Mr Markku Wilenius

Opening speech

Your Royal Highness, honourable Minister, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure and an honour for me to be able to welcome you all to the Annual Conference of the Club of Rome here in Helsinki, the Daughter of the Baltic. We are delighted to see so many Club members, representatives of national associations, as well as other interested parties from Finland, gathered in this, the Club's most important annual event. We have people here from 36 countries and, what's important, from all the continents of this planet!

The Annual Conference was last held in Helsinki exactly twenty years ago. The theme then was "Managing Global Issues - Reasons for Encouragement". The meeting took place in a sombre atmosphere, because the founding member of the Club and its incredibly vibrant soul, Aurelio Peccei, had passed away only a few months earlier. In fact, it was suggested by many at the time that the Club should be discontinued, because its "body and soul" had died. The conference in Helsinki was nevertheless held, and the Club of Rome survived. In the end, the conference was considered a great success, and its organiser, a long-term member of the Club and its current honorary member, Professor Pentti Malaska, now serves as the chairman of our opening session.

I think it would be appropriate to borrow a few lines from Aurelio Peccei's last paper, which he finished only a few hours before his death in March 1984. The paper was headed "Club of Rome agenda for the end of century". Peccei wrote:

Less than six thousand days separates us from the year 2000, which represents not only the end of a century which has seen extraordinary scientific, technological, economic, social, political and military developments, but also the end of a millennium during which humankind emerged from the Dark Ages, set its domain all over the world and skies, and became the basic actor of change in this corner of the universe.

We have since crossed the magic turn of the millennium, and humanity is now moving on into the new millennium. If the previous millennium made us humans the masters of the planet Earth in such a dramatic fashion, what can the next one have in store for us? What will be the limits of dignified human life in the future? How will the common evolution of humanity and Earth develop in centuries to come?

The ultimate motive of the Club is concern over the future of humanity. This is the idea that Aurelio Peccei, Alexander King and the other founding members inscribed on the very heart of the Club. The mission of the Club of Rome is to identify the most crucial problems and challenges facing humanity, to analyse them in the global context and search for future solutions to the problems. The Club specifically focuses on long-term challenges.

Much has changed since The Limits to Growth was first published, yet the message remains as urgent now as it was then: the wasteful use of natural resources is just as reprehensible and wrong as it was 30 years ago. Many of the trend extrapolations presented in the original report are still very accurate. However, the general focus has clearly shifted during this time: it is less concerned with problems of 'input' - the depletion of natural resources - and more with issues of 'output' - emissions, pollution, material and energy flows. Thirty years ago few people understood anthropogenic climate change, now it is a scientifically verified and globally understood threat.

What the scenarios in The Limits to Growth described, we know today for a fact: humanity is living beyond its (natural) resources. Although technology has developed to a stage where dematerialisation, according to our studies, is progressing at a rate of one to two per cent a year, this is insufficient to offset the growth in material consumption. In light of the current trends, humanity will most likely face a dire crisis around the middle of this century.

Since the publication of The Limits to Growth in 1972, an enormous amount of scientific information has been produced about the future challenges of humanity. A great many of the identified problems and suggested solutions are now recognised, both by the science community and in UN declarations, as well as in practical action. We already have sufficient knowledge about many of the problems and therefore the keys to their resolution. Yet we are unable or unwilling to act in order to change the course of humanity.

This is why we have this theme today: limits to ignorance, limits to indifference. We will tackle the problem of ignorance from several different angles. Over hundred invited scientists, decision-makers and representatives of the business sector and civic society will participate in the working groups to examine a whole range of topics, including the responsibility for global problems borne by the civic society, the political elite and the market, the predicament of democracy in current conditions of information overload, and ways to ensure that all countries, from South to North and from East to West could and would participate in the information-driven, yet sustainable development.

The poorest part of humanity is at risk of becoming stranded in an ever-growing dead zone of information, excluded from global development. On the other hand, the affluent minority is in danger of losing itself in an ever-growing ethical dead zone. We lull ourselves into technological self-sufficiency and dissociate ourselves from ethical responsibility by appealing to the complexity of the problems or our own interests. The challenge is that we seem to be entering an age of unprecedented, explosive ignorance with insufficient backing from ethical self-reflection.

