A conservation and rescue service?

Technology In Society, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 419-442, 1996 Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed-in&eat Britain. All rights reserved 0160-791x/96 $15.ooto.00

Pergamon

SOMiO-791X(%)00022-X

A Consemation

and

Rescue

Service?

Frank P. Davidson

ABSTRACT. The

Concept May Now Constitute a Valid and Viable Response to Youth Unemployment, Soil Depletion, and the Impacts of Exogenous Disasters. It might, in several “advanced” countries, be implemented without costing governments or taxpayers a penny. The article discusses the intellectual and institutional history of the concept, and reviews the reasons for - and the considerable difficulties of - implementation. A new insh-umentality to provide both jobs and training for the young will require political decisions at the highest level as well as a sweeping re-allocation of resources and a leadership cadre that is both astute and charismatic. Properly organized and led, the proposed Service could play a major role in re-interesting Third-World youth in the prospects offered by science and technology for a more prosperous and adventurous future, and thus contribute tangibly to the reduction of North-South tensions. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

Frank P.

Davidson has been Cbaiwnan of the Steering Committee, System Dynamics Group (Alfred P. Sloan School of Management) and Coordinator of the Macro-Engineering Research Group (School of Engineering) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and served on the International Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He has been advisor, on projects of unusuul magnitude and complexity, to agencies of the US, Canadian and British governments and to corporations and non-profit institutions. Best known as a founder of the Channel Tunnel Study Group @lanning group for the English Channel Tunnel, now completed and in service), be h the author and editor of books and articles in tbe3e.U of ma cro-engineering. During the Great Depression, shortly after graduating from Harvard College be enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps and af2er service on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (draining swamps) and in Fort Sumner, New Mexico (erecting fences to prevent overgrazing of light land), Mr Davidson was appointed to the Stagof the Director; at the age of 23 be was consulted by Presa&nt Franklin D. Roosevelt on the establishment of Camp Willtim James as a “new model” for a CCC open to young men of all economic backgrounds, 419

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Men could once more serve a cause greater than any egotistical pursuit of themselves. History is always, individually man with a choice.

or collectively,

a confrontation

of the spirit of

pp. 54 and 154 in Jean-Marc Pottiez’ anthology, Feather Fall, ’ drawn from the writings of Sir Laurens van der Post. (The first citation--fromJung and the Stoly of Our Time-refers to the widespread feeling of relief in England when war broke out in 1939. The second sentence appeared originally in van der Post’s Journey into Russia.)

Background More than a half century ago, millions of unemployed youth were salvaged by a Civilian Conservation Corps (“the CCC”) launched by Executive Order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 5, 1933, pursuant to an Act of Congress of March 31 - less than 1 week earlier. The Great Depression had been more severe than today’s economic doldrums. Of all the remedies tried by the New Deal, the CCC won the widest bipartisan approval. Those of us who served in its ranks and on its staff are puzzled by the paucity of comparable enterprises today. Is it because contemporary presidents and prime ministers are too young to have had personal experience of such a service? How many of today’s decision-makers know about Camp William James which led to opening the ranks to all young men regardless of economic status,* in an enterprise dedicated to soil conservation and, whenever the need arose, to direct combat against forest fires and other natural disasters? A modern Conservation and Rescue Service could usefully address three recalcitrant problems which have thus far been left dangling between the orbits of the marketplace and normal government operations: 1. Youth Unemployment (despite economic upturns, it remains at unacceptable levels);3 2. Continuing Erosion of Topsoil;* and 3. Recurrent Natural Disasters, still met by ad hoc measures on a case-bycase basis, and which could exact an increasing toll on lives and property as world population and industrialization escalate.5 Finance is not the limiting factor. Even poor (“developing”) countries manage to pay for huge military establishments: soldiers without a war to fight could be directed to devote much of their time and energy to civil works following the unanswerable example of Rome’s Third Augusta Legion,’ which built much of the infrastructure of the Province of Africa and which is still cited for its successful resistance to encroachments of the Sahara

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Desert. The modern Chinese Army has long had the double mission of military readiness and the carrying out of special duties when “civilian” emergencies occur, such as floods, forest fires and earthquakes. The United States Air Force, in its active assistance to telemedicine networks through the pro gram directed by John Evans, provides a contemporary model for the deployment of military resources on behalf of ubiquitous human needs. In the context of North-South relations, the deployment and training of youth for public health and environmental services on a massive scale can be considered “overdue”. Rich (“developed”) countries could offer jobless young people the option of allocating unemployment compensation cheques to a national or nonprofit version of a Conservation and Rescue Service.’ Individuals not eligible for such payments might nonetheless receive a nominal stipend and thereby be encouraged to participate; their presence would attest that the program is not a “relief” measure but a positive community-wide endeavor. In France, where military conscription still prevails, public opinion has approved the principle of a year of “service civil.“* Recently, President Chirac announced plans to replace universal military service by “armee de metier”. It is not contended herein that a Conservation and Rescue Service is the sole potential route for reducing youth unemployment. Certainly Germany has had excellent results from an extensive system of apprentice courses in industry.9 And in published articles of wider interest than the specific context in France, former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing has published an estimate of the impact of tax laws on the ability of industry to recruit lessskilled (younger) workers. lo In theory, improved macroeconomic policies could, eventually, reduce unemployment levels. Fortunately, without waiting for a whole new economic and political framework, Europe has enough wealth - despite its estimated seventeen million unemployed* ’ - to nourish institutions able to transform jobless people into wealth-creators. It is a task for managerial and political innovation but not, strictly speaking, a problem of finance. In France, for instance, where youth unemployment is widely recognized as a leading social issue, nearly one-fifth of young jobseekers are out of work. Monsieur Jacques Chirac, in last year’s presidential campaign, popularized the figure of 120 000 francs as the standard compensation paid to cb6meurs. ‘* In contrast, the French Army can sustain a recruit (“hotel costs”) for 16 000-40 000 francs per year, although on February 20, 1996 Le Figaro reported a statement in the National Assembly by the “rapporteur spkcial du budget de la Dt$ense” that each recruit now costs - overall - more than 70 000 francs per year. I3 Other countries of Western Europe display a comparable although far from identical statistical profile. Programs successful in one country cannot always be transferred, willynilly, to another: economic and cultural contexts vary. Many Europeans have very negative memories of “youth movements” initiated or perverted by authoritarian regimes. In France people are wary of suggestions reminiscent of the Ateliers Nationaux advocated by Louis Blanc in 1848 as a cure for

