3 October 5-7 December

"Paths to sustainable development" is the first of three events that compose the 1996 edition of "Ten Nobels for the Future", devoted to analysing the major conflicts of contemporary society.
Progress in research and its technological applications has solved some of the problems of an increasingly global economy and society. But this very progress can in turn threaten the environment and give rise to unemployment, migratory flows and new forms of social exclusion.
Hence our understanding that we must find ways to transform conflict into an occasion for interaction, growth and innovation: the characteristics of all development.
The relationship between energy, innovation and the environment is a principal source of strong social tensions. How can we produce and save or recover energy while acceding to the desire to preserve or improve the quality of life of a steadily increasing world population and at the same time safeguard the natural environment?
Some of the world's leading experts in the sector gathering in Milan address these issues, illustrating the results of the most advanced research and the prospects for the future.
The Acceleration of History
Thursday 6 June 1996
The pace of change in our world is speeding up, accelerating to the point where it threatens to overwhelm the management capacity of political leaders. This acceleration of history comes not only from advancing technology, but also from unprecedented world population growth, even faster economic growth, and the increasingly frequent collision between expanding human demands and the limits of the earth's natural systems.

History is not about the status quo; it is about change. Throughout most of the time since civilization began, the agents of change worked slowly. But since mid-century, the pace of change has been breathtaking.

Today, it is difficult to grasp the sheer magnitude of human population growth. Those of us born before 1950 have seen more population during our lifetimes than occurred during the preceding 4 million years since our early ancestors first stood upright.

The world economy is growing even faster. It has expanded from $4 trillion in output in 1950 to more than $20 trillion in 1995. In just the 10 years from 1985 to 1995 it grew by $4 trillion - more than from the beginning of civilization until 1950.

As population has doubled since mid-century and the global economy has nearly quintupled in size, the demand for natural resources has grown at a phenomenal rate. The spiraling human demands for resources are beginning to outgrow the capacity of the earth's natural systems.

Even as the effects of unprecedented population growth are threatening to overwhelm some governments, the collisions between the expanding demands of the global economy and the earth's natural limits are creating additional burdens. Collisions with the sustainable yield limits of fisheries, aquifers, forests, rangelands, and other natural systems are occurring with increasing frequency. As a result, national political leaders and United Nations agencies are spending more and more time dealing with these collisions and their consequences-fishery conflicts, water scarcity, food shortages, increasingly destructive storms, and swelling flows of environmental refugees.