Ignorance is by no means just a problem in the countries with less developed educational or economic infrastructure. Rich nations styling themselves as information societies are incapable of making full use of the enormous volume of scientific and other information available to them. All too often, relevant knowledge drowns under empty information. This not only obstructs development in developed countries, but it also prevents us from addressing the great problems of humanity. Unless we learn to properly evaluate and select information ourselves, we cannot even begin to solve global challenges, such as poverty, lack of democracy, intercultural conflicts or large-scale ecological threats, that result from ignorance and lack of information. The onslaught of unstructured information can at worst lead to indifference and unwillingness to deal with social and political challenges.

Aurelio Peccei liked to call the Club of Rome a 'non-organisation' - a body lacking all the traditional distinguishing marks of organisations. His purpose was to free the Club from the limitations of traditional organisations caused by their inflexibility and formality. I still believe it is an apt description of the Club's operations - although even the work required to arrange this conference would not have been possible without momentarily adopting an organisational mode of action. It is extremely important that the Club of Rome continue to be lightweight in terms of its organisation, yet heavyweight in terms of its message.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

When the Club's Executive Committee asked the Finnish national association to organise the Annual Conference, they argued that Finland would be an exceptionally apposite place to begin creating new vistas for the Club, as the country has been known for its progressive attitude ever since it was the first one in the world to give the vote to women. Currently Finland is known throughout the world for its heavy investments in education and equality, and success in creating a society that has learned to combine high technology with an advanced welfare state. We were also assured that Finland is known for an exceptional capacity for renewal, making Helsinki a fitting venue to create new visions for the Club. We accepted these arguments and took on the challenging task.

Now it is time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. It is obvious that the Club of Rome itself is in need of renewal. It needs new strength, and new visions. And just as The Limits to Growth was a powerful initiative to perceive the future of humanity in a new way, so the Club should now turn its attention to areas that have remained outside the prevalent, dominant view.

I personally believe that the theme of this conference, Limits to Ignorance: the Challenge of Informed Humanity, suggested by the Finnish national association and approved by executive committee of Club of Rome, constitutes one such innovative and relatively undiscussed approach. There is much talk these days that we are drowning in information, but where are the voices telling us that we are drowning in ignorance and indifference? The main dilemma of humanity today is not a lack of information, but that we care far too little about what is happening around us. This topic could be a genuine subject for future Club of Rome report.

This trend is also apparent in international politics: the tragic war in Iraq, the events in Beslan in North Ossetia, the critical Palestine situation. It is also reflected in economic development, the triumphant march of capitalism all over a world with the result that all too often the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is reflected in social development, the general decline in voting activity, the tightening grip mindless television entertainment has on the popular imagination, and the advancing of self-centred and individualist culture. In short, at present, we are heading towards manipulated world, where infotainment is too often the content and where politicians too seldom are courageous enough to press their agenda over media's power.

These are the issues the Club of Rome must address in the future, seeking a new kind of awareness, just as it did in the case of environmental challenges. The Limits to Growth did not change the world, but it was a crucial piece in the process whereby humanity became conscious of the physical limits of its own actions. What we need now is to turn our focus on the mental limits of humanity, those boundaries that prevent us from caring and understanding. It is these limits that the esteemed President of the Club, His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal, has been speaking about for years.

I wish to extend our warmest thanks to all the partners and sponsors who have made this conference possible. I would especially like to thank the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nokia, Kesko, Elcoteq, the Antti Wihuri Fund, TeliaSonera, Marimekko, the Finnish Society for Futures Studies, the University of Helsinki, the Crisis Management Initiative, the Finnish UN Association, The Finnish Ministry of Environment and last but not least, the Ministry for Education for their contribution that has made possible this conference.

Finally, I would like to read to you a poem written by the chairman of this session, Professor Pentti Malaska:

The Power of Ethical Self-Awareness

The mission of human being
Is not to confirm
His or her existence,
Because it
doesn't necessary mean anything really essential.
 

The mission of human being
Is not to secure life,
Because life has its own means of
Taking care of itself.

Life wins
Whatever we do

Life wins,
either with humans, or
without

The mission of human being is to prove
That human life
Is a valuable part of life in general;
That life is richer and more precious
With humans than
Without.

Making life full of dignity
And worth experiencing
Requires special human quality, it means
The awakening of ethical self-awareness

The power of self-knowledge!
It raised up some,
Some even above the ground.

But those who were left on all fours
Did not approve

Once again, I bid you welcome to participate in meeting of the Club of Rome!