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unemployment or the more recent chantiers nationaux imposed by the Vichy regime. And in the territories of the former Soviet Union, “camps” still evoke shudders: recollections of the Gulag remain vivid! The military-style camps of FDR’s CCC were cheap and easy to build an important element when, in the mid-1930s dormitories were needed quickly at widely scattered locations. Indeed, camps seemed just the right symbol of “the peace army” advocated by Williams James. Today, although orderliness and economy remain indispensable, residential centers for an updated Conservation and Rescue Service will have to reflect additional requirements. Training and education, sports and cultural pursuits will have to be recognized both in the physical layout of the centers and in the allocation of time in daily and weekly schedules. On the conceptual level, much can be learned from the millennial routines of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges where “dons” share dining halls with students and dwell with them under the same roof. The “house plans” of Harvard and Yale deliberately duplicate this pattern: “common rooms” encourage conviviality after meals; spaces are set aside for music and the arts; each House or College has a library; there are squash courts and other athletic facilities. Professor Manabu Nakagawa has compared the Harvard Houses - which he had known as a graduate student in Harvard’s Yenching Institute - to the famous condominiums of the Chinese Hakka, whose extended families still prefer to live in groups around a central court. The practice is not altogether unlike that of a few family cooperative corporations in France, where hundreds of the descendants of an original owner pool resources to maintain - and inhabit - a country estate. Young people might generate considerable enthusiasm for a lifestyle where they dine informally with foremen, teachers, local artisans, and others and where there is ready access to education in classrooms equipped for face-to-face instruction as well as “remote learning”. Professor Ernst Frankel and others at MIT have successfully taught - simultaneously - classes in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in Buenos Aires and Valparaiso! During their brief (6 months or a year) period of enrollment, volunteers will rightly wish to upgrade their skills and productivity and thereby ease their entry into a labor market where there are niches for both high-tech and low-tech abilities. That “low tech” is not to be shunted aside can be attested by the phenomenal success of the Hyde Park Culinary Academy established near FDR’s estate in New York’s beautiful Hudson River Valley. Ever since World War II, young people have been taught cooking there and job offers frequently pour in as soon as individuals are enrolled - long before graduation! I cite this “slice of history” to emphasize the variety of special capacities available in so much of the world’s countryside: ARS CELERE ARTEM. The new centers could usefully blend innovations fostered by precedents from a variety of settings and epochs:

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1. I owe to the noted librarian, Madame Eliasabeth Richard, my awareness of a 1996 volume, L’HydrauZique Monastique (published in the Collection entitled Rencontres Lc Royaumont, ISBN 2-907150-71-5). This book reminds us of the many technical services to agriculture and the environment contributed by volunteer religious communities. Clearly, a dedicated lifestyle does not preclude engineering progress and its consequent improvement of the social scene. 2. Dr Benton Mackaye, the Harvard-trained forester whose 1922 article in the magazine Architecture (still published in Washington, DC) led directly to authorization of the Appalachian Trail now trod by millions, proposed hostels at intervals along the trail. Each hostel was to have its own attached farm, growing wholesome garden crops and providing fresh dairy products for hikers. 3. Professor Peter Land was able to teach proprietors how to build their own homes in the Proyecto Experimental de1 Vivienda, a United Nationssponsored community on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. The initial volunteers in the Conservation and Rescue Service might, in similar vein, help build the first Centers! Such an apprenticeship in the construction industry would require close trades-union cooperation; should we not recall that FDR placed the entire administration of the CCC in the hands of the principal officers of the International Machinists Union? Is not such a step significant as we prepare for an imminent doubling of world population with commensurate demands on “the built environment”? 4. The Association Louis Armand encourages its supporters to identify “public works of international interest”. Among prospects under review, might one envisage an interlinking of the new Centers of the Conservation and Rescue Service (“CRS”?) by bikeways, hiking trails, bridle paths and, where topography and climate are propitious, crosscountry skiing and skating routes and even waterways for small boats? The above (preliminary) plethora of possibilities suggests an appropriate if very modest first step: a small group of talented architects should examine the physical layout of the centers, developing alternative conceptual plans which can be consulted and modified by the sponsoring agencies: contexts and objectives will vary, within the generally applicable guidelines. Recognizing that “circumstances alter cases,” one is nevertheless struck by the sheer ubiquitousness of youth unemployment. The April 7, 1994 International Herald Tribune featured an article forecasting a massive surge of unemployment in China and describing “a pool of 130 million surplus rural laborers.” Youth unemployment in Africa is said to approach fifty percent. Comparable trauma have been noticed in the States of the former Soviet Union and throughout Latin America. This suggests that every region has “good and sufficient cause” to seek and adapt models regardless of their origins. After, all, Lord Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts and Girl Guides - a British initiative - are now implanted in more than 60 sovereign countries.

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The California Model

In FDR’s CCC, we were paid 1 dollar per day. George F. Wi1114has pointed out that the high wage-scale of a current U.S. program, AmeriCorps, has had the consequence of restricting access to a small number of recruits. Meanwhile, the viable concept of a voluntary service with relatively low monetary rewards has been “proven out” in California; since its inception in 1976, more than 50 000 young men and women have passed through the ranks of the California Conservation Corps. In many respects the California Conservation Corps stands as a “role model.” Founded on the initiative of the American historian, the late Page Smith (who had been General Manager of Camp William James),15 crews of this post-war CCC were “legislatively mandated to respond to emergencies such as forest fires, earthquakes, floods and oil spills.” Section 14307 of the operative state statute provides that “Fire prevention, fire suppression, and disaster relief shall be a major emphasis.. . )) In its first generation of existence, the Corps “planted 19.6 million trees in both the wilderness and cities; cleared I061 miles of rivers and streams to improve fish habitat; built or reconstructed 3634 miles of trails; and devoted 10.6 million hours to enhancing parks.“16 An able public information officer” wrote, “We hire young men and women between the ages of 18 and 23. They receive minimum wage ($4.25/hour) with $285 deducted for room and board if they are in the residential program (we are about two-thirds residential). The cost per corps member, if we deduct the annual value of the reimbursed costs for the work they provide, is approximately $21,000.” During the fiscal year 1995-1996, approximately 1800 individuals served in the Corps. After having spent a full year in the California Conservation Corps, members can take advantage of a meaningful scholarship program. Thus, their training and record of service help them launch a career. In California, because enrollees were paid the prevailing minimum wage, the trade union constituency found the Corps no threat to the functioning of the labor market. Legitimate concerns for budgetary prudence have been fully met by the deduction from actual take-home pay of the expenses for housing, food, clothing and medical care. To give a rough idea of the financial framework and scope of the California program, its total budget amounted to $50 151000 for the N 1994-95. The funds were spent in the following manner: 40% for Corps-member wages; 26% for field staff wages; 18% for headquarter staff wages; 9% for field operating expenses; 7% for headquarters operating expenses.

