Each trial of Jeremy Rifkin, known for his work in looking at the head of the Foundation on Economic Trends, triggers debates and controversies worldwide, even in the political class, whether in the U.S. (he advised the President Bill Clinton) or Europe (the former Commission President Romano Prodi has called him).
If it has been criticized for his utopian views and sometimes catastrophic, even his opponents acknowledge that it provides a huge amount of data to support its analysis. His first trial, Beyond Beef (Beyond beef, 1993), was first attacked. Jeremy Rifkin y bulimia criticized U.S. beef, the arrival of obesity, the billion-oxen, cows, calves, sheep living permanently on the ground, with 20% of cropland, devouring a third of world grain, contributing the impoverishment of third world and producing methane greenhouse.
Since then, his views have been corroborated by numerous investigations. In 1995, in The End of Work (Discovery), Jeremy Rifkin continues the discussion initiated by the economist George Friedman on "Working in tatters," and announced that the technology revolution will put an end to a stable job and protected for all as the dream of a society without unemployment.
The solutions he proposes have been heavily criticized, and sometimes taken over by the European left: 35 hours, the work of general interest, strengthening social support networks, development associations, etc.. In 1997, The Biotech Century (Discovery), it decrypts the extraordinary advances in biotechnology - gene therapy, genome sequencing, life extension - and they pose new risks: the risk of irreversible pollution by GMOs confiscation industrial heritage genetic individuals listed by genotype, etc..
In The Age of Access. The Revolution of the New Economy (La Découverte, 2000), he reflects on the social impact of broadband Internet, the worldwide extension of the commercial sphere, the accelerated circulation of cultural products, outsourcing of work through the "access" to the global network, and asks: "Is there still a difference between communication, communion and commerce?" Today, Jeremy Rifkin's new book offers a survey, a new consciousness for a world in crisis.
Civilization of empathy (The links release, 656 p., 29 euros), where he explains that humanity leaves the era initiated by the industrial revolution of the twentieth century, symbolized by our dependence on nuclear energy and fossil, which led us to the current ecological crisis, and the questioning of its growth patterns as a selfish concept of the individual.
It is this dream of a liberated humanity by massive industrialization, the systematic exploitation of land resources, the manipulation of matter, perpetuated with nuclear work and its huge, its speculations of engineers and power of secrecy collapses. This disaster marked the end of the reign of energy which fed the major grabbing geopolitical confrontations of the last century, around the access to deposits of coal, oil, natural gas, uranium.
Colonial wars, neo-colonial were delivered, removed governments, dictatorships supported openly or behind the scenes, countries looted, many lives sacrificed because the rich countries vied to secure their energy supply. They have significantly increased their standard of living, urban planet and founded the powerful industries that eventually upset the ways of life of all.
But if today the South access to a better life, we measure the effects cons-productive to the industrial revolution of the twentieth century. The nuclear accident in Fukushima is the latest dramatic symbol. The third great industrial revolution and energy humanity has already begun, it is based on the collective sense that we can not continue as before, based on a new sense of ecological responsibility, using sources of renewable energy, and develops a decentralized way: this is what I call the "politics of the biosphere" ...
We are witnessing an extraordinary wave of global solidarity, as we had already known for the tsunami of December 2004 or Haiti earthquake in January 2010. A strong sense of concern and altruism raises hundreds of millions of people around the world. They are strong examples of the new reality that is gaining empathic humanity.
Today, a drama group, an ecological disaster, a nuclear accident affects all of us. We share the suffering of others, we realize they are ours, by identifying ourselves with them. How to understand such empathy? First, we are affected by these tragedies because we know they could just as easily happen to us, that what affects the biosphere there will affect us here soon.
We got out of selfish era of the late twentieth century, we find all connected and interdependent, as we are all shareholders and threatened by the clouds of radioactive particles that disperse over Japan. At the same time, as already analyzed the Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan, communication networks (telephone, electronic media) have become a "global village", we are always connected to others.
The global electronic fabric somehow "externalizing" our nervous system, deploy our sensors, our listening skills around the world. All parents of the world have moved before the image of the terrified little girl, surrounded by men in combination sterilized, brandishing a radioactivity detector on her.
A true electronic agora is developing, which enables millions of people to respond massively. When, in December 2004, the deadly tsunami swept the shores of Asia and East Africa, thousands of videos were filmed and then posted online. A blogger from Australia gathered on its website dozens of amateur videos and recorded 682,366 visitors in less than five days.
