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July
8-10, 2010
The Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel
Boston, Massachusetts
Professional Members' Forum
July 11, 2010
Resources and Environment
Oceans and Our Global Future
Our planet is an integrated system where oceanic, atmospheric, and terrestrial environments interact in a highly complex fashion and directly impact the long-term social and economic well-being of all peoples and nations. Both the oceans and the atmosphere are shared globally, and we must have global cooperation to address critical issues such as collapsing fisheries, ocean acidification, and the effects of global climate change. Extreme weather, fragile food chains, and the safety of our coastal cities are all threats that must be dealt with effectively. New programs for global observation, drought management, fisheries restoration, and general ecosystem management are just a few of the essential responses to the challenges that face us today and tomorrow.
Who should attend: Business people, academics, government officials, and anyone who has responsibility or is concerned about the future of the oceans, which account for 71% of the surface of our planet and 97% of the planet’s water.
What you’ll learn: With at least 95% of the underwater world not yet fully explored, there is much still being discovered. The ocean supports the life of nearly 50% of all species on Earth and helps sustain that life providing 20% of the animal protein and 5% of the total protein in the human diet. Critical elements of the trends impacting the ocean are constantly being brought to light.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Global sustainability is unrealizable without a strategy that includes the oceans and integrates the worldwide dynamics affecting both land and sea. The ocean influences every aspect of human life, and our understanding continues to grow—but will it grow fast enough?Susan Avery, president and director, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
key words: ecosystem management, global cooperation, oceans
issue areas: Resources and EnvironmentBreaking through the Sustainability Threshold
The presentation provides the research for the Mindshift Consortium, a thought leadership group of multidisciplined individuals related to the construction industry.
Formed in 2006, Mindshift is dedicated to evidence-based study and development of new delivery models and philosophies for the built environment, focused on the elimination of waste, holistic business case drivers, and the highest levels of performance through the utilization of integrated design, collaboration, shared risk and reward, and trust based teams.
Mindshift published "The Commercial Real Estate Revolution" in July 2009. It was awarded the prestigious CoreNet Global Innovator of the Year award. CoreNet is a trade association with 7,000 real estate executives from Fortune 1000 companies, representing more than 1.2 trillion square feet of real estate.
Who should attend: Architects, contractors, owners, policy makers, developers, professionals in higher education, and real estate executives.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will gain an understanding of the current limitations to sustainable building and new techniques for breaking through these limitations.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Attendees will receive nine keys to lowering cost, cutting waste, and transforming a broken real estate and construction industry.Rex Miller, thought leader, Mindshift; author, The Millennium Matrix, Southlake, Texas
Ray Lucchesi, founding principal, Lucchesi Galati, Las Vegas, Nevadakey words: environment, built environment, construction, architecture, design, LEED, USGBC, BIM, waste, green
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Futures Methodologies, and Social and Cultural TrendsSustainability of Water: Future Challenges
This session discusses a range of global water scenarios for 2050. These scenarios include factors such as system stress and ecosystem health, the end of dam systems, transformation of natural river-beds and river systems, water and social order, water wars, river recovery and rescue. changes in the relationship humans have with water, and global changes to make water sustainable.
Who should attend: Business people, government officials, academics, and nonprofit organizations will all benefit from this broad scenario analysis of water sustainability.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn about the possibilities for better understanding the obstacles affecting water sustainability.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Lessons learned from these scenarios can be applied to sustainable policy efforts around the world.Eduardo Cota, Mexico City, Mexico
key words: water scenarios, ecosystem, dam systems
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Technology and ScienceWorld Energy Scenarios to 2050: Issues and Options
Secure, reliable, and affordable energy supplies are fundamental to global economic stability and growth. The challenges ahead of us include the adequacy of energy supplies, the threat of disruptive climate change, and the huge investment requirements to meet the growing global energy needs, particularly in the developing countries.
Future energy demand and supply are subject to numerous uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict, such as energy prices (particularly oil prices), global economic growth rate, demographic changes, technological advances, government policies, and consumer behavior.
The primary objective is to present a systematic exploration of possible energy futures and recommend actions. The speaker will identify, define, and analyze the main driving forces of the world energy market to 2050, analyze the options, suggest a desired energy scenario, and make strategic recommendations on how to achieve this scenario by 2050.
Who should attend: Futurists, educators, students, consultants, energy professionals.
