveland. He worked tirelessly to understand the future and stem the tide of chaos of the human condition. Harlan Cleveland was also Honorary Member of the Club of Rome International

March 22, 2008, UN Water Day - Ambassador John W. McDonald made a presentation at Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) on Global Clean Water Initiatives. Ambassador John W. McDonald spoke about the precarious issues raised by the world water supply and what led to the UN resolution for the First UN Decade for Clean Drinking Water and Sanitation from 1981-1991 as well as how much was accomplished during that decade. He then focused on the Second Decade (2005-2015), The 'Water for Life' Decade, which was launched on 22nd March 2005 by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. In addition, he talked about the Millennium Goals in this area. Ambassador McDonald also referred to the Water for the Poor Act, a Bill which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 1, 2005, and which enhances the role of global water and sanitation programs in U.S. foreign policy by authorizing the provision of foreign aid for promoting these efforts, and also by directing the secretary of state to create a comprehensive strategy for the development of international programs that increase safe water and sanitation access. "Global Water" and the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy" are both working on future projects in Latin America and Africa.

The video is available on the external website. Questions can be addressed to jmcdonald (at) imtd.org.