Overnight, thousands of blogs have built up a global support network to prevent families, collect donations and mount rescue missions. The same thing is happening today in Japan or for Libya. When the tanks began Qaddafi to crush the rebellion, the fact that these men disarmed, free at last, being bombed seemed unbearable.
We thought we could not let that happen. It is this feeling that prevailed until the international institutions, when the UN authorized intervention. For the first time in world history, we must face our possible destruction, and it is not unrealistic to say that we're working toward a global civilization, governed collectively, permanently connected, to confront common dangers.
In fact, humanity is already inserted into a fabric of political, economic, humanitarian, environmental, global in scope, the UN, of course, which we measure today the moral importance in the Libyan crisis, but yet the World Bank, World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Criminal Court and many others ...
But this civilization interdependent, where each country is learning to listen and develop activities to support and spread out at all levels of human activity. When I speak, 2500 satellites orbit the Earth, scrutinizing the movements of troops in Libya, assess environmental damage, locate the burned forests, observe the weather, make travel billions of electronic records for billions of people, facilitate the theft of 49 000 aircraft, helping tens of millions of motorists to reach their destination, or monitor the dictatorial regimes and terrorist activities.
At the age of the Internet and social networks, billions of people inform, educate themselves, learn how to live their neighbors, while almost all scientific research, artwork, books, equipment policy become available. Globalization, much maligned, is primarily one of access to knowledge.
At the same time, global trade is developing, poorer countries enter the market, and already have their products competing with the West. Remember that a successful business is consistent with peaceful exchanges and how money and promises of payment based on the assumption of a strong collective trust between anonymous.
Today, every minute, considerable quantities of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats arrive daily, fresh, edible, controlled, in stores worldwide. As for most industrial goods, automobiles, airplanes, machine tools, they are made of thousands of parts and components manufactured in countries far away sometimes.
We are in the era of the object world. No matter what the last defenders of nationalism, economic self-sufficiency and isolationism, responsible for bloodshed of the twentieth century, our interconnectedness is total. Without it, the Arab revolutions have not occurred, and no one would support them ...
It's 1848 at the Middle East! The people shook off the yoke of their monarchs in all these countries, as in nineteenth century Europe. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, blogs, people learn directly what happens at home as neighbors, they discover how repression and escape, they witness the fall of dictators, and the heroes of their revolution to become martyrs in one hour.
Again, we are witnessing a generalized spread of passion, rebellion, democratic ideas like empathy for those who fight and die. These people fall into what I called, in 2000, the "age of access", they no longer want to vegetate outside the world of networks they want to enjoy the wealth of information and that all kinds it offers.
They want to participate in the march of the world, no longer live on their past locked as fundamentalists want ... Our planet is irreversibly globalized, yet a world cosmopolitan and "multicultural" frightens many people, and generates reactions of aggression certainly little altruistic.
More so that all major cities become places of intense social and cultural mixing. The year 2007 marked a tipping point in human history, similar in scope to the advent of agriculture. For the first time, the majority of humanity, 3.5 billion people, live in large urban areas, cities, suburbs, dormitory towns, regional capitals, large cities of over ten million inhabitants.
We have become a Homo Urbanus, living in constant contact with people from diverse backgrounds. This movement is brewing irremediable and sometimes difficult experience for people of ethnic ... Studies on the reactions of the public to this new "cosmopolitanism" have been carried out by teams of American sociologist Ronald Inglehart, in 80 countries.
Diversity is always a threat, he analysis, when the survival of the host population, or part of it, is uncertain or insecure. Foreigners are perceived as outsiders who threaten to deprive citizens of their work, their welfare, even if reality is not that one. Conversely, when daily life and jobs are no longer an issue, the ethnic and cultural diversity is a positive value, it is considered challenging.
In other words, says Ronald Inglehart, "personal security increases empathy." In fact, he speaks in urban environments around the world, evolves from generation to generation, is largely dependent on local policies. I see it in my own city, Washington, with its large suburban Virginia and Maryland.
In 1960, Washington had a large black population and a rich white community, who avoided each other. Today, tens of thousands of people from all backgrounds live together and blend into neighborhoods. Ways of life of each community - food, clothing, music, etc.. - Have profoundly transformed the streets, shops, cultural life.
Whether the first comers tend to remain entrenched, their children and grandchildren maintain relationships much freer with other young people. This is what happens when people come together daily at school, on the sports field, the workplace and in civic life. Little by little, first in youth, regular contact creates what sociologist Annick Germain called "culture of hospitality." When children hold hands crossing the street, students spend their day together, play basketball in the evening down at home, they get to know personally, to overcome cultural barriers.