What you’ll learn: The audience will learn about world energy trends in the next 40 years, methodologies for the analysis of issues, scenario analysis, and strategies to achieve a desired energy future.
How this new knowledge can be applied: The audience will be able to apply this methodology to any scenario analysis.Hameed Nezhad, professor, Metropolitan State University, Woodbury, Minnesota
key words: energy, world, scenario
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Futures Methodologies, and Technology and ScienceGlobal Climate Change Situation Room and Green Growth
The issues, forecasts, and policy options to address climate change are so complex and politically polarizing that it is very difficult to get a clear picture to make rational decisions and to monitor what is truly important. We need a Global Climate Change Situation Room available to all and useful to policy makers. The City of Gimcheon, South Korea, is building it in cooperation with the UN Future Forum and The Millennium Project. The initial focus will be on “green growth,” along with climate science, energy, options for mitigating and adapting to climate change, and integrating climate change in national sustainable development strategies. This situation room will be developed by a pioneering collective intelligence system that is creating new software, user interfaces, and software linkages that will connect networks of experts and futurists around the world. WFS participants will be invited to contribute their ideas to the evolution of the Global Climate Change Situation Room.
Who should attend: Those who are interested in energy and climate change situations in the world. Future-oriented climate change and green growth related consultants, policy makers/advisors in governments, international organizations, businesses, and NGOs. Also those interested in prospects for global climate change data collection and businesses that are developing leading-edge alternative energy technologies.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn how they can contribute to and benefit from the Global Climate Change Situation Room. They will also learn how to apply collective intelligence concepts to addressing climate change and the Republic of Korea’s future policy directions to address climate change.
How this new knowledge can be applied: You can apply this knowledge by creating a collective intelligence in your own organization or by consulting for other organizations to create their own system. The global challenges, climate change and alternative energy information, and environmental security can be used as input to your business opportunities and national strategic planning processes.
Youngsook Park, chair, WFS Korea Chapter/Korea Node of the Millennium Project/Gimcheon Climate Change Situation Room
Gwak Seung-jun, chairman, National Futures Planning Committee (Minister level), Blue House, South Korea
Lee Chul-woo, representative of Gimcheon City, National Assembly Korea
Kim Kwan-yong, Governor, Kyungsang Buk-do, South Korea
Park Bo-saeng, mayor, Gimcheon City, Kyungsang Buk-do, South Korea
Government of Korea official to be announced
Jerome C. Glenn, director, Millennium Project; co-editor, Futures Research Methodology Version 3.0; co-author, 2010 State of the Future, Washington, D.C.key words: climate change, alternative energy, collective intelligence portal, global challenge, environmental security, Korean climate change policies
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Futures MethodologiesFuture Arctic Climate Simulations for Strategic Planning
Global climate models (GCMs) are the most widely used tools for projections or simulations of global climate change through the twenty-first century. Periodic assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have relied on these model simulations of future climate by various emission scenarios. A program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning (or SNAP), has been developed to create regional maps of climate change (for Alaska and the Arctic Ocean) based on five IPCC models, which have been downscaled using local environmental data. Projected climate change scenarios in terms of temperature and precipitation have been developed for use by Alaska planners and decision makers. Arctic sea ice simulations have also been developed to indicate the range of Arctic marine access projected by the climate models for the century. The use of these model projections on a regional basis in strategic thinking and scenarios creation will be explored in this session. Also, the session will be a nontechnical review of the utility of these complex, climate models and their appropriate use in studying regional climate futures.
Who should attend: Government policy planners, futurists, professionals interested in climate change, strategic planners, and anyone interested in the use of climate models for decision making.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn the application of climate scenarios to regional planning, how climate change is impacting the Arctic, and how the outputs of IPCC climate models can be used to support strategic thinking about regulatory responses.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This set of presentations can increase awareness on how climate models can be used for regional planning in local governments, communities, and businesses.Lawson Brigham, professor, Geography and Arctic Policy, University of Alaska Fairbanks; former chair of the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment Council; Fairbanks, Alaska
Michael Sfraga, director, UA geography Program, University of Alaska; Vice Chancellor Students, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Fairbanks, Alaska
Scott Rupp, director, Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning program; associate professor of Forestry, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Fairbanks, Alaska.key words: environment, climate models, arctic futures, climate change planning
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Futures Methodologies, and Technology and ScienceKeep It Simple Stupid (KISS): Energy/Environment Strategies
The first part of the presentation will be “Clearing the Rubbish.” This will include debunking objections to the electric car. The second part will describe various alternative energy technologies (including some not well known) that are economically viable. The third part will deal with the terminology such as EROEI (energy return on energy invested) and the difference between “energy independence” and “energy self-sufficiency.”
