Last night, the party scene in Davos was at a fever pitch. Smallish rooms crowded with delgates doing the Davos Dip, that slight bend in the knee and downward tilt of the head designed to enable them to read your name badge and determine whether you are worth their time. After that, they move into the "over-the-shoulder bob," which involves periodically scanning the room over your shoulder to see who has walked in that might be more important.

From brief visits to the NASDAQ, Merrill Lynch and Canadian parties, I can report that the canapés were uninspiring, but the crowds and the talks were considerably great. You have to give the Davoisie credit. After listening to speeches all day (except for the real heavy hitters, who come only to deliver their addresses, and then spend the rest of the time in their suites at the Steigenberger Belvedere Hotel, meeting with other power-brokers one on one) they were willing to accept the notion that a party involved even more speeches, albeit with wine.

JUSTIN SULLIVAN/Getty Images

At the Merrill Lynch soirée, Merrill senior executives hobnobbed with the likes of Dell Computer founder Michael Dell, former U.S. presidential candidate Mark Warner, and a number of enterprising journalists who had discovered that the food was much better than at chez NASDAQ. (Whatever may be said about their nose for news, there is no denying the fourth estate's nose for free food.)

There were dozens of other parties in Davos last night, as there will be tonight, plus the Forum's various official theme dinners (including the inevitable Jazz Dinner, which is just too charming for words. Jazz hasn't been cool for fifty years. Even this crowd couldn't possibly be so old that jazz is what they crave after a day of grappling with the planet's biggest problems. Heavy metal and bowls full of OxyContin seem more appropriate.)

Panelist Scott Friedheim

A kind of popular uprising took place yesterday during the first set of sessions here in Davos around the Forum's theme of global power shifts. Working groups were to meet to discuss different drivers in the global power structure (geopolitics, technology, etc.) and then they were to gather in a plenary to share results and formulate final conclusions. The plenary was to be augmented by wireless polling technology to add a democratic flair to this forum of the world's elites. But as the tables in the plenary stood up to review the findings, several "insurgents" said that they rejected the conclusions being offered to them. Clearly, they said, the world's greatest power-shifting force is global warming.

This left some of the people that I spoke to somewhat baffled, because while all acknowledged the importance of the issue, none felt it would reshape global power any time soon. No matter. Perhaps the insurgents own considerable waterfront property, but whatever the reason for their revolt, they succeeded in placing global warming high atop the list of drivers of change. (more after the jump)

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So, globalization is harder than we thought, after all. I write this entry from Seat 6B on United flight 936 to Zurich. Unfortunately, at the moment the plane is stranded on the tarmac at Frankfurt. Apparently, a higher power decided to join this year's Davos festivities, manifested today by snow storms that shut down Zurich airport just as the glitterati of business and government were to have arrived en masse. While some arrived yesterday, major groups of big shots from around the world were left, if my flight is any indication, pleading with flight attendants for crackers to sustain multi-hour delays at European airports. For us, on this flight from Washington, the glitch did not hold us back from schmoozing. We're having a mini-Davos in the aisles, featuring the likes of the The New York Times's Tom Friedman, FOREIGN POLICY's own Moisés Naím, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, Andean Development Corporation head Enrique García, U.S. Representative Barney Frank (sitting next to a slumbering former Nigerian Finance Minister), former FDA boss Mark McClellan, former U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and a wide variety of other pundits and business leaders. Much of the schmoozing focused on the group's logistical plight, but thanks to Blackberry updates, there was considerable discussion of the Bush State of the Union and disbelief (apparently widely held among the several passengers discussing it) that he could hold so tightly to his views on Iraq in the face of such opposition and evidence that his approach is failing.

In short, the Davos crowd is always the Davos crowd whether in Davos or not. My next report will be from the Alps ... with some luck and intervention from those higher powers who are undoubtedly toying with us all to remind us that it is hubris to think that Davos is somehow the most powerful gathering on earth. There are, after all, Carlyle Group board meetings, CAA Agent meetings in Hollywood, and those intimate dinners between Bill and Hillary.

The theme for this year's Annual Meeting is "Shaping the Global Agenda, the Shifting Power Equation." According to the Forum:

Over the course of the five-day Meeting, 2,400 participants from 90 countries will convene in Davos, including 24 heads of state or government, 85 cabinet ministers, along with religious leaders, media leaders and heads of non-governmental organizations. Around 50% of the participants are business leaders drawn principally from the Forum's members [....] The programme will follow four main themes that are high on the global agenda in 2007. These range from "Economics: New Drivers" and "Geopolitics: The Need for Fresh Mandates" to "Business: Leading in a Connected World", and "Technology and Society: Identity, Community and Networks".

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Of course, the real meat of each Annual Meeting typically lies outside the official program, which sounds roughly the same every year given the obligation to cover hundreds of issues in a way that is offensive to none of over 80 organizations cited as sponsors or supporters of the event. Rather, the substance comes less from the big speeches than it does from the buzz in the corridors of the main Congress Hall and the scores of receptions that take place each night in the character-less hotels of Davos.

Inevitably, a considerable component of this year's side meetings will focus on the following issues: the situation in Iraq, the fate of a unipolar world when the one superpower seems to be bent on self-destruction, the absence of Bill Clinton and Angelina Jolie (two of last year's stars), the absence of a big contingent from China and what that may portend about the future of Davos, the presence of a large delegation from India, what to wear to the Malaysian-themed black-tie gala, what top speakers like Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Mahmoud Abbas, Bill Gates, Lakshmi Mittal, and others might say or not say, and—above all—on the deals large and small that will be cut in silence. Davos is mostly about what is not on the official program, not covered in the papers. It's not a breeding ground for conspiracies per se, but rather a place where self-interests come to mate in their native habitat of low lighting and high cholesterol. As FP's anthroblogologist for this expedition, I'll try to get up close and recount some of their mating behaviors without scaring off any of the subjects.