Futurist Bookshelf

The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves by James Tooley. Cato Institute. 2009. 291 pages. $19.95.

Growing numbers of the world’s poorest families are taking their children’s education into their own hands, according to education scholar Tooley. He tells the stories of low-income parents who, frustrated with the inadequacies of their communities’ public schools, sacrifice to afford private schooling for their children. Some parents even open up schools of their own, creating opportunities for their and their neighbors’ children to achieve better standards of living.

Tooley encourages global-development advocates to give these private-education ventures more credit and more support. He argues that these institutions are not the bastions of middle-class privilege or refuges of unqualified educators that many experts presume them to be, but indispensable sources of community enhancement and empowerment.

Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, Blackberry Moms, and Economic Anxiety by Dalton Conley. Pantheon Books. 2009. 221 pages. $24.

The unique economic and social conditions of our time have given rise to a “new breed” of American adult, the intravidualists, according to sociologist Conley. Unlike their individualist predecessors, who sought to live in accordance with their true selves, intravidualists each assume multiple selves and roles, often all in the same instant. They do not distinguish between work and leisure, office and home, public space and private space, or one conversation and another; the lines that used to separate all of these are increasingly blurred and permeable.

For intravidualists, Conley explains, work takes place at all hours, even those spent at home or on vacation. Daily life requires “split-screen” attention that navigates simultaneous streams of text-messages and real-time conversations. And people are constantly shuttling between where they are and where they think they should be. In all, it is a new cultural landscape with a new texture of everyday life. Conley examines where it came from, why it is here to stay, and what it means to be living within it.

The Genius Machine: The Eleven Steps That Turn Raw Ideas Into Brilliance by Gerald Sindell. New World Library. 2008. 152 pages. $19.95.

Your ideas are your most precious asset, asserts intellectual-property consultant Sindell. And as with any asset, you can maximize your returns on them with the right methods. Sindell spells out his method of choice, an 11-step process that starts with a rough idea and finishes with a polished end product. Whether you are trying to write a book, design a house, foster more communication and cooperation in your company, or teach a classroom of difficult students, Sindell’s text will provide you some insight into developing workable solutions and exciting innovations.

Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capacity for Breakthrough Innovation by Gina C. O’Connor, Richard Leifer, Albert S. Paulson, and Lois S. Peters. Jossey-Bass. 2008. 332 pages. $29.95.

Business leaders can—and should—make innovation within their companies the norm rather than the exception, according to O’Connor and three fellow professors of management and marketing. The authors profile 12 companies that they say exemplify a radical new approach to organization, the “breakthrough innovation management system.” This system supports innovators and their teams and encourages learning and experimentation even at the risk of mistakes and failures. Companies that learn this approach, the authors argue, they can look forward to innovation that occurs again and again, not as a rare flash.

How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet by Robert Zubrin. Three Rivers Press. 2008. 205 pages. Paperback. $13.95.

In this humorous yet scholarly tour of a future human civilization on Mars, astronautics engineer Zubrin presents a how-to guide for successfully transitioning to Martian life. He begins with the process of booking a flight to the Red Planet and continues on to detail every facet of daily living and what a new settler should know: what to look for when choosing a home and equipping it with life-support and radiation-protection systems; how to spot a lemon when buying a new or used ground rover; securing a first job; which jobs to avoid; finding a spacesuit that both works and is fashion-friendly; dating on Mars—and how it differs from dating on Earth; designing a greenhouse and selecting the right crops to grow in it; the best places to shop for gear, including where to find the best bargains and how to avoid scams; and a list of the 10 best high-tech startup companies and real-estate deals.

Mars’s thin atmosphere, dry surface, frigid temperatures, and cataclysmic sandstorms make it a very dangerous place. As Zubrin points out, however, those who are smart, ambitious, and willing to look hard enough for the right publicist can look forward to fabulous fame and fortune on Earth’s next-door neighbor.

Innovation for Underdogs: How to Make the Leap from What If to Now What by David Pensak, with Elizabeth Licorish. Career Press. 2008. 224 pages. $19.99.

Anyone can be wildly innovative, says master innovator Pensak, creator of the first Internet firewall and holder of 38 product patents. He encourages us to be more like our childhood selves. Children have the key innovator qualities: constant curiosity and ease with exercising imagination. We tend to lose these qualities as we get older, complete our schooling, pursue careers, and get accustomed to looking to society for all the “right” answers. Drawing from his work and teaching experiences, Pensak shares “truths about innovation” that he hopes might help readers reconcile childhood curiosity and imagination with adulthood wisdom and experience to better define problems and market solutions.

Investing in a Sustainable World: Why Green Is the New Color of Money on Wall Street by Matthew J. Kiernan. AMACOM. 2008. 300 pages. $27.95.