Who should attend: Concerned persons tired of abstract and needlessly complex discussions about the most vital issue of the twenty-first century—the energy/environment conundrum; policy makers at the state and local levels; and business people.
What you’ll learn: Existing off-the-shelf technologies and technologies that will be economically viable within five years that can make an immense positive impact on the energy/environment conundrum. Participants will learn how to differentiate between ideological withful thinking and doable policy aims. As a subtext of the presentation, they learn a simple strategic thinking methodology designed to discipline and enrich futurist thinking.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Concrete examples of what the individual can do or lobby for in his or her home, business, local institutions (schools, churches, etc.) and local government. The stress will be on a bottom-up approach to the issue so that everyone present will leave the presentation with ideas that he or she can begin to implement shortly after leaving the conference.Tsvi Bisk, director, Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking; contributing editor to THE FUTURIST; Kfar Saba, Israel
key words: grand strategy, environment/energy
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Technology and Science, and Futures MethodologiesThe Future of the Green Metropolis
The cities of the twenty-first century hold much promise for the challenges ahead. They are hubs of innovation and economic engines, and they are where more than 85% of all Americans live. Cities are the greenest form of human settlement that we can aspire to. This has been a somewhat counterintuitive notion—that a place like New York can actually be good for the environment. But with density, transit, a mix of uses, and walkability—all the features that Jane Jacobs advocated—cities are great reservoirs for savings on energy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. An urgent question, then, is how best to support cities—with the vision for infrastructure that Robert Moses was best known for, translated to transit and inter-city rail; planning on a “megaregional” scale (the Boston–Washington corridor as one key example; see www.america2050.org); and an entirely new approach in the relationship between the federal government and cities, including an overhaul of transportation spending, planning for infrastructure investments, and funding for green building retrofits in upcoming climate and energy legislation.
Who should attend: Urban planners, those in the design professions, elected and appointed municipal officials, new green economy entrepreneurs.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn about the prospects for future government support of cities as green human settlements.
How this new knowledge can be applied: The shaping of the twenty-first-century city will have direct impacts on business formation, locational choice, climate change, and energy.Anthony Flint, director of public affairs, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; former journalist, the Boston Globe; author, Wrestling with Moses; Cambridge, Massachusetts
key words: environment, cities, green building, sustainability
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Governance and CommunitiesThe Future Is Riding a Bicycle
Cities around the world are embracing bicycling at a rapidly growing pace, and the WFS 2010 host city of Boston is a great example. Mayor Menino and other national leaders have discovered that bicycling is cost effective, good for the environment, healthy, and fits nicely into the emerging knowledge economy. More people are riding bicycles for transportation and recreation now than since the invention of the modern bicycle in the 1800s. This panel will discuss innovative urban designs, social/cultural trends that support bicycling, and long-term implications for the cities of the future. If you are interested in sustainability, green infrastructure, urban planning, climate change, active living, and the future of cities, this session will provide important insights.
Who should attend: city planners, traffic engineers, health workers, people interested in exercise programs, recreation program officials.
What you’ll learn: Bicycle transportation is fast becoming a socially acceptable, alternative mode of transportation to the automobile and a good way to incorporate the leisure physical activity that is essential for good health into one’s life.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Businesses, nonprofits, and governments will learn that bicycle transportation is a great way for their employees to come to work and to get the physical activity they need to be healthy and productive employees, as cities strive to find ways to relieve traffic congestion and health authorities urge people to exercise.Kenneth Harris, chairman, The Consilience Group, LLC; member, Association of Professional Futurists; member, World Future Society Board of Directors, Bethesda, Maryland
Jeffrey Olson, principal, Alta Planning and Design, Saratoga Springs, New York
Nicole Freedman, director, Boston Bikes, Boston, Massachusettskey words: transportation, environment, health
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Health and Wellness, and Social and Cultural TrendsAchieving Low-Carbon Economic Growth
Over the fall of 2009, ahead of the IPCC meeting in Copenhagen, the Europe Chapter of the World Future Society held a series of workshops and meetings to explore how economic growth might be achieved in a low-carbon economy. This session aims to present the results of this project.
