With what now seem like almost weekly product scandals, recalls, and supply chain exposes, the public increasingly wants to know more about the products they are putting in, on, and around their families. Until recently, consumers had no way to find out the full impacts of the products they consumed. However, with advances in information technologies, product assessment methodologies, and web and mobile platforms, there is now a real potential to radically increase transparency in consumer markets and global supply chains. Dara O'Rourke, Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, will discuss an experiment in providing information to the public about the environmental, social, and health impacts of products and companies: GoodGuide. GoodGuide's award-winning web and iPhone apps have been featured recently in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and even Oprah's Magazine! Dara will discuss GoodGuide's long-term vision, current strategies, and the information technologies they are applying to this challenge.

Dara O’Rourke is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the co-founder of GoodGuide. Dara’s research focuses on systems for monitoring the environmental, labor, and health impacts of global production systems. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Business Week, Newsweek, Time, and TechCrunch. Dara has served as a consultant to international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and a wide range of domestic and international non-governmental organizations. He has degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Political Science, and Energy and Resources, and he previously taught at MIT.

GoodGuide seeks to revolutionize how consumers see and interact with products and companies. GoodGuide provides a suite of tools that offer information about the environmental, social, and health performance of products and companies to consumers at the point of purchase (through web and mobile apps), and that empower people to screen and compare products based on their personal values and concerns. GoodGuide's tools seek to empower millions of consumers to buy products that better match their values, to avoid products that are detrimental to their health, the environment, or issues they care about, and to participate in a more transparent marketplace.

Lynn Eden is acting co-director (2008-09) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972) was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

Fred Turner's research and teaching focus on digital media, journalism and the roles played by media in American cultural history.

Turner is the author of two books, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (2006) andEchoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory (1996; Revised 2nd ed. 2001). His essays have tackled topics ranging from the rise of reality crime television to the role of the Burning Man festival in contemporary new media industries.

Turner's research and writing have received a number of awards, including a PSP Award for Excellence, for the best book in Communication and Cultural Studies published in 2006 from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers; the Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics from the Media Ecology Association; the James W. Carey Media Research Award from the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research; and both a Best Paper Award and a Book Award Special Mention from the Communication and Information Technology Section of the American Sociological Association. During the 2007-2008 academic year, he was a Leonore Annenberg and Wallis Annenberg Fellow in Communication at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Before joining the faculty at Stanford, Turner taught Communication at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also worked as a journalist for ten years. His news stories, features and reviews have appeared in venues ranging from the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine to Nature.

Turner earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of California, San Diego, in 2002. He has also earned a B.A. in English and American Literature from Brown University and an M.A. in English from Columbia University.

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Mired in political gridlock, battered by economic crisis, and uncertain about its foreign relations, Ukraine faces a difficult year, a year that will end with a presidential election.  How is Ukraine coping with these difficulties?  And how should the West respond in helping Ukraine meet the challenges before it?

Synopsis

Ambassador Pifer begins his assessment of Ukraine’s challenges by identifying the four key issues it will have to face this coming year. Firstly, Mr. Pifer argues that a serious problem is the incompatible relations between Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko, and Ukraine’s prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Mr Pifer identifies the energy situation as a key battle issue between the two. Most seriously, Mr. Pifer believes that such feuding compromises Ukraine’s ability to deal with serious issues such as energy and the economic crisis. In addition, Russia seems to play the two against each other. Therefore, Mr. Pifer argues that the West begin by getting the two to cooperate on key issues. Mr. Pifer also stresses the need for a coordinated US-EU stance and also proposes the possible revival of a US-Ukraine bi-national commission.

An aspect of Ukraine clearly being affected by this feud is Ukraine’s handling of the economy. Mr. Pifer examines how Ukraine was suddenly hit hard by the global financial crisis in October 2008. This was partly caused by a fall in the global demand for steel, one of Ukraine’s key exports, and led to further inflation and investors avoiding the country. Ukraine also received $16 billion from the IMF on the conditions of having almost no budget deficit and fell short of this condition earlier this year leading to a delay in the transfer of funds from the IMF. While some believe in a possible recovery in 2010, Mr. Pifer argues the West can help in several ways. Firstly, it must push Ukraine to continue to follow IMF conditions to receive the vital funding. Mr. Pifer also proposes an international donor conference for Ukraine to receive the additional money it needs but will not receive from the IMF. He argues for the abolition of Ukraine’s “communist” commercial code and the freer sale of land to get the agricultural market flowing.

Another possible crisis point is Ukraine’s energy situation. Mr. Pifer examines Ukraine’s dependence on Russia and how during the January crisis it did not pass any reserve gas onto its Western neighbors, weakening its international reputation. Mr. Pifer does recognize Ukraine’s efforts to lessen its use of natural gas, particularly due to the increase in prices. However, he argues Ukraine is still very vulnerable, and this is not helped by the fact that Ukraine’s own energy agency is nearing bankruptcy as it maintains unsustainably low prices. Therefore, Mr. Pifer believes the first step forward is, although tough, for energy prices to be raised. Then, the West should offer technical assistance to improve the efficiency of Ukraine’s energy system. Finally, Ukraine should seek EU funding to modernize its pipelines.

The final issue Mr. Pifer addresses is Ukraine’s complex foreign policy. Mr. Pifer explains Ukraine’s difficult relationship with Russia is marred by differences over energy, NATO, and Georgia. Mr. Pifer also cites Russia’s resources in Ukraine to stir tension if it wants to weaken the country. Another serious aspect is Ukraine’s uncertain relationship with the EU consisting of support from the Baltic states and reluctance from the Western states such as France and Germany. Mr. Pifer feels it is important for the West not to give up on Ukraine but to push the country to forge a consistent line between president and prime minister. The US should also let Ukraine know how much support it would receive were it to become involved in an economic conflict with Russia.

Mr. Pifer concludes by stating that the US should be clear that this new attempt at resetting relations might not survive a Russian-initiated crisis with Ukraine.

In answering the audience's multitude of questions, a variety of issues were raised. Discussion included key points such as the receptiveness of Ukrainian leaders to international advice or the impact of Ukraine's membership of the World Trade Organization. One issue Mr. Pifer particularly emphasized was his belief that Ukraine should not be part of NATO as long as public opinion stands against it.

about the speaker

Steven Pifer is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a (non-resident) senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A retired Foreign Service officer, his more than 25 years with the State Department focused on U.S. relations with the former Soviet Union and Europe, as well as on arms control and security issues. His assignments included deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (2001-2004), ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), and special assistant to the president and National Security Council senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia (1996-1997). He also served at the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Moscow and London, as well as with the U.S. delegation to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces negotiations in Geneva. He holds a B.A. in economics from Stanford University, where he later spent a year as a visiting scholar at Stanford's Institute for International Studies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.