January is the time of year that there are hundreds, if not thousands of stories about the new tech gadgets and technological innovations coming this year and next.  This is largely due to the year starting out with the CES show in Las Vegas and the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Both shows […]

[Note:  This post is much longer than usual.  It was first published at The Sarasota Institute where columns are 1500-2500 words.  I didn’t want to break the column in two.] The negative effects of fossil fuels have been speculated upon and known for a long time. The larger scale concerns, awareness, and now actions have largely […]

The Millennium Project’s latest report – the State of the Future 19.0- has recently been published.  This publication is one of the few that looks broadly at the present and future of humanity. As a futurist, I find it has always provided a wider scope of analysis about the present issues than most other reports […]

 “Houston, we have a problem”  – James Lovell, Apollo 13 “Work the problem people, work the problem”  Gene Krause, Mission Control Apollo 13   Hurricane Harvey was a huge disaster.  More than 60 people lost their lives.  There is and will be hundreds of billions of dollars in damages and lost business.  My deepest sympathies […]

Earth Overshoot Day was August 2, the earliest Earth Overshoot Day ever. This is the day when humanity’s consumption of natural resources officially passes the planet’s ability to replenish then in one year.

If humanity lived sustainably on Earth, then Earth Overshoot Day would be at midnight December 31, meaning we would not have consumed more than the finite resources the planet provides for us.  This is why the metaphor of Earth as a spaceship is the highest and best way to think about any aspect of climate change, sustainability, energy use and anything relative to the only place we have to live.

It was about 10 years ago that I started to write about electric cars in this space with this and this column.  It was clear to me then that, ultimately, they would become mainstream and become a significant percentage of cars driven in the developed countries of the world.  In early 2008, I forecast that 2010-2015 would be the dawn of the age of the electric car and of course it was.

Sea level rise is about to become the phenomenon that will awaken humanity.  Awaken humanity to the absolute, no debate reality that we are the single largest cause of climate change.Climate change is not about “saving the planet” but about “saving ourselves from ourselves”.  The planet will go on for another several billion years.  Humanity might not make it out of this millennium.

There will be more change in the next 20 years than any 20-50 year period in history. In fact, future historians may well look back on this time as a historical transit as significant as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution or the Renaissance. It is hard to imagine any area of life that will […]

[Note: Many of you know that after doing two years of research on my 7th book “This Spaceship Earth” I took much of 2016 off to co-found and launch a global non-profit https://thisspaceshipearth.org/ Please see a time sensitive request at the bottom of this column for the non-profit. Thank you!]  April 2009 “Water-access to, use […]

During the eleven plus years I have been writing this blog, the subject of energy, energy costs, and the transformation taking place in the area has been a frequent topic. Energy certainly affects the global economy. It also profoundly affects Climate Change. The major transformation under way from fossil fuels to alternative and renewable energy […]