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Against the lore... science catches up |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 15 March 2005 |
Advocates of permaculture have argued for years that a new (and very
old) approach to vegetation management can work wonders for
micro-climates, including increased precipitation. Now, it seems, the
scientists agree.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 March 2005 )
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 15 March 2005 |
The mental tail of the digital comet
What are the
challenges of our time? Hans TenDam has arrived at a list of ten
major challenges to the development of a sane, humane, civilised
planet. "Maybe ten is the limit of my imagination," he
says, "or maybe it is the limit of the complexity I can handle... Maybe
ten is the magic number for social challenges." His list runs
through cruelty, torture and terror; lack of control and loss of
control; depletion and pollution of nature; transition to the
post-industrial society; ailing democracies; social injustice;
nationalism and international tensions; the probability of another
great war; global emergency planning; and nihilism. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 March 2005 )
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Australia: selling like hot cakes |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 08 March 2005 |
 Canberra Times, 20 July 2056..... It's
official: according to a UN study concluded in November 2055,
Australia is now the world's leading producer of premium brand,
uncontaminated fresh foods. And this well-deserved
recognition comes just in time to mark the fiftieth anniversary of
the decision that made it possible.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 16 March 2005 )
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 08 March 2005 |
Business, industry and government are quick to discard outdated
technology, outdated equipment, even outdated ideas. Yet,
in spite of the best efforts of caring teachers and parents (not to
mention the odd futurist), outdated models of knowledge, learning and
teaching still dominate the school systems.
"There is great irony in
this," says Richard Slaughter, founding professor of the Australian
Foresight Institute at Swinburne University.
"All teaching and learning has an inherent orientation toward the future. You can learn from the past – but you can’t change it. You always learn for
the future. Every act of teaching and learning refers forward to
the future that you are anticipating, planning, working towards or
trying to avoid. Foresight, or more simply ‘thinking ahead’, is
ubiquitously necessary in everyday life. Human beings simply
could not function without the ability to anticipate, to assess
alternative courses of action and to evaluate outcomes. This is why
futures studies, forward thinking, applied foresight have central roles
in education."
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 March 2005 )
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LIMITS TO GROWTH: the 30-year update |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 08 March 2005 |
 Humanity was last at sustainable levels in the 1980s, says the new update of the famous Limits to Growth study sponsored by the Club of Rome.
“The
world will experience overshoot and collapse in global resource use and
emissions similar to the dot.com bubble, but on a much longer time
scale. The growth phase will be welcomed and celebrated:
the collapse will arrive very suddenly, much to everyone’s surprise.”
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 March 2005 )
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Eco-consumers in your future |
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Written by Sohail Inayatullah
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Tuesday, 08 March 2005 |
"As we move to always-on, wearable 'computers' .... that monitor our heart rate, our calories, our spending patterns, that learn about us from us, we will enter into an informational, indeed communicative, relationship with our spending selves, with the part of us that thinks: I shop, therefore I am." Professor Sohail Inayatullah looks at the converging futures of technology and consumer ethics.......
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 13 March 2005 )
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 15 February 2005 |
 February 16, 2005, the Kyoto protocol
came into force.
While
many of us feel shamed by Australia's failure to ratify the world's
first legally binding international treaty on the environment, that
needn't stop us saluting the decades of work by global activists,
climate scientists, public servants and others to achieve this worthy
outcome. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 15 February 2005 |
 FUTURE SURVEY editor Michael Marien has announced his choices for
the 100 best future-oriented books and articles published in the last
two to three years, covering world futures, resources and environmental
issues, society, politics and government, business and the
economy,science and technology, education, crime and justice, and much
more. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Tuesday, 15 February 2005 |
 Human cloning approved
The scientist who created
Dolly the sheep has been given the go-ahead to produce cloned human
embryos in the search for a cure for motor neurone disease. Cells taken
from people with the disease will be used to create the cloned embryos.