A Canadian geographer has studied how life thrives in its cosmopolitan neighborhood of Cedar Cottage, Vancouver. Descendants of earlier waves of migration from the United Kingdom, Central Europe and the Middle East coexist with newcomers from China, Taiwan, Indonesia. He noted that gardening plays an important role in their reconciliation.
Much of the conversation revolves around the vicinity of the exchange of "pipes" on the maintenance of gardens. By importing seeds from their home countries, new migrants are planting their very real cultural roots! Today, Cedar Cottage has become an ecosystem "microcosmopolite" where we find Calabria tomatoes, mint from Vietnam, Chinese bok choy and beans Portugal.
In doing so, people talk more, learn the history of each, so a more altruistic thought grows ... I see no other. For twenty years, a new vision of human nature emerges from biology and cognitive science. The recent discoveries of brain scientists and learning in children force us to rethink the old idea of a human being naturally aggressive, selfish, utilitarian.
This research shows that we are social animals who endure the suffering of evil and destruction of other living things, react together, to the public interest, when we are threatened. The global impact of the tragedy in Fukushima we concur, as well as the priority given to humanitarian issues, ecological and energy in all political agendas, or the extraordinary success of social networks of all kinds.
See these researchers from Oxford University, who convinced 100,000 people in 150 countries, providing each time to refine computer models of climate prediction. They now have computing power several times greater than the fastest computers ... Projects of this type are proliferating in the scientific community, either to find eco-friendly solutions, identify new protein structures, study or develop nanotechnology drugs.
Why so many people they associate with these projects? The "altruism" is the motivation most often cited by crunchers, the "landers data", and this cooperative design increases. The "wiki economy," which Wikipedia is the best known example, brings together hundreds of thousands of contributors that enrich all areas of knowledge and research, help create powerful software like Linux, etc..
The American Nobel Laureate in Economics 2009 Elinor Ostrom has taught us that only the cooperation of actors can enforce the "common property" as important as the maritime resources of a territory or lands fertile. As for peer-to-peer "or peering, which circulates in a collective innovations, it becomes an operating principle in the current humanitarian associations as larger companies.
All these models are based on an assumption diametrically opposed to the orthodox liberal view of a man acting only in self interest. When he was given the opportunity and means, humans always proves willing to cooperate with others when it comes to contributing to the general interest or to improve the lives of all. 
If it has been criticized for his utopian views and sometimes catastrophic, even his opponents acknowledge that it provides a huge amount of data to support its analysis. His first trial, Beyond Beef (Beyond beef, 1993), was first attacked. Jeremy Rifkin y bulimia criticized U.S. beef, the arrival of obesity, the billion-oxen, cows, calves, sheep living permanently on the ground, with 20% of cropland, devouring a third of world grain, contributing the impoverishment of third world and producing methane greenhouse.
Since then, his views have been corroborated by numerous investigations. In 1995, in The End of Work (Discovery), Jeremy Rifkin continues the discussion initiated by the economist George Friedman on "Working in tatters," and announced that the technology revolution will put an end to a stable job and protected for all as the dream of a society without unemployment.
The solutions he proposes have been heavily criticized, and sometimes taken over by the European left: 35 hours, the work of general interest, strengthening social support networks, development associations, etc.. In 1997, The Biotech Century (Discovery), it decrypts the extraordinary advances in biotechnology - gene therapy, genome sequencing, life extension - and they pose new risks: the risk of irreversible pollution by GMOs confiscation industrial heritage genetic individuals listed by genotype, etc..
In The Age of Access. The Revolution of the New Economy (La Découverte, 2000), he reflects on the social impact of broadband Internet, the worldwide extension of the commercial sphere, the accelerated circulation of cultural products, outsourcing of work through the "access" to the global network, and asks: "Is there still a difference between communication, communion and commerce?" Today, Jeremy Rifkin's new book offers a survey, a new consciousness for a world in crisis.
Civilization of empathy (The links release, 656 p., 29 euros), where he explains that humanity leaves the era initiated by the industrial revolution of the twentieth century, symbolized by our dependence on nuclear energy and fossil, which led us to the current ecological crisis, and the questioning of its growth patterns as a selfish concept of the individual.
It is this dream of a liberated humanity by massive industrialization, the systematic exploitation of land resources, the manipulation of matter, perpetuated with nuclear work and its huge, its speculations of engineers and power of secrecy collapses. This disaster marked the end of the reign of energy which fed the major grabbing geopolitical confrontations of the last century, around the access to deposits of coal, oil, natural gas, uranium.