Now more than ever, businesses and investors who want to be successful must incorporate environmental and social issues into their decision-making processes, says sustainable-investment advisor Kiernan. He notes that, until now, most institutional investors have not given much thought to their investment portfolios’ sustainability quotients, but a gathering storm of worldwide trends is making it highly prudent for them to start doing so. Kiernan tells the stories of seven investors who did, and the immense benefits they reaped as a result. He also presents conceptual and practical steps for emulating them.

The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age by John Michael Greer. New Society Publishers. 2008. 257 pages. Paperback. $18.95.

All empires eventually fall, and our present-day industrial civilization will be no exception, says ecologist Greer. He foresees us going the same way of the Maya, Romans, and Victorian-era British, and by virtue of the same fatal flaws: We, like them, continuously overextend ourselves and consume more resources than our environments provide. Global warming, oil depletion, volatile economies, and other problems bear testament to this. Our current path heads toward an impending Dark Age of poverty, war, social strife, and system breakdown.

A new civilization that accommodates the global realities will, after several centuries, arise, but we should plan for a long transition, argues Greer. He presents the strategies and practices that will help. For instance, individuals can grow their own food, cut back on fuel consumption, take charge of their health, and help to build up their communities. Societies at large can downsize to local exchange and local governance, expand renewable energy and organic farming, promote spiritual awareness, and reallocate into human hands many tasks now done by machines.

The collapse of industrial civilization need not end in scenes of barbarian hordes storming city gates, reassures Greer. If we will it, there can be a peaceful exit of old ways and an emergence of new.

National Lies: The Truth About American Values by Charles Churchyard. Axroide Publishing. 2009. 442 pages. $26.95.

There is method in the madness of America’s economic, political, and cultural life, says sociologist Churchyard. He identifies distinct societal forces—veneration of individualism and egalitarianism, propensity for higher idealism over real-world logic, and dogmatic belief in future prosperity and social betterment—that have driven the nation’s ups and downs through the centuries and into the foreseeable future, coloring the way Americans approach business, politics, and most social problems.

These beliefs have engendered tremendous civic might and social affluence for much of the nation’s history, but now they are fueling widespread malaise and undue guilt. Churchyard summarizes the present state of American life and speculates on its future.

Problem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People by Ken Watanabe. Portfolio. 2009. 111 pages. $22.95.

What do John the Octopus, a soccer player named Kiwi, and all four musicians in the rock band The Mushroom Lovers have in common? They all work out solutions to perplexing problems in Ken Watanabe’s Problem Solving 101. The author, an entrepreneur and former consultant of global-management firm McKinsey & Company, originally wrote this book as a teaching tool for Japan’s schoolchildren. But readers of all ages can enjoy, and learn from, the text’s many fun and accessible examples of what can happen when you apply “problem-solving-oriented thinking” to your problems: More—and better—solutions will become visible to you, you’ll be better able to accomplish the things that matter to you, and your lifelong dreams and goals will be within your reach.

Scientific Collaboration on the Internet edited by Gary M. Olson, Ann Zimmerman, and Nathan Bos. MIT Press. 2008. 406 pages. $45.

The distances between scientists around the world are shrinking fast due to media technologies that make collaboration across disciplines and across continents easier than ever, according to researchers Olson, Zimmerman, and Bos. Authors of these collected essays observe a growing trend of scientists from different fields, institutions, and nationalities linking by telecom and Internet services to co-author papers and jointly investigate grants.

In the process, these collaborations yield innovations at a never-before-seen pace. The essays examine collaborative projects, ongoing and past, in AIDS research, astronomy, biomedicine, earthquake engineering, ecology, and other areas of study to note the problems they encountered, successes they achieved, and ways by which future collaborations will likely build upon them.

Teens in Crisis: How the Industry Serving Struggling Teens Helps and Hurts Our Kids by Frederic G. Reamer and Deborah H. Siegel. Columbia University Press. 2008. 178 pages. Paperback. $22.50.

Hundreds of programs are diagnosing and counseling troubled teenagers suffering from learning or behavioral difficulties. Today, this massive industry is undergoing some growing pains, and not all programs are up to the task. Some operate without adequate training or certification. Others use ineffective—even dangerous—techniques that result in injuries and deaths.
Social-work professors Reamer and Siegel recall the struggling-teen industry’s history and map out its present-day landscape: prominent organizations, the services they provide, and some troubling scandals and tragedies. They conclude with an evidence-based blueprint for reform to make sure that society has the best means at hand to address the needs of young people, today and in generations to come.

Healthy People Need Healthy Communities

Good health, like good real-estate value, is largely a matter of “location, location, location.”

Americans continue to be very unequal in terms of personal health, and recent studies find African Americans and other minority groups to be at far higher risk than white Americans for many major health problems.

The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation reports the following:
• African Americans die from diabetes at twice the rate of white Americans.
• The life expectancy of African American men is 6.3 years shorter than that of white American men; African American women’s life expectancy is 4.5 years shorter than that of white American women.
• Native Americans are 2.6 times more