Blogs

"Masters' Insights" provides a theoretical basis for the students of Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight to grab common issues in the Futures field in a structured and constructive manner.

A few months ago for a conference put on by the Wosk Center for Dialogue at the Simon Fraser University in Canada, I was asked the questions: How is sustainable development different from conventional economic development?…and, What are we trying to sustain? The same questions came up again yesterday regarding financial policy initiatives to create “sustainability”.

This is a confusing time, with the US in gridlock, the Great Recession rolling on, killer tornadoes and forest fires dealing a bitter dose of climate change, post-Bin Laden terrorism possibly spreading to Yemen and other failed states, and more surprises sure to come.

Today TOP500 released their latest rankings, which put Japan's K Computer in the number one spot with 8.162 petaflops, a jump of more than three times the performance of the now number two Tianhe-1A. How was such a sharp increase realized and what does it mean for supercomputing in the future?

The headline refers to an article in The Economist`s June 11th edition regarding the Three Gorges dam project in China. The dam has always been controversial as it has a destructive impact on the environment with draughts and resettlement of 1.4 million people. But who is responsible in the long run? According to Mr.

Two hundred years ago, the most stable jobs involved the needs of a community and the work of a skilled craftsman to meet those needs. People holding jobs such as cobblers, blacksmiths, chandlers, and butchers found themselves in high demand. But those jobs hold very little relevance in today’s world. So is there such a thing as a “forever” job.

When we ask why, in regards to distribution of technological solutions, most of us are usually compelled by political economics to think “solutions are simple, if they are in fact the objective”.

Your great-grandmother may have known a lot more about sustainable living than you do. That’s the thesis of What’s Gotten Into Us? (Random House, 2011). Author McKay Jenkins (http://mckayjenkins.com), a University of Delaware English and journalism professor, takes aim at the tens of thousands of industrial chemicals that manufacturers have been adding to household amenities over the past 70 years. If we want to protect our health and the planet’s health, he says, we will do away with these substances and learn to live much like people did at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Tonight, I am hosting an event in Downtown Saint Louis (map below) to officially launch my new book, How to Predict the Future...and WIN!!! The chance to speak exclusively about this book this evening is giving me an opportunity to reflect on why I started wr

An Ivy League education, capped with a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics is a magical door opener and a gilt-edged beginning to a promising career. And if your Ph.D. is unique – for example, interviewing the top 40 leaders and opinion-formers of Egypt and Israel and receiving a Peace Medal for your efforts – you will be even more impressive. I know this, because that’s my history.