Colonial wars, neo-colonial were delivered, removed governments, dictatorships supported openly or behind the scenes, countries looted, many lives sacrificed because the rich countries vied to secure their energy supply. They have significantly increased their standard of living, urban planet and founded the powerful industries that eventually upset the ways of life of all.
But if today the South access to a better life, we measure the effects cons-productive to the industrial revolution of the twentieth century. The nuclear accident in Fukushima is the latest dramatic symbol. The third great industrial revolution and energy humanity has already begun, it is based on the collective sense that we can not continue as before, based on a new sense of ecological responsibility, using sources of renewable energy, and develops a decentralized way: this is what I call the "politics of the biosphere" ...
We are witnessing an extraordinary wave of global solidarity, as we had already known for the tsunami of December 2004 or Haiti earthquake in January 2010. A strong sense of concern and altruism raises hundreds of millions of people around the world. They are strong examples of the new reality that is gaining empathic humanity.
Today, a drama group, an ecological disaster, a nuclear accident affects all of us. We share the suffering of others, we realize they are ours, by identifying ourselves with them. How to understand such empathy? First, we are affected by these tragedies because we know they could just as easily happen to us, that what affects the biosphere there will affect us here soon.
We got out of selfish era of the late twentieth century, we find all connected and interdependent, as we are all shareholders and threatened by the clouds of radioactive particles that disperse over Japan. At the same time, as already analyzed the Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan, communication networks (telephone, electronic media) have become a "global village", we are always connected to others.
The global electronic fabric somehow "externalizing" our nervous system, deploy our sensors, our listening skills around the world. All parents of the world have moved before the image of the terrified little girl, surrounded by men in combination sterilized, brandishing a radioactivity detector on her.
A true electronic agora is developing, which enables millions of people to respond massively. When, in December 2004, the deadly tsunami swept the shores of Asia and East Africa, thousands of videos were filmed and then posted online. A blogger from Australia gathered on its website dozens of amateur videos and recorded 682,366 visitors in less than five days.
Overnight, thousands of blogs have built up a global support network to prevent families, collect donations and mount rescue missions. The same thing is happening today in Japan or for Libya. When the tanks began Qaddafi to crush the rebellion, the fact that these men disarmed, free at last, being bombed seemed unbearable.
We thought we could not let that happen. It is this feeling that prevailed until the international institutions, when the UN authorized intervention. For the first time in world history, we must face our possible destruction, and it is not unrealistic to say that we're working toward a global civilization, governed collectively, permanently connected, to confront common dangers.
In fact, humanity is already inserted into a fabric of political, economic, humanitarian, environmental, global in scope, the UN, of course, which we measure today the moral importance in the Libyan crisis, but yet the World Bank, World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Criminal Court and many others ...
But this civilization interdependent, where each country is learning to listen and develop activities to support and spread out at all levels of human activity. When I speak, 2500 satellites orbit the Earth, scrutinizing the movements of troops in Libya, assess environmental damage, locate the burned forests, observe the weather, make travel billions of electronic records for billions of people, facilitate the theft of 49 000 aircraft, helping tens of millions of motorists to reach their destination, or monitor the dictatorial regimes and terrorist activities.
At the age of the Internet and social networks, billions of people inform, educate themselves, learn how to live their neighbors, while almost all scientific research, artwork, books, equipment policy become available. Globalization, much maligned, is primarily one of access to knowledge.
At the same time, global trade is developing, poorer countries enter the market, and already have their products competing with the West. Remember that a successful business is consistent with peaceful exchanges and how money and promises of payment based on the assumption of a strong collective trust between anonymous.
Today, every minute, considerable quantities of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats arrive daily, fresh, edible, controlled, in stores worldwide. As for most industrial goods, automobiles, airplanes, machine tools, they are made of thousands of parts and components manufactured in countries far away sometimes.
We are in the era of the object world. No matter what the last defenders of nationalism, economic self-sufficiency and isolationism, responsible for bloodshed of the twentieth century, our interconnectedness is total. Without it, the Arab revolutions have not occurred, and no one would support them ...
It's 1848 at the Middle East! The people shook off the yoke of their monarchs in all these countries, as in nineteenth century Europe. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, blogs, people learn directly what happens at home as neighbors, they discover how repression and escape, they witness the fall of dictators, and the heroes of their revolution to become martyrs in one hour.
