High Noon

In this age of instant communication and biotechnology, on this ever-smaller planet, what kinds of problems have we created for ourselves? How do we tackle them in a world where the accustomed methods used by nation-states may be reaching their natural limits? In High Noon, the author challenges us to take a new approach to the problems of the twenty-first century. Defining and then offering a brief overview of the twenty most important and urgent global problems, he finds that they all have two things in common: They're getting worse, not better, and the standard strategies for dealing with them are woefully inadequate to the task. The author proposes new vehicles for global problem-solving that would be acknowledged by governments but that would function as extra-governmental bodies devoted to particular problems. They would produce globally recognized standards and would single out the nations and organizations that were not cooperating. With its clear-eyed urgency and refreshing specificity, this book is an agenda-setting book that everyone who cares about the future must read.