The StatisticalProblem

There are worldwide human and environmental needs for a volunteer Conservation and Rescue Service. Europe’s seventeen million people out of work

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represent a persistent anachronism. Topsoil loss has been variously estimated, but it remains a sign&ant worldwide problem. Deforestation is a substantial and growing phenomenon. But the decision to launch one or more new institutions, especially if governmental or intergovernmental mandates are required, implies statistical demonstration that such an initiative will not constitute an additional charge on government budgets or on taxpayers. Although separate studies must be conducted in each national or regional context, it is appropriate to examine the views of Professor Edward Lusk of the Department of Statistics of the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) on the generic problem of financing such undertakings. In an August 1995 memorandum to the undersigned, he stated: Voluntaryserviceorganizationsof the type reviewed by MIT’s Dr. Frank P. Davidson have demonstrated time and again a reassuring ability to achieve their goals. As references triter alia we may cite the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Mkdecins Sans Frontikes, the between-the-wars Freiwilliger Arbeitsdiemt in Germany, the US Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, and the California Conservation Corps and its homologues today. Each of these successful programs, although unique, shares one common feature - the cost of the program measured in total societal input achieves at least a break-even relative to the production of societal goods.In the case of a Conservation and Rescue Service tailored to specific national contexts, a major consideration will be the impact (if any) on government budgets. The statistics for France, although not replicated identically elsewhere, may be regarded as ilhtstrative and instructive: there is a comparatively large break-even margin between the cost to government of a young person e7t cbhzage and the incremental cost of a conscript in the French Army. This margin, relative to the incremental cost, represents a factor of 2 to 1 which should enable such a program as the Conservation and Rescue Service to be successful under a wide-ranging set of alternative scenarios. Evident program robustness is an important feature in assuring the financial viability of the entire program network.Prudent cost engineering is warranted to optimize the design of a Conservation and Rescue Service in each national context. We recommend, therefore, that a few pilot sites be selected to confirm the current validity of statistical projections and to refine the organizational design. In a private communication

dated August 31, 1995, Professor David Gor-

don Wilson of MIT, wrote, “If one assumes that for every five people taken off the streets and into this service there would be two fewer in prison, which is costing perhaps $70 000 per year per inmate, and one fewer broken home, the benefit would be strilcing.“‘8 Transferring government payments to a new institution (such as the Conservation and Rescue Service hypothesized herein) will provide a challenge not only to accountants and policy-makers, but also to jurists. Professor Frankel, in his Report cited above, reminds us that: The cost of social and other supports of unemployed youth are difficult to determine because these costs include many sub-costs such as unemployment payments rent or housing support payments family support payments

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health insurance payments food subsidy payments transitional payments before and after a job relocation expenses These are over and above the costs of training and other measures designed to assure improvements in job skills and development of new jobs as described above. Taking all of these costs together, remembering that not all of them apply to all situations, we obtain the results shown in the following table:

Annual support No. of youth system unemployed cost/unemployed (000) France Germany Netherlands Italy UK Portugal Spain

$12,410 $5,280 $6,420 $9,020 $4,420 $3,800 $5,002

993 417 120 1,004 423 72 678

Total cost per country ($ millions) 12,323 2,202 770 9,056 1,869 354 3,391

Among all European countries, France not only spends most or $16.28 billion on unemployed youth or $16,394 per unemployed youth per year (1993) but the support and programs or measures seem to be among the least effective in Europe in terms of both employment and skill generation, while Germany which spends a paltry $3.34 billion total and $8,115 per unemployed youth, not only is able to maintain low youth unemployment but also add important young skills to its industry. Furthermore both the German and Dutch systems seem to have been able to foster respect and status for their training programs as well as discipline among the trainees. The economy of Germany and the Netherlands not only benefits from the savings in social and training costs, but actually adds to the domestic product by training young people for meaningful jobs and immediately employing them whereby they generate both real economic output and taxes. In fact, as noted before, the net economic benefits appear to surpass the economic costs and to generate a net economic addition.

Public or Private

(non-Profit)?

If the principle of such a service is accepted, the question arises as to its scope: national, regional or planetary? Further design choices revolve around the decision to form it within or among governments, or as an independent not-for-profit entity akin to the Boy Scouts or Girl Guides. There is an

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appreciable body of opinion, even within governmental circles, that political pressures will preclude the financial rigor needed for a viable service and that, for this reason alone, the non-governmental form of organization is to be preferred. Should the not-for-profit route be selected, the question of sponsorship becomes of critical importance. One could imagine - and very possibly assemble - a Patrons’ Committee consisting of retired and semi-retired luminaries. Whilst a leavening of wise heads is important to add stature to the initiative, the introduction of younger statesmen and captains of industry is important, too, as Clive Thomas has astutely commented. Those who allege that the young are too cynical to volunteer for legitimate public causes need to reexamine their own biases. Between the two World Wars of our century, hundreds of thousands of young Germans participated in a de-centralized Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst. Shortly after World War I ended, the Swiss teacher, Pierre Ceresol, brought together former German and French soldiers for reconstruction work at Verdun. History is replete with examples of large-scale volunteering: during the Middle Ages, more than 12 000 monasteries were constructed by the Benedictine Order. Bostonians have reason to be proud of the story of St Botolph, a Cistercian monk who showed the peasants of Lincolnshire how to drain and settle the fens - thereby founding the town of Boston (“Botolph’s town”) in England. And like its predecessor across the seas, the town of Boston, Massachusetts was largely built on reclaimed land: what is now known as Back Bay - the site of elegant residences, of Boston University, and of the Bibliotbkque Frangaise de Boston - had been a marsh! (Quite understandably, St Botolph is also the patron saint of Boston, Massachusetts.) While the general statistical conclusion - that funds now allocated to unemployment compensation and remedial vocational training would be sufficient to cover the costs of a new and comprehensive “service civile”, actual transfer of such funds will require intricate inter-agency negotiation and the steady support of political leaders! The desired result will no doubt involve immense difficulties. What impels the present essay is the increasingly widespread realization that the inefjcacy of present arrangements makes it imperative to develop new and better instrumentalities. In such an endeavor, it will be important to consult reputable and imaginative economists - such as Louis-Andre Gerard-Varet, Lester Thurow and James Tobin. Useful guidelines may be found in a report (to the October 1996 MIT Conference “MacroEngineering in the 21st Century”) entitled “Macro-Projects and the Environment by Renaud Abord de Chatillon and Hem-i Teissier du Cros. “armies” for Peace On the grand scale, Holland can be cited as the preeminent historic case for the convergence of volunteer civil prowess and macro-engineering! Sixty percent of The Netherlands represents land reclaimed from the sea. This example of nation-building by what William James unabashedly dubbed “a

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war against nature” stands, especially today, as a beacon of sanity in contrast with the wars of conquest which brought about the frontiers of so many present nation-states. That Thierry Gaudin,19 perhaps with this precedent in mind, summoned a major conference on “Ocean Cities,“*O seems to presage a new and beneficent field for volunteer human enterprises in the milIennium about to begin. Armies themselves have often been called upon to build civil infrastructure projects of varying scale. Does this indicate opportunities for a further convergence of military and civilian outlooks? Thierry Gaudin seems to think so. In an English translation (by Brigitte Le Moult) of 2100, Our Species’ Ou’yssey (see note ‘4, he remarked: On drawing up an inventory of their assignments, the realization dawns that the armed forces are in reality employed in civil protection tasks and policing the environment. They prevent petrol tankers discharging at sea, help put out large fires, and aid victims of catastrophes. Their “ah weather” emergency equipment while not perfect, is often the only appropriate equipment available in crisis. Are these assignments, previously seen as marginal and secondary, in the process of becoming the principal activity of the army? Can one imagine that the armed forces of different countries, competing for media attention, will hurry to provide assistance in earthquake or flood disaster areas and vie with each other to be quicker and more efficient, instead of waiting, armed to the teeth, in their barracks for a hypothetical enemy? Young conscripts find this a useful training and governments gain in popularity. After World War II, a Canadian regiment, The Fort Garry Horse, built a park without fanfare for the town of Doetinchem (Gelderland) prior to sailing for home. The remarkable political and environmental history of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Canal has been capably recounted in a recent volume*’ by the Curator of Engineering at the National Museum of American History. The environmental acumen of General Kenneth E. McIntyre, who managed this largest civil project of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, recalls the breadth of vision of Colonel G.W. Goethals, the engineer officer appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to direct construction of the Panama Canal. Going back further in the historical record, was not the whole basic road system of the Mediterranean World built by the Roman Army? In and conservation be a “tightly-coupled”** world, cannot infrastructure viewed as essentially “civil” turf, with cooperative agreements negotiated for specific services to be rendered by competent military engineers? What would a planet-wide Conservation and Rescue Service find to do? The question alone would be sufficient to justify one of those meticulously planned and brilliantly attended congresses which have been the hallmark of Monsieur Lucien Deschamps and the SEE.23 Let me at least confess to some personal preferences: alleviation of the plight of the Sahel by a substantial infrastructure of water supply (as recommended by the Rensselaerville Conference** chaired by the late Sir Robert G.A. Jackson, the first Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations); the design and construction of Ocean Cities or even provinces for displaced populations and industrial and

