The Y2K Neighborhood

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Davis is by no means alone in that view. Economist Yardeni was invited to give the keynote address at a recent gathering of the G-8 industrial leaders in Basel, Switzerland, and he urged them to regard Y2K as a coming war, and to unite in battle against it.

Because of that, Canadian Joe Boivin thinks a preemptive peaceful use of the military is the world's best hope. A veteran information technology executive, his $200 million Y2K repair for the Canadian Royal Bank of Commerce (the country's second-largest bank) was successfully implemented among 140 divisions worldwide and is considered one of the most sophisticated remediation efforts yet.

'We have global threat here,' Boivin told me, 'and the vast majority of countries around the world have only recently begun to look into it. If you look at infrastructure failures within many of the developing nations, who are hard-pressed today with all kinds of other natural disasters and financial crises, there's a very high probability that, never mind how well we do in Canada and the U.S., other countries are going to take a big hit.'

As a result, he said, Y2K threatens a foreign policy nightmare that creates strong self-interest on the part of every nation to pull together to prevent the worst from happening. Boivin believes that Y2K constitutes more of a common enemy to humanity than any space invasion science fiction ever dreamed up. He advocates the immediate creation of globally coordinated task forces in order to sustain delivery of power, water, food, and other necessities in every country via Y2K-immune means.

Like many who have studied the issue closely, Boivin sees a possible silver lining in Y2K's dark cloud. Because of population pressure and the destruction of natural resources, he contends, humanity today faces a stronger mandate for cooperation than ever before in history, with little time remaining before the collapse of natural systems begins threatening civilization.

'Maybe the year 2000 is the opportunity,' he suggests. 'This is possibly the last chance we have to grab [Y2K] as the common enemy and put aside previous differences. If we don't do that, the outcome doesn't look very
good. I believe all of this is very much focused on survival of the species.'

In a June 2, 1998, C-Span broadcast, Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate's Y2K subcommittee, advised the public: 'Don't panic, but don't spend too much time sleeping, either.'

Garv Brakel, Spokane's director of management information systems and Y2K coordinator, says that's good advice. Like Steve Davis, Brakel says he doesn't expect worst-case scenarios, but he thinks it makes sense to treat Y2K with the seriousness Davis recommends.

'There will be problems,' he warns. 'There will be things that will be missed. There's no question about that.'

Brakel, who was recently made Spokane's Y2K chief, says he is most concerned about where Spokane's computer-linked infrastructure interfaces with the outside world--that's where the biggest questions lie. He says all the city's critical systems are being vigorously reviewed and updated as needed and that the kind of regular public reporting Davis advocates will soon begin.

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