What is more important for young people than to reflect about their own precious future? Many of the participants at Lindau will assume leading positions in tomorrow’s society and are expected to contribute towards a beneficial future. A brief analysis of the present situation and an attempt to extrapolate today’s behavior into the future easily reveals our being on a non-sustainable track and the questionable nature of our short-term goals. The discussion leader will not present recipes but he will try to stimulate reflections of the participants. He will try to emphasize the responsibility of global citizens, but particularly of prospective academics, politicians, and business leaders, for implementing the required changes in our personal and collective endeavors.

Much of today’s shortcomings, much of today’s economical problems are caused by our egoistic goal setting. Erroneously, we are encouraged to behave selfishly and to thrive and prosper towards personal wealth. We are given the wrong impression that our personal “value” is measured universally in monetary units. - In this situation, we have to establish a new value system where moral and ethical concerns are more prominent and where competition is superseded by collaboration, foresight, and compassion. Sustainability shall be our goal. We should avoid to limit the liberties of action of future generations by our short-sighted exhausting of natural resources. We can achieve this far reaching goal only by close international collaboration. Independent Nation States alone are no longer in a position to act responsibly. All the major problems to be solved are of global relevance and require for their solution strong international institutions supported by international law enforcement.