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recreational use; the reclamation of deserts and desert-prone land; and in a lighter vein, and subject to adequate arrangements for security and sustenance, the building of bikeways or sportsways from Montreal to Mexico, from Shanghai to Seoul and - when feasible - from Paris to Moscow! Little-known to the public is the circumstance that General George Catlett Marshall “earned his spurs” and won the admiration and friendship of “people in high places” by his sterling performance in the organization of the first CCC camps in the American Southeast!*’ There is thus an indelible progression from his care for young “chomeurs” on the verge of the outbreak of World War II to his historic speech at Harvard soon after the war ended, proposing what became the Marshall Plan. The World Bank is now piloted by a man of stature and conscience, the Australian-born James Wolfensohn. Is it not thinkable that there will one day be a World Commission on Large-Scale Programs, with the purpose of developing an intersectoral, interdisciplinary, international perspective on projects worthy of the joint efforts of private investors, government agencies, and youthful volunteers? What we are implying must be stated explicitly: the “advanced” countries need to become more fully aware of their capabilities - as well as their responsibilities! John Evans’ demonstration in November 1995 in Monaco*’ of the present capabilities of Telemedicine, makes it clear that effective medical assistance can now be delivered over distances that were, until very recently, prohibitive. Sequels of this demonstration have included widespread support for telemedicine in East Asia and Japan, thanks to initiatives of Professor Manabu Nakagawa and his able and distinguished colleagues. At the same time, in much of the “developing” world, there are ominous rumblings of ethnic and religious frustration. Is it not evident that the prolonged idleness of a younger generation growing ever more numerous is a major if unacknowledged contributing factor? There has been a notable failure to come up with comprehensive, future-oriented engineering concepts which merit and arouse the enthusiasm of the young! As the late Professor E.G. Schumacher taught us, in Small is Beautiful (titled and first published by Anthony Blond in London): “We need little projects and large projects it all depends on what you are trying to do.” That many large and small projects have failed is beyond dispute; as a former instructor in “Failure of Human Systems” at MIT, I hope I am not vulnerable to the charge of overoptimism! We must, however, treat our failures as “learning experiences” and move on! As Professor Peter Senge has rightly put it, institutions which survive and prosper have become “learning organizations.“*’

A Non-Trivial Initiative Can there be a concerted, intersectoral campaign to impart a new elan to the international “war against poverty”? Bearing in mind the essential and primary role of the private sector, are there projects whose long-term payout

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makes purely private investment unlikely (unless there are government guarantees) and that would justifiably capture the imagination of the young while conforming to the criteria of an older and (by definition) more “experienced” generation? It is not a conundrum which will yield to the habits of “business as usual.” Paul-Marc Henry, an Ambassadeur de France who directed, with distinction, the United Nations Development Program, has summarized the urgency of magnanimous international action: L’intelligence humaine et ses capacites d’innovation, sur le plan de l’individu comme sur celui du groupe, doivent se mettre, de man&e urgente, au service dune economic d’aide mutuelle qui respecterait l’identite essentielle et la Iegitimite des allegeances familiales, ethniques, politiques, ou religieuses, nourries d’un passe millenaire. Dans cette tPche immense, L’Occident ne peut pas s’en remettre a la main invisible de l’economie du marche ou tout simplement au temps comme un alIiC. Le temps n’est plus l’allie de L’Occident, il est devenu son ennemiz9 Dr Huessy’s words, heard today:

written

in 1945, strike a note which

should be

... as against the passive, civilian hopeless definition of a man as “playing with ideas” in college, or as “being employed” via the CCC, Camp William James stood for the experience of the soldier, that it is he, after all, who guarantees and remakes his country. Woodrow Wilson said, before the First World War, that if people would live in peace-time as though it were war, war would become unnecessary. This same thought was in WilliamJames’ mind when he wrote, “As long as we have not found means of living during peace as though we were at war, wars must have their way.“3o Not everyone, of course, need endorse such a paean to the martial virtues. There are, however, numerous situations in civilian life which provide equivalents to the stresses of warfare: a fireman entering a burning building to rescue a child; a surgeon making hfe-ordeath decisions in the operating room; an entrepreneur investing lifelong savings in a new product not yet built or tested. But Huessy’s main point is inescapable: the “seriousness” Zes&eux - with which affluent societies regard the misfortunes of others. For many years I have read with admiration the annual books published by the French Government on the Amhzagement du Territoire - a result of the intersectoral consultations carried out by Le Plan. Paralleling these systematic studies are the meticulous and beautifully crafted atlases pub lished by Jean-Pierre de Monza, describing France’s coastline, interior, industries, and infrastructure. Must we not now “raise our sights” and look at the whole planet as a potential subject for “terraforming”? Dr Elie Shneour and his fellow biophysicists and bio-chemists3’ can provide credible advice on the re-seeding of deserts, the protection of forestlands, the defense and amelioration of pastures. Cannot the considerable and enduring achievements of the CCC be repeated in country after country? In North America itself, where are the long-range plans to reestablish the lowered watertable

