Archive for the 'Global Warming' Category
An Ordinary Futurist Predicts 2010 Events
After evaluating my predictions from last year (which were in three separate posts to start with), I decided to keep it simple. Remember that futurists have no crystal ball and I can no more tell you what a stock will be on a given day than a séance leader can. We can see trends. We [...]
Testing Last Year’s Predictions
I’m not as much of a predictive futurist as some of my friends and colleagues, and I do like to play in the space once a year – right about now. I’m going to do this in three steps. Evaluate last year’s predictions, make this year’s predictions, talk about what we need to do this [...]
The Futurist Reads Her Sunday Times
From time to time, people ask me what it takes to be a futurist. Really, it’s an interest in thinking about the future and a habit of keeping my eye’s open. I think there is one other bit: the desire to make the world a better place in the future.
I stay aware of what’s happening [...]
FiRE (Future in Review) Day 4: Africa, the Oceans, Language, and Whales
The morning started with the most explicit of the conversations on philanthropy: a look at the work Pearson Learning has done in Africa, and a brief discussion of project Inkwell. The first project we saw, the Sara Communication Initiative, helps girls in Africa tell their stories, and actually brought me to tears for a moment. [...]
FiRE (Future in Review) Day 2: Leadership, the Economy, Thorium, and Dolphins
So the day here in San Diego felt like sitting in the chair being hit by bullets of information. The format is that there are multiple back to back 1/2 hour segments with industry and thought leaders from around the world. I’m not even going to try to capture the day in total. But here’s [...]
FiRE (Future in Review) Day 1: The Speed of the Atmoshpere
I’m lucky enough to be the invited science fiction interviewee at FiRE, a conference that is not only about the future but about how to actually do the work to create a future we can thrive in. Today was registration, a cocktail party on a lawn by a beach, a lovely dinner, and a dinner [...]
What’s After Capitalism?
Kim Stanley Robinson got me thinking yet again when he posted this excellent article on post-capitalism. Post-capitalism, by the way, seems to be as well-defined as post-human. In other words, not.
But we ought to start figuring out what happens next.
Unregulated capitalism has problems. The most recent example is the current recession/depression/downturn. The images on the [...]
Scientific Choices and Climate Change: It’s All About Scale
I came across an article on CNN today about a new rice variant that will withstand longer floods. I immediately thought, “That’s perfect.”
While there are a lot of climate change conversations going on right now, I want to simplify the suggestions to “big engineering” and “small engineering.”
Do you remember either of the abortive plans to [...]
Smart Power
Last week, I listened to energy futurist Jesse Berst talk. He spoke primarily of the smart grid. This post is not a recap of his speech per se, but certainly he gave me new ways to think about energy and some of that gift is what I’ll write about. If you get a chance to [...]
Energy Economics
This post is a result of post-panel musings from Orycon 30, the Oregon Science Fiction convention I just attended. I was actually on two panels discussing energy futures – What Happens if the Oil Runs Out? and Alternative Energies.
Often a discussion gets you thinking about something you already know. There was some discussion of the supply [...]