About 1400 Australians have motor neurone disease, which kills about
500 people a year. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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What is best for our children? And who decides? |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Monday, 14 February 2005 |
 In a welter of new research about the welfare of the young - and their abuse - come some startling new ideas.
For
example, one research study from the Royal Economic Society of Britain
suggests that even the worst kinds of child labour, including
prostitution, mining, deep-sea fishing and drug trafficking, should not
be banned in poor countries.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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Corporate social responsibility or a new aristocracy? |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Monday, 14 February 2005 |
 A new aristocracy is taking over, not just in the United
States of America but around the world, according to US writer, Thom
Hartmann. In a story that describes a chilling alternative
to the other big shift -- towards corporate social responsibility -- he
quotes an article by Glenn R. Simpson in the January 28, 2005 edition
of The Wall Street Journal as an indication of how far this shift has gone.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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Tougher choices for corporate leaders: time for inside-out decision-making? |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Sunday, 13 February 2005 |
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Corporate leaders who are finding it harder to make good decisions may
be encouraged to know it's not necessarily a sign of personal
decline. Experts agree that decision-making is getting
harder. Or, to put it another way, the capacity to decide
is diminishing. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 May 2005 )
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Intelligent networks or dumb groups? A new look at decision-making |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Sunday, 13 February 2005 |
 The processes of decision-making are coming under new scrutiny in the
wake of several , and renewed catastrophic decisions by world
experts. Theories of distributed intelligence, the role of
intuition and common sense, and the risks of "groupthink" are some of
the key issues now being explored by thoughtful commentators. (See also our story on inside-out decision-making.)
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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Artificial evolution in the 21st Century |
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Written by Michael Crichton via Jan Lee Martin
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Sunday, 13 February 2005 |
 Michael Crichton's book, Prey,
explores just one of the possible scenarios that could emerge from the
blind pursuit of more and more exciting technologies. In a
world where science is being driven more by market dynamics than
commitment to the public interest, the book offers a salutory reminder
of how our futures may be at stake. Crichton's own
introduction to the book is reproduced here.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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Playing God: if it is a game, what are the rules? |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Sunday, 13 February 2005 |
Commentators around the world have criticised George W. Bush for
"playing God", for assuming the right to make life-and-death decisions,
not only for his own people, but for those of other
nations. He's not the first leader to do so, and
unfortunately it's not likely he'll be the last. But is
this the worst we have to fear? Or are there even sillier
ways of playing God in our times?
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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Past and future in a hotel room |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Sunday, 13 February 2005 |
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What does the future of furniture have to do with freedom and
democracy? We compared upbeat promises from a
presentation to be made at a futures conference this year with a list
of rules found in our Slovakian hotel room, and decided they offered a
lesson in cultural geography. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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The price of the future -- and the cost of the past |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Sunday, 13 February 2005 |
Watch out for a pendulum swing to government over-spending on
infrastructure after years of false economy and under-spending, warns
Sydney journalist Ross Gittins. He also highlights the risk
of privatising capital work, a tactic that may tempt governments
because it can keep borrowings off balance sheet.
Instead,
Gittins urges Australia's federal and state treasuries to commission an
inquiry into infrastructure inadequacy and to require public
cost-benefit analyses of all capital works projects. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 February 2005 )
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Welcome to the Futures Foundation |
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Friday, 28 January 2005 |
The Futures Foundation promotes greater interest in, and understanding of, the future. Futures Studies provides tools and perspectives to assist individuals and businesses today in creating a better tomorrow. The Foundation uses this discipline in planning and strategy. Discover the purpose, vision and goals of the Futures Foundation.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 18 August 2005 )
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Joining the Futures Foundation has never been easier |
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Thursday, 27 January 2005 |
Thinking of joining the Foundation? Renewing your membership? Gain exclusive access to Future News Brief our bi-monthly news digest, the Futures Foundation library, discounts to Foundation events and more through becoming a member. Find out how to join.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 March 2005 )
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| Results 281 - 320 of 350 |
A new report on the world's biggest water company, Veolia
Environnement, has triggered renewed calls for the protection of public
ownership of water systems.