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of the Ogalalla Aquifer? Have we forgotten the brilliant proposal of Professor Tom Kierans of the University of Newfoundland for the building of a large freshwater lake in James Bay as a source of potable water for the midcontinent and without reducing Canada’s water resource by so much as a drop? In all countries, adversarial requirements of electoral politics must, at some point, yield to the common interest in public-private cooperation on major programs of insistent public interest. I take it as a harbinger of improved internal communications that Newt Gingrich in his book, To Renew America specifically advocated “a series of commissions” - “in order to encourage innovation and discovery.“32 This suggestion reminds me of the plea by Harvard’s President-Emeritus A. Lawrence Lowell when, speaking to the undergraduate editors of The Harvard Guardian, he urged that “debating societies” be replaced by “agreement societies.” In real life, said Mr Lowell, most politicians spend more of their time trying to reach agreement in committees than in assailing adversaries on the hustings! In an interconnected world, even reputable systems analysts have an obligation to avoid the pitfalls of trivial pursuits. Perhaps the medieval instinct for identifying issues of preemptive significance, linked by RosenstockHuessy with the phrase unum necessarium,33 is again appropriate. Could Joseph Debanne’s “Trans-Mediterranean Aqueduct”“* to double the arable land of North Africa by ducting a portion of the Rhone River across the Mediterranean Sea, have improved inter-group confidence and cooperation in Algeria? Where is the latterday Henry IV, Le Rkconciliateur so poignantly celebrated in Francois Bayrou’s text?35 People count. Even the best blueprints for soil restoration and for a massive volunteer service to implement plans, will come to nought unless dedicated and capable people “put their shoulders to the wheel.” This lesson has been driven home in the recent and remarkable treatise, “Mobilizing the Organization,” by Litwin, Bray and Brooke.36 Nor dare we “rest our case” with a recital of the statistics of unemployment, the impacts of drought, and the reach of natural disasters. As Christoph von Braun re-stated it in his landmark article “Numbers - Magic and Mania,“” “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Emotion, passion and - yes - religion, must be welcomed as legitimate and necessary allies of science if the old vision of a compassionate and cooperative planet is to find its reflection in the infrastructure and institutions of tomorrow.

Institution-Building The Hon. Robert O’Brien, recently elected vice president representing the Americas in the General Assembly of the UN’s CCIVS, in a personal memoir, expressed it crisply: Although individuals make great and essential contributions to keeping everyday life functioning, on rare occasions very creative people have... aroused a collective

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response that in time led to structural changes in society. These became new institutions.. . Here we are groping to find a way toward the founding of a new institution of Planetary Service to meet some of the needs of the Planetary Age which we are entering. Responsibly thought through, it is not beyond belief that a Conservation and Rescue Service of planetwide dimensions could win the sympathy and support of the World Bank. This suggests that a sponsoring or preparatory committee, as outlined earlier, will be challenged to involve bankers, environmental scientists and management counsel of the highest calibre, so that programs which emerge reflect the best thinking available on the planet! It will take more than a few interdisciplinary meetings: just as President Franklin D. Roosevelt forestalled trade union opposition to the CCC by appointing high officials of the International Machinists’ Union to administer it, so will it be the better part of wisdom for “starry-eyed” if unselfish volunteers to consult with experienced accountants, lawyers and advertising executives! Here is a ripe case for informal discussions that involve groups as divergent as The Nature Conservancy and the associations for MacroEngineering; the organizations of the construction industry and the not-forprofit bodies that promote recreational trails, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and an improved agriculture. Industry statesmen such as Cordell Hull and John W. Landis; specialists on the psychology and philosophy of William James (such as Harvard Medical School’s Dr Eugene Taylor); authorities on the management of inter-ethnic accommodation, such as Professor Philip Harris, Dr Florence H. Davidson, and Dr Cynthia Oudejans-Harris; knowledgeable professionals in public relations, such as London’s Clive Thomas (an outstanding former president of the International Advertising Council) - all need to be taken seriously at the outset, and not after ambitious and costly plans are “cast in concrete”! Just as the modest and astute banker, the late Thomas Stilwell Lamont put together - with a few telephone calls - the essential team which made possible the initial finance and construction of the tunnel between England and France, so must a major effort to dispel the inertia and confusion of “the international community” with regard to youth unemployment be sponsored by individuals who have earned widespread trust and admiration. When Janet Caristo-Verrill, who as a recent Oxford graduate had served with The Peace Corps in Africa, suggested 38 that unemployed young people in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union could benefit themselves and their homelands by joining a conservation service, 39 she was told that this was an excellent idea - but how could it be paid for? A similar but less justifiable reaction has been implicit in the immobilisme of more affluent societies whose leaders seem to be convinced that they cannot “afford” to deal with chronic unemployment of the young. There is no shortage of institutional models, if one is willing to read some history. There is a considerable intellectual tradition that can furnish guidelines and a rationale. It has been said that half the trees planted in the United States since its independence were put in place by enrollees of the Civilian

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Conservation Corps. At a time when ecological concerns are again “front and center,” would it not be prudent to hearken to the advice of the late Professor Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, who taught his students to regard the unemployed as “the reserves of an army,” to be deployed at critical times for tasks beyond the scope of the market economy or of conventional official programs? We have managed to confuse ourselves as well as others by simplistically misstating the nature of our society. Neither Europe nor Japan nor the United States are adequately characterized as “market economies.” Statistical surveys disclose a substantial - some would say an embarrassingly large public sector! And in many countries there is a surprisingly vigorous “notfor-profit” sector as well. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities; the Battelle Memorial Institute, and the Massachusetts General Hospital are, in stark financial terms, multibillion dollar entities. Volunteer contributions of time and money reach a tally of many billions of dollars per month, a fact rarely cited when “advanced societies” describe their own “economies,” Private self-interest, however legitimate and consonant with the public weal, has never been the exclusive basis on which great communities are built and sustained; an ethic of service is a necessary “pillar of the state,” now as in the heyday of the Roman Republic.

The Intellectual

Tradition

The concept of a Conservation and Rescue Service was an outgrowth of a series of philosophical disquisitions dating from the early years of the present century. In 1906 the Harvard philosopher William James gave a lecture at Stanford University entitled “The Moral Equivalent of War.” James expressed his proposal in these terms: If now - and this is my idea - there were instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustices would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would follow. The military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the people.. . Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would have required it... would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily.. . So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.*’

In 1912 Eugen Rosenstock, the youngest professor in Germany wrote his essay, A Peace Witbin,*l recommending that the German Imperial Army set aside certain engineering units for the execution

of designated civil works.

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I? P. DavidSon

(In one of history’s strange coincidences, it was the author of this essay who, as a teacher at Dartmouth College prior to the United States’ entry into World War II, inspired recent graduates of Dartmouth and Harvard to form Camp William James as a new model for the evolution of the Civilian Conservation Corps.) Franklin D. Roosevelt had been a Harvard undergraduate when James taught there as a professor of philosophy and psychology. FDR, hereditary squire of a beautiful estate at Hyde Park, New York, knew the countryside intimately. Like his Republican cousin, the earlier President Theodore Roosevelt, FDR was a convinced conservationist; as President of the United States, one of his conspicuous tasks was to reduce the ravages of the “dust bowl” that so tragically and visibly deprived millions of farm families of their livelihoods. After an Executive Order established the CCC, as Janet Car&o-Verrill reported, “Within an astonishing three weeks,.. . training facilities were in place to receive the first of over two million men to serve within a 9-year period in increments of 250 000 per year.” The Corps, however, improvised under the pressure of the clamor for the rapid relief of youth unemployment, initially failed to meet William James’ insistence that “our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the chiIdishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and sob erer ideas.” It took the personal intervention of the President of the United States for a group of Harvard and Dartmouth students to be accepted in the CCC. Only after Camp William James had decisively demonstrated that young men from all walks and conditions of life could work together in harmony and with enthusiasm was the humiliating “means test” abandoned - the test which had demanded of all applicants that they establish their indigence as a precondition to acceptance in the Corps! Suppression of this bit of paperasserie was not expected instantly to transform the recruitment base of the Corps; but it did make “the Peace Army” - like the Army itself - an open organization hospitable to all young men of requisite age and not a labelled repository for the rejected and the disadvantaged. In European terms, “l’exclusion” was, itself, excluded! Twenty years after World War II ended, Charles Page Smith persuaded California to be the first State to launch its own Conservation Corps. An earlier lineal descendant of this series of initiatives was President John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps. In 1992, the Hon. O.G. Stoner, retired Secretary of the Canadian Cabinet, proposed a “North American Conservation Corps” as a “small is beautiful” step toward an eventual planetary service corp~.~* In 1948, UNESCO founded a Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS). It now boasts a membership of 121 associations: 34 in Africa, 11 in the Americas, 25 in Asia, 40 in Europe, and 11 characterized as “international.” The able Director, Nigel Watt is British; the devoted and energetic Assistant Director, Patrick Duong, is French, with a Vietnamese background. CCIVS is recognized by the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization: it is a low-budget operation with the advantages (but also the disadvantages) attendant upon identification with the UN system.