Again, we are witnessing a generalized spread of passion, rebellion, democratic ideas like empathy for those who fight and die. These people fall into what I called, in 2000, the "age of access", they no longer want to vegetate outside the world of networks they want to enjoy the wealth of information and that all kinds it offers.
They want to participate in the march of the world, no longer live on their past locked as fundamentalists want ... Our planet is irreversibly globalized, yet a world cosmopolitan and "multicultural" frightens many people, and generates reactions of aggression certainly little altruistic.
More so that all major cities become places of intense social and cultural mixing. The year 2007 marked a tipping point in human history, similar in scope to the advent of agriculture. For the first time, the majority of humanity, 3.5 billion people, live in large urban areas, cities, suburbs, dormitory towns, regional capitals, large cities of over ten million inhabitants.
We have become a Homo Urbanus, living in constant contact with people from diverse backgrounds. This movement is brewing irremediable and sometimes difficult experience for people of ethnic ... Studies on the reactions of the public to this new "cosmopolitanism" have been carried out by teams of American sociologist Ronald Inglehart, in 80 countries.
Diversity is always a threat, he analysis, when the survival of the host population, or part of it, is uncertain or insecure. Foreigners are perceived as outsiders who threaten to deprive citizens of their work, their welfare, even if reality is not that one. Conversely, when daily life and jobs are no longer an issue, the ethnic and cultural diversity is a positive value, it is considered challenging.
In other words, says Ronald Inglehart, "personal security increases empathy." In fact, he speaks in urban environments around the world, evolves from generation to generation, is largely dependent on local policies. I see it in my own city, Washington, with its large suburban Virginia and Maryland.
In 1960, Washington had a large black population and a rich white community, who avoided each other. Today, tens of thousands of people from all backgrounds live together and blend into neighborhoods. Ways of life of each community - food, clothing, music, etc.. - Have profoundly transformed the streets, shops, cultural life.
Whether the first comers tend to remain entrenched, their children and grandchildren maintain relationships much freer with other young people. This is what happens when people come together daily at school, on the sports field, the workplace and in civic life. Little by little, first in youth, regular contact creates what sociologist Annick Germain called "culture of hospitality." When children hold hands crossing the street, students spend their day together, play basketball in the evening down at home, they get to know personally, to overcome cultural barriers.
A Canadian geographer has studied how life thrives in its cosmopolitan neighborhood of Cedar Cottage, Vancouver. Descendants of earlier waves of migration from the United Kingdom, Central Europe and the Middle East coexist with newcomers from China, Taiwan, Indonesia. He noted that gardening plays an important role in their reconciliation.
Much of the conversation revolves around the vicinity of the exchange of "pipes" on the maintenance of gardens. By importing seeds from their home countries, new migrants are planting their very real cultural roots! Today, Cedar Cottage has become an ecosystem "microcosmopolite" where we find Calabria tomatoes, mint from Vietnam, Chinese bok choy and beans Portugal.
In doing so, people talk more, learn the history of each, so a more altruistic thought grows ... I see no other. For twenty years, a new vision of human nature emerges from biology and cognitive science. The recent discoveries of brain scientists and learning in children force us to rethink the old idea of a human being naturally aggressive, selfish, utilitarian.
This research shows that we are social animals who endure the suffering of evil and destruction of other living things, react together, to the public interest, when we are threatened. The global impact of the tragedy in Fukushima we concur, as well as the priority given to humanitarian issues, ecological and energy in all political agendas, or the extraordinary success of social networks of all kinds.
See these researchers from Oxford University, who convinced 100,000 people in 150 countries, providing each time to refine computer models of climate prediction. They now have computing power several times greater than the fastest computers ... Projects of this type are proliferating in the scientific community, either to find eco-friendly solutions, identify new protein structures, study or develop nanotechnology drugs.
Why so many people they associate with these projects? The "altruism" is the motivation most often cited by crunchers, the "landers data", and this cooperative design increases. The "wiki economy," which Wikipedia is the best known example, brings together hundreds of thousands of contributors that enrich all areas of knowledge and research, help create powerful software like Linux, etc..
The American Nobel Laureate in Economics 2009 Elinor Ostrom has taught us that only the cooperation of actors can enforce the "common property" as important as the maritime resources of a territory or lands fertile. As for peer-to-peer "or peering, which circulates in a collective innovations, it becomes an operating principle in the current humanitarian associations as larger companies.
All these models are based on an assumption diametrically opposed to the orthodox liberal view of a man acting only in self interest. When he was given the opportunity and means, humans always proves willing to cooperate with others when it comes to contributing to the general interest or to improve the lives of all.
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