The Club of Rome (CoR)

The Club of Rome (CoR) is a global think tank presently headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland. It was founded in 1968 by Aurelio Peccei an Italian industrialist and Alexander King a Scottish scientist and is according to its website, "an independent, not-for-profit organization with an international membership, which draws on the insights and expertise of its members from all regions of the world, from different cultures and histories, from different fields of science and public policy and from academia, civil society and the corporate sector." The Club further states that its mission is "to act as a global catalyst for change through the identification and analysis of the crucial problems facing humanity and the communication of such problems to the most important public and private decision makers as well as to the general public."

The Club first came to the fore of public attention with its report "The Limits to Growth" published in 1972. The report, which sold millions of copies, predicted that economic development could not continue indefinitely because of declining natural resources, particularly oil, a prediction driven home by the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the ensuing oil crises with its gasoline line-ups, escalating prices etc. A second and more comprehensive report entitled "Mankind at the Turning Point" by Pestel and Mesarovic of Case Western Reserve University published in 1974 proved more optimistic, however; it stated that many of the original predictions from "The Limits To Growth" were exaggerated and that economic and environmental catastrophe was preventable. [1]

In 1993 the Club published “The First Global Revolution." The basic premise of the book being that divided nations require common enemies to unite them, "either a real one or else one invented for the purpose." And that "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we (CoR) came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

CoR’s membership currently includes such notables as: Mikhail Gorbachev, Al Gore, Timothy Wirth, Paul Ehrlich, Roberto Peccei, Ted Turner, Prince Philip, Bill Clinton, Keith Suter, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the Dalai Lama.

Food for thought:

"... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion." - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." - Ted Turner, CNN founder and UN supporter

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Prof Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford University

"Nuclear power plants are, next to nuclear warheads themselves, the most dangerous devices that man has ever created. Their construction and proliferation is the most irresponsible, in fact the most criminal act ever to have taken place on this planet." - Dr. Patrick Moore, Assault on Future Generations, 1976, Greenpeace co-founder/Greenpeace dropout [2]

"It is sobering to remember that 21 years ago on April 26 the industry was brought to a standstill by the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl; an accident, which emitted an unstoppable and deadly plume of radioactivity that traveled the world and the effects of which can still be measured today; an accident, which could be repeated by any one of the world’s 400 or so nuclear reactors." - Greenpeace International, Climate Change-Nuclear not the answer, 30 April, 2007

"We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." - Timothy E. Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

"I believe it is appropriate to have an ‘over-representation’ of the facts on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience." - Al Gore, climate change activist

"The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models." - Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

"There are many thousands of scientists who reject man-made global warming fears.... It’s all based on computer models and predictions. We do not actually have a crystal ball, it is a mythical object.... The fears are promoted by a powerful convergent of interests, scientists seeking grant money, media seeking headlines, universities seeking huge grants from major institutions, foundations, environmental groups, politicians wanting to make it look like they are saving future generations. And all of these people have converged on this issue.” - Dr. Patrick Moore, former Greenpeace activist, while appearing on the Fox Business Network with Stuart Varney, 2011.

[1] Because many of CoR’s original predictions have proved overblown some critics tend to dismiss the Club’s warnings as motivated more by a leftist-oriented political agenda rather than scientific fact, while for their part conspiracy theorists sometimes link the Club with various world conspiracies, notably the New World Order.

[2] Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, eventually dropped out of that organization allegedly because of the groups "extremist positions" and the fact that he believed it had been hijacked by political causes, social causes and the left.

HOME TABLE OF CONTENTS COPYRIGHT INFORMATION SITE MAP <<PREVIOUS NEXT>>