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It was Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy who delivered the first book-length brief for a “Planetary Service Corps.” Written in Vermont, it was first published by W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart, in 1965, with the title, Dienst auf dem Planeten. Translated into English by Mr Mark Huessy and by Freifrau Dr Freya von Moltke, an American edition*’ appeared in 1978 under the auspices of The Norwich Center (established by Clinton Gardner, a Camp William James veteran who initiated - before the fall of Gorbachev - visits back and forth between Vermont and Muscovite families.) On the intellectual level, the Japanese are perhaps more ready than any other national group to understand the nature of the crisis. As Louis Armand aptly pointed out in his preface to the European edition of “European Challenge”:** Le Japon est incontestablement le pays qui s’est le plus inspirt des connexions mondiales de l’konornie pour son adaptation P l’kpoque modeme, son dkveloppement sur un contexte planktaire.

An Infrastructure

et qui a fond6

for Disaster Relief

Indeed, it was on the initiative of the Macro-Engineering Group of Nippon that an exploratory series of seminars was held in Massachusetts (1993) and in France (1994) to review opportunities for global cooperation on a very few selected issues. A topic that aroused deep interest was the potential for establishing a “rapid deployment force” to bring medical and rehabilitation assistance to remote communities threatened by natural or human-induced disasters. The Japanese delegation was led by Professor Manabu Nakagawa, former Dean of Economics of Hitotsubashi University. It was this Faculty of Economics which wrote the Japan Economic Development Plan after World War II! Professor Nakagawa, more recently, served as Acting President of the University - and resumed his former post as Coach of the Crew which represented Japan in the light-weight world championship regatta in Bled, Yugoslavia, and the Head of the Charles Race in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The productive discussions in Cambridge and Paris owed much to a remark by Professor Ernst G. Frankel that relocatable hospitals of improved design could be floated to offshore sites, and later deployed elsewhere as required. But that well-stated “needs” do not always result in “programs” was confirmed when copies of a paper, written by Dr Anthony R. Michaelis in 1972, arrived and were distributed. “Disasters, Past and Future” had been the topic of a well-attended lecture before The Royal Army Medical Corps Training Centre, Lytchett, Hampshire, England.45 Dr Michaelis, a biochemist then serving as Science Correspondent of London’s Daily Telegraph, had pleaded for establishment of an International Rescue Organization. In 1995, at a small ceremony held in Paris at the Cercle de Z’Union InteraZZike, Dr Michaelis’ prescience was recognized by the conferring on him (a whole generation after his original proposal!) of The Benton Mackaye Award. Dr Mackaye, the Harvard-trained forester whose 1922 article in the magazine Architecture had led directly to establishment of The Appalachian Trail,

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remains a well-chosen symbol of the two threads which together make up the concept of a Conservation and Rescue Corps. A senior official of the U.S. Forest Service, he visited and befriended Camp William James when it rejoined the non-profit sector in Tunbridge, Vermont, after its path-breaking service as a “new model” CCC camp at Sharon. Dr Michaelis blazed a new intellectual trail with his concept of a special organization to serve in cases of natural catastrophes. One practical difficulty remained: their intermittency and hence the near-impossibility of predicting when and where the next disaster would strike! Extensive consultations with such authorities as Professor Philippe Bernard (for many years head of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Ecole Polytechnique) led to the concept of a Conservation and Rescue Service. If a “planetary” framework were adopted and fleshed out, young people at ecological worksites all over the globe would be instantly available as “ready reserves” whenever and wherever disaster might strike! Indeed, this idea of a Planetary Conservation and Rescue Service won the endorsement - subject to appropriate further steps - of Dr Michaelis, whose 20-year service as founder-editor of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews made him an advocate of world stature. The topic was also discussed with Monsieur Jean-Marc Pottiez, a distinguished writer, teacher, and diplomat who has lived and worked on four continents, and with Ma”itreHenri Teissier du Cros46 and Monsieur Alain Dupas4’ who have established an association to commemorate and extend the humanitarian accomplishments of the late Louis Armand. Eminent members of Monsieur Armand’s family - Professor Jean-Louis Armand and Monsieur Maurice Armand - have joined in this effort, along with Madame Anne Faure and the dynamic engineer, Marie-Gabrielle Verdier. During one of the Cambridge poulparlers, Dame Margaret Joan Anstee visited the MIT Museum to unveil a bas relief designed and executed by the eminent sculptor, Joseph Erhardy, in memory of the late Sir Robert G.A. Jackson. Hearing of the meetings concerned with solving the rapid deployment problems of disaster relief efforts, Dame Margaret promptly and pointedly observed that Sir Robert had himself argued for establishment of a United Nations agency capable of better focusing the resources of the international organization in dealing with natural disasters! Dame Margaret herself was a recipient of the William James 1910 Award, one of several testimonies to her brilliant and courageous services during the dangerous eighteen months of her incumbency as Head of the UN Mission to Angola.

Conservation and Engineering: Preparation for WorZd Citizens of the Next Century

A Conservation and Rescue Service, developed on an international or planetwide basis, should not be thought of as a “low-tech” stopgap. Not only can

