I have often been asked how I became a futurist. A part of the answer is that, starting in my 20s, I read the three people who, in my mind, were the greatest futurists of the last third of the 20th century: Alvin Toffler, R. Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan. Toffler wrote about “Future Shock” […]
[Note: This column was originally published in the Shift Age Newsletter earlier this month] We are at the very beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. The use of fossil fuels will continue for decades but 2015-2017 will be looked back upon as the beginning of the transition from growth to long slow […]
During 2015, I wrote and spoke about how significant a year it was and would prove to be. Many significant events occurred and several major trends became clear. It is these events and trends that will in part shape the world as we move into 2016. I want to leave the depressing and distracting circus […]
We are entering a new stage of the rapidly evolving global economy. The first stage has lasted some 25 years, beginning in the very late 1980s. As we move from 2014 into 2015 and 2016 there will be fundamental shifts in both the global economy and almost equally importantly, how we perceive it. By 2017, […]
In a recent column I listed the Five Contexts of the Shift Age. As stated there, while the true cliché of the Information Age was “content is king” the true cliché of the Shift Age is “context is king”. We live in an increasingly contextual world. The context in which we receive or consume information […]
Earth Day is coming. April 22 to be exact. How I know is my email inbox. Every day for the past few weeks I get pitches to write about some company’s new eco product. The words LEED certified, Eco, Green, Recycled, Renewable have become an endless blur in the subject line of in-bound emails. This […]
In the past I have written that as a futurist, it sometimes feels like I live in a state of déjà vu. I spend a lot of time researching and looking into the future to develop the forecasts and trends that I write and speak about. I experience them, see them, and have varying degrees […]
As someone who writes and speaks about alternative and renewable energy, I often get asked about climate change. What do I think about it? What is true? Who to believe? There is so much noise about it. The media knows it is an important topic to many and they know that controversy prompts viewership so […]
Last week the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the most ambitious energy and global warming legislation ever debated in Congress. That is very good news and a good first step. Of course, since Congress has never been anything close to providing leadership in the areas of alternative energy and climate change, the comparison to […]
The Great Recession of 2008-2010/11 is going to be a very tough time economically. As I wrote in my Forecast for 2009, this economic collapse brings four words to mind. The first word is contraction, which is the standard way to view a recession. Economic activity contracts and we are in a recession, economic expansion […]