E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues

Chuck Hagel served two terms in the United States Senate, from 1997-2009, representing the state of Nebraska. He served as chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the Senate Climate Change Observer Group. He is currently a distinguished professor at Georgetown University and...

Christine Todd Whitman is president of the Whitman Strategy Group, a consulting firm specializing in energy and environmental issues. She is also the author of "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America," which was a New York Times bestseller. Whitman served in...

E. Benjamin Skinner is the first person in history to witness negotiations for the sale of human beings on four continents. In his book "A Crime so Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern Day Slavery," Skinner tells the story of individuals who live in slavery, those who have escaped from bondage, those...

Rob Gifford first went to China in 1987, as a 20-year-old undergraduate, to study the Chinese language. He has spent much of the last twenty years living in and reporting on the rise of China, most recently as Beijing Correspondent of National Public Radio. In his recently-published book, China Road...

Europe's rapid colonization of Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came to be known as the "Scramble for Africa." Is China's increasing involvement in Africa the 21st century version? From Algeria to Zambia, up the resource ladder from aluminum to zinc, Behar, an award-winning investiga...

Once a sleeping giant, today China is the world's fastest growing economy--a dramatic turn-around that alarms many Westerners. Shirk's 2007 book, "China: Fragile Superpower," explored the troubling paradox faced by China's leaders: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more inse...

The year 2008 offered unprecedented opportunities for Chinese and Anglophone Internet users to communicate. They were standing nose to virtual nose, but they were not by any means seeing eye-to-eye. Using the Internet as a starting point, Kaiser Kuo delves into a number of issues at the heart of dis...

"The persistent issue of the United States' trade deficit with China is becoming more controversial as more American manufacturing jobs are lost. Within that controversy lies the less-examined issue of the role of foreign investment in, and the contribution of, China's Asian neighbors to Chinese exp...

Bruce Babbitt was Governor of Arizona from 1978-87 and Attorney General of Arizona from 1975-78. As governor, he brought environmental and resource management to the forefront in the state. He negotiated and steered to passage the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980, which remains the most co...

Known as "The Green Evangelist," Reverend Richard Cizik calls climate change a crisis of "biblical proportions." Cizik is vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). His responsibilities include setting NAE's policy direction on issues before Congress,...

Physicist Amory Lovins is the Co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, RMI, an independent think-and-do-tank that creates abundance by design. RMI works with individuals and organizations of every kind to help them use energy and resources efficiently while being ev...

Douglas Durante has worked in the fields of energy, transportation, and the environment since 1977. He was the Director of Public Affairs for the National Alcohol Fuels Commission and served as a Special Assistant in the Office of Alcohol Fuels at the US Department of Energy. Durante has served on n...