We shall consider what a low-carbon economy might look like, the metrics of sustainability (measures and models), how we can ensure fair shares for present and future generations, and how we can devise an international framework to achieve low-carbon economic growth.
The resulting structure will give us a means by which we can appraise and influence policy efforts to come to grips with growing material needs on a planet of finite resources.
Who should attend: Those who are interested in considering how the problem of delivering prosperity on a planet of finite resources might be resolved. This would include those with an interest in business, public policy makers, members of the third sector, and all those with an interest in sustainability.
What you’ll learn: How the planet will cope with scarcities and what kind of geo-politics, companies, and technologies might emerge.
How this new knowledge can be applied: The session will create awareness of the future beyond our present difficulties and how we can currently prepare to enjoy that future, despite its challenges.Stephen Aguilar-Millan, director of research at the European Futures Observatory; member. Association of Professional Futures, Ipswich, Suffolk, United Kingdom
key words: environment, growth, society, geopolitics
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Governance and Communities, and Business and CareersThe Perfect Storm
If you began building 40 cities of 2 million people every year for the next 40 years, you would meet the needs of the population increase by 2050. This is an unprecedented era of accelerating change in human existence. Currently, there exists no system that can feasibly plan and create the infrastructure for those cities or a construction system to build cities at that speed.
Shadow cities contain more than a billion people, and another billion could be living in shadow cities within 15 years. There is no more water in the world now than there was 2,000 years ago, when the population was 3% of what it is today. There has been no world surplus of food for nearly two years. Oil supplies are expected to peak in the next 10 years, and raw materials will be sought after and in demand more than at anytime in the history of mankind. Thus… The Perfect Storm.
Who should attend: Planners, governments, anyone concerned with the earth’s resources.
What you’ll learn: What must be done to survive the future with limited resources and an increasing population.
How this new knowledge can be applied: We must create the desirable future. What opportunities will the future hold for entrepreneurs of the environment.Jorge Vanegas, dean, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
Rodney Hill, professor, Center for Applied Creativity, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texaskey words: environment, resources, population
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Social and Cultural Trends, and Technology and ScienceCarbon-Negative Oxygen-Positive Fuel Future
In order to achieve a peaceful, environmentally safe, and sustainable world, humankind uses collaboration and public open source co-development to establish a base layer of open-source licensed intellectual property, available to all. These use and improve innovations that allow billions to innovate without the costs and secrecy required in patenting. The opportunities in biology, chemistry, and physics are discovered at faster and faster rates, as data becomes freely shared through peer-to-peer interaction. Those who care about a single invention will be left behind by those becoming the next generation of our species.
Who should attend: Those concerned with establishing sustainable communities where humans act fill a symbiotic and needed role in the earth ecology.
What you’ll learn: The principles and technologies that mankind will use as we evolve to fill a new role.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This opens the doors to more financial opportunity and security for the individual, businesses, and community.Danny Day, lifelong business entrepreneur, Eprida Company, Atlanta, Georgia
key words: sustainable community, climate-change mitigation, sustainable economies
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Health and Wellness Futures, and Technology and ScienceThe City Sustainable
Except for some experiments in planned communities, cities develop haphazardly over the ages. Some live, some die. Is that the twenty-first and twenty-second century future of the world’s cities? Should we expect still more and greater masses of people, buildings, and connecting structures? This speaker will introduce alternatives: forces and changes that could shape future cities into communities reflecting climate and globally driven sustainable imperatives.
New building technologies that bring sustainability and greater efficiency into building, changes in the concept of a city from urban concrete to green community cities lite—i.e., cities that draw more lightly on their resources and surrounding happiness and comfort in the “City Sustainable.”
Who should attend: Urbanites, business people, government, community leaders
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn ideas, insights, and concepts for the future of sustainable city life and development.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This will give us a fresh perspective on community, urban life, sustainability.Jennifer Jarratt, principal, Leading Futurists, LLC, Washington, D.C.
John B. Mahaffie, principal, Leading Futurists, LLC, Washington, D.C.key words: urban, people, environment, society
issue areas: Resources and Environment, Governance and Communities, and Social and Cultural TrendsWorld Future Society
7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450
Bethesda, MD 20814 U.S.A.
Tel: 301/656-8274 • Fax: 301/951-0394 • E-mail: sechard@wfs.org