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enrollees be given every opportunity to improve their general education as part and parcel of the program; high tech” should be included in the curriculum wherever it is sensible to do so. The demonstration of Telemedicine by John Evans and his team at the Ocean Cities ‘95 Conference sponsored by Fondation 2100 presages a future where the best medical advice and methods can be deployed, whenever disaster strikes in remote areas of the globe. Enrollees of the new Conservation and Rescue Service would doubtless be trained in the technologies of transmission and computation germane to the extension of Telemedicine capabilities to the entire planet. By a sustained program of Cooperative Agreements, @icacious vocational training must rate as an essential and high priority feature of the Service. We are perhaps less than a generation away from the first economic demonstration of the transmission of solar power via microwave to deserts where electrical power is a first requirement if sufficient water is to be pumped - from underground or, if need be, from regions with surplus water. Participation in a Conservation and Rescue Service appropriately designed and managed should offer, therefore, an apprenticeship - for lowtech and for high-tech - as well as the adventure and satisfaction of meeting evident and pressing human needs. The existence of such a Service would make it realistic to plan an eventual “ever-normal water supply” on a planetwide basis. It must be remembered that the original CCC was set up under the impact of a dire emergency, and that lessons must be learned from subsequent experience and amendments. Two must be kept in mind: first, the need to open enrollment to all qualified young people, whether “employed” or “unemployed”; second, there must be a written and widely distributed legal code (all armies have codes of military justice) to govern relationships of enrollees with the administration of the service. The young volunteers must have opportunities to participate as partners in the enterprise (just as local communities will characteristically be encouraged to have a voice in project selection). In short, there must be an effort to bring the entire institution into the spirit of a “learning organization” - and the rights and duties of members of the service must be spelled out in a model code, the drawing up of which will require a special effort by laymen and lawyers of outstanding character, competence, and experience. Projects should be favored that are worthy of the sacrifices of all who are devoting time and resources to the Service. Undertakings must have palpable value to the communities and regions directly affected - and the localities in turn must be closely involved in their planning and execution. Helena Norberg-Hodge’s decade-long cooperation with traditional villages in Ladakh has demonstrated the validity of choosing appropriate technologies that help preserve harmonious patterns of community and family life. Advantage must be taken of new, promising technological developments such as the invention, by Alexander Gorlov,48 of a low-head hydro scheme that may soon make it feasible to obtain electrical power from thousands of small streams - and without killing any fish! And it is not unlikely that, within

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ten years, a new infrastructure will be approved for the wireless transmission of electricity - an early step in implementing Dr Peter Glaser’s design for solar power satellites - thus permitting isolated desert communities to obtain the energy resources necessary to move that most precious of aridland commodities, water. For regions like the Sahel, plagued by recurrent droughts, the correct and compassionate approach is not “a little water,” but a lot of water. Today’s and tomorrow’s young men and women will wish their labor to be supplemented by modern machinery eventually including the “megamachines” sketched by MIT’s brilliant former student, Antoine Khawand. The productivity of an up-to-date Conservation and Rescue Service is apt to be greater than that of its earlier homologues. Its more ambitious enrollees will be initiated into the mysteries of mathematics and machinery as well as into the experience of “healthy outdoor labor.” If society is in the throes of a long-term mutation whereby machines replace workers on an ever-increasing scale, it is conceivable that opinion will veer in the direction of a year of public service, structurally added to the educational curriculum. I owe to Jean-Claude Huot, a Fellow of the American Society of Cost Engineers, the following comment by Professeur RenC Passet, Director of the Center “Economic-Espace-Environnement” of Paris University:

L’augmentation du chomage va de pair avec la croissance... Les reductions d’effectifs deviennent alors un moyen normal de gestion.. . Ne sommes-nous pas en train d’assister, dam l’espace d’un temps tres bref, peut&re une generation, P un remplacement presque total de l’homme par la machine?... Au carrefour oti l’histoire hesite entre l’epanouissement des hommes et la tragedie, tout est a reinventer. Et on nous dit que cette epoque n’est pas favorable a l’imagination...49 The concept of a Conservation and Rescue Service, planetary, regional, or national, has now had a long period of philosophical gestation, followed by a series of limited-scope prototypes (the CCC, the Peace Corps, et aZ.).50 This leaves wide open the various entrepreneurial efforts which must now take place, and their detailed preparation and analysis. Those who are tempted to be “mid-wives” at the birth can - and this may be just as well write their own job descriptions. For success in life, human beings must learn both to compete and to cooperate. A year of service will augment the skills and independence of individuals destined for the competitive areas of commerce, industry, and the professions. Equally, it will provide a useful experience of teamwork and of the spirit of public service needed by society “to keep the show on the road.” The world public will accord an appropriate Conservation and Rescue Service the kind of confidence inspired by the Corps des Ponts et Chausst?es in France or the Waterstaat in Holland.

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As a practical matter, what can be done now? Two quite compatible initiatives suggest themselves. On the ofJiciaZ level, an upcoming summit meeting of the OECD countries could establish a modest Secretariat to report on the juridical and management steps needed to establish a Conservation and Rescue Service, worldwide in its reach. The recent OECD interest in expanding telemedicine services bodes well for this approach. On the nongovernmental level, a major conference could be called in order to establish a continuing body that would implement and supervise a not-for-profit Conservation and Rescue Service. This step would demonstrate the eventual utility of a World Commission on Large-Scale Programs (perhaps affiliated with the IBRD - the World Bank).” The offering of a year of public service to millions of youth can, with adequate cost engineering, be accomplished without net expense to governments and taxpayers. Such an undertaking would add to individual and national productivity, improve public health, reduce social and environmental problems, and contribute to the wealth and happiness of nations.52 Youth unemployment is not necessary.

Notes 1. J.-M. Pottiez, Feather 2. As Richard Wexler 3.

4.

5.

6.

Fall, (London: expressed

Chatto and Wlndus,

it in an OpEd

1994).

piece New York Times, (March

18, 1995).

p. 2.3,

‘Institutions for the poor are almost always poor institutions.” “Le taux de chomage des jeunes (de moms de 25 ans) est le double de celui des adultes,” according to the White Paper entitled “Croissance, Competitivite, Emploi” published in 1994 by the European Commission. In a well-researched essay, “Restoring value to the world’s degraded lands,” published in &fence, Vol. 269, (July 21, 1995), pp. 350-354, Gretchen D. Daily states, “The extent of soil degradation induced by human activity since 1945 was evaluated as... 2 billion ha, or 17% of Earth’s vegetated land, in a recent study sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).” Stanislas Wicherek wrote a masterly article, “L’Emsion des Grandes Plaines Agricoles,” pp. 881-888 in La Recherche, (September 1994). He reported (p. 886): “Le cout annuel de l’irosion en Europe de 1’Ouest est estime par J. De Ploey dans les armies 1990 a dix milliards de francs francais, sans compter la valeur propre du sol qu’il est impossible de chiffrer... 11 n’est pas rare d’observer une erosion qui peut atteindre trente a’ cinquante tonnes per hectare par an.” He concludes (p. 888). “le coQt de l’erosion (perte de productivite a court et long terme des terms &c&es) et le cout de la lutte antikrosive ont ete peu integres dans les decisions politiques.” Noelle Grunelius cites a recent text published by the Fonahtfonde France, “Territoires Degrades, Quelles Solutions?” as evidence that western Europe has its own catalog of environmentally-threatened landscapes. CF. von Braun, in an informal English version (unpublished) of his important Der InnovationsKrieg (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1994) asserts (p. 326) “We know that the damages resulting from natural disasters, especially climate-induced (i.e., man-made) catastrophes such as hurricanes, cyclones, floods, etc., are on the rise, even in traditionally temperate zones such as Europe. One reason is that there are more frequent disasters. Another is that the density of values and properties in an increasingly populated and industrialized world is growing. A hurricane today will therefore have more harmful consequences both in terms of lost lives and health, as well as damaged physical and social structures than the same hurricane did a few decades ago. Since there is little reason to believe that this trend will suddenly end, there should be ample opportunities for the development of technologies for disaster readiness, mitigation management, rehabilitation, and prevention.” E.W. Bovill, The Golden Trade of the Moors (London: Oxford University Press, 1958 and 1970).

