A presentation by the 1818 Society Social and Environment Thematic Group
Please join us for our next seminar with Chuck Weiss, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University, and former Science and Technology Adviser at the Bank. Chuck will present his recent book The Survival Nexus: Science, Technology and World Affairs, with a special emphasis on scientific, technological, economic, business, political and diplomatic aspects of two of the issues explored in his book: climate change and “frugal technology” – technological innovation specifically aimed at a problem of low-income or otherwise disadvantaged people.
Chair: Reidar Kvam, co-chair, Social and Environment Thematic Group
Seminar summary: In his talk, Chuck will explore the scientific, technological, economic, business, political and diplomatic aspects of two of the issues explored in his book: climate change and “frugal technology” – technological innovation specifically aimed at a problem of low-income or otherwise disadvantaged people. Both of these issue hinge on ethical issues: how much cost, risk and inconvenience we are willing to accept today to minimize the cost and risk to future generations, and how much investment and effort we are willing to invest to assure the benefits of technology to low-income and otherwise marginalized people today.
Book brief: Chuck’s Book, The Survival Nexus: Science, Technology and World Affairs (Oxford University Press, 2022) explores the interweaving of science and technology with politics, economics, finance, business, law, business, ethics and popular psychology. Written for a general audience, it explains the scientific, economic and political concepts underlying each of the issues that it treats: infectious disease, global health, manufacturing employment, poverty, climate change, Internet governance, cybersecurity, nuclear weapons (including autonomous weapons and hypersonic missiles), geoengineering and gene drivers.
Speaker bio: Charles (“Chuck”) Weiss is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Chuck was the first Science and Technology Adviser to the Bank, and held that position from 1971-85. He was instrumental in creating the intellectual foundation for Bank support to science and technology, in launching Bank financing of industrial technology, household energy, remote sensing, and low-cost “appropriate” technology, and in securing the appointment of the Bank’s first Sociology Adviser.
After leaving the Bank, he consulted in international science, technology and environment policy, and taught at Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State. In 1997, he joined the Georgetown faculty, directed the undergraduate program in Science, Technology and International Affairs until 2006, and continued to teach in that program until his retirement in 2014.
He is the author of The Survival Nexus: Science, Technology and World Affairs, co-author of Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution and Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors, and co-editor of Mobilizing Technology for Development and Technology, Finance and Development. He has a B.A., summa cum laude from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in chemical physics and biochemistry, also from Harvard.
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