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7. For a useful review of civilian service programs in various countries, see Donald Eberly and Michael Sherraden (eds.), The Moral Equfvalent of War: A Study of Non-Mflftary Servfce in Nfne Nations (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990). 8. Le Ffgaro, (Paris, September 4, 1994) p. 4-B, summarizing Louis Harris poll. 9. Le Figaro Magazine, (July 12, 1991), article by Guy Sorman, “Voici Pouquoi Les Jeunes Allemands Ne Choment Pas,” pp. 24 and 25. 10. Le Ffgaro, (Paris, September 20, 1994 and September 21, 1994). Full-page articles by Valery Giscard d’Estaing, former President of France, “Pour un retour au pleinemploi.” 11. According to Z%e European, (IO-16 June 1994) p. 1 of “Business and Economics,” there were 19 million unemployed in Europe 12. Jacques Chirac, Une Nouvelle France, p. 20. Nil Editions, (Seuil, 1994). 13. According to an informal inquiry by Jean-Marc Pottiez, the “Cotit global du cofit d’entretien annuel par appele” totals (except for the more expensive categories) 14,000 to 20,080 francs. Monthly payments are 503 francs to each recruit. 14. George F. Will, “Sprawling, Metastasizing, Undisciplined, Approaching Self-Parody,” International Herald Trfbune, January 30, 1995, p. 4: “The minimum wage is now $4.25 an hour... Americorps ‘volunteers’ earn more than $7.00 an hour... Mr Clinton’s ‘volunteers’ will be paid a $7400 annual stipend, plus $9430 worth of college expenses over two years.” 15. Page Smith refers to the genesis of Camp William James in his monumental People’s Hfstoly of the United States (New York McGraw Hill, 1987) Vol. 8, p. 843. 16. Lines quoted from a brochure available from the California Conservation Corps, 1530 Capitol Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95814. A videocassette about the Corps, introduced by the late Page Smith, may be purchased from the Corps’ offices at the same address. 17. Susanne Levitsky. 18. This view was echoed by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York “Today, a greater proportion of our citizens are imprisoned than in any other industrialized country in the world, and the per capita cost of building and operating prisons already exceeds the cost of education in

many states.” From 44th Street Notes, (September 1994) Vol. 9, no. 7. 19.2100, r&it duprocbain sikle was published in 1990 by Editions Payot, Paris, under the supervision of Thierry Gaudin, an Ingenieur-General a% Mfnes who for a decade (1982-1992) was virtually the official Futurist of France: he created and managed the Centre de Prospective et d’Evaluation at the Ministry for Research in Paris. His books have been best-sellers, and the Fondutfon 2100 which he founded and heads has launched major annual conferences devoted to specific aspects of the world of the future. 20. The Ocean Cities ‘95 brochure is available through SEE, 48 rue de la Procession, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France. The sponsor, Fondation 2100, has its headquarters at 47 rue des Vignes, 60190 Montiers, France. 21. Dr Jeffrey K. Stine, MLxing the Waters: Envfronment, Politics, and the Bufldfng of the Tennessee Tombfgbee Watenvay (Akron: The University of Akron Press, 1993). 22. A phrase often used by Professor Jay W. Forrester, founder of System Dynamics and inventor of the memory core of the digital computer. 23. See Societe des Electriciens et des Electroniciens. 24. The Conference was held in December 1985 at the Rensselaerville Institute, Rensselaerville, New York 12147, and was attended, among others, by J. Vincent Harrington (the famous submarine engineer); Dr JeanClaude Huot, Fellow of the American Society of Cost Engineers; Hitoshi Kawata of the Osaka municipal engineering staff; Dr Uwe Kitzinger, the President of Templeton College, Oxford; Barbara Moffet of the National Geographic; Dr Oumar Nabe, a project manager with wide experience ln Africa; Sara Jane Neustadtl, author of Movfng Mountains; Professor Manabu Nakagawa, Chairman of the Japan Association for MacroEngineering; Mr William Reinhardt of the Engfneerfng News Record, Dr Michael Nelson, staff scientist of the House Budget Committee (Washington, DC); Caleb King (now a medical doctor); Dr Nathan Forrester; Carol Verburg (playwright); Roger Blais (the Quebec communications impresario); and Captain William Boharmon (US Navy, retired). 25. “Sportsways” were defined and depicted in a concept drawing by Joan Joos commissioned by the MIT MacroEnglneerlng Research Group. The recommended design includes meandering surface paths for cycling, hiking, and horseback tiding as well as a right-of-way for palleted automated transit (a system invented by Professor David Gordon Wilson for fail-safe, non-polluting and quiet automotive transit); an underground tunnel system for public utilities would provide the cash flow for the facilities on the surface - following the precedent of a California State Park where recreation paths are “bankrolled” by water mains “below decks.”

A Conservation

and Rescue Service?

26. See In the Time of the Americans by Professor David Fromkin, Chairman, Department national Law and Relations, Boston University (New York A.A. Knopf, 1995), p. 336.

441 of Inter-

27. Nice Math, (November 22, 1995) p. 8. 28. P.M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1990). 29. La Force des Fafbles (Paris: Editions Entente, 1975), pp. 17 and 18. 30. From a letter to Dan Goldsmith (later the Rev. Dan Goldsmith of Stow and Killington, Vermont), cited on pp. 222 and 223 in Professor Jack Preiss’ definitive history of Camp William James. (Norwich, VT: Argo Books, 1978) (now available through Mark and Frances Huessy, “Thistles,” RR No.2, Box 36A, Jericho, VT 05465). 31. Dr Elie Shneour is Director, Biosystems Research Institute, San Diego, California. He is a member of various French and American scientific commissions. 32. N. Gmgrich, To Renew America (New York: Harper Collins, 1995) p. 60. 33. The concept of the unum necessarium was elucidated by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy in his classic work, Out of Revolution. (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1938) p. 719. 34. “Proposal for a Tram+Mediterranean Aqueduct,” Technology Review, (October/November 1975) pp. 49 et seq. 35. Francois Bayrou, Hem-i N, Le Roi Libre
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have comparable environmental crises! The whole question of projects which are necessuty and can therefore inspire a justified confidence in the Service needs to be reviewed systematically and professionally. (The category of “necessity” depends, of course, on one’s optfque or weltanschauung. Was the Suez Canal “necessary”?) 52. UNESCOpublished, in 1995, a useful handbook, “NationalService, What Are the Choices?” in collaboration with GRRP (Groupe de Rechercbe pour I’Educution et la Prospective).

Addendum Monsieur Roger Coste, a well-known leader in the recreation industry, suggests commissioning an fnventufre of projects suitable for a Conservation and Rescue Service. Pinpointing the wealthcreating impact of work by “the third sector”, Philippe Seguin remarked, on page 134 of En Attendant I’Emploi, Editions du Se&l, Paris 1996, “...il s’agit de transfere vem ce nouveau secteur la masse mon&aire considerable consacree au traitement du chomage, et qui revient a subventionner p&s de 6 millions d’inactifs; transfefer cette masse, en somme, en masse salariale.”Another useful overview of the employment situation, for both young and old, has appeared in the 1996easay by Joseph F. Coates, “Reworking Work: Tough Times Ahead”, in Annals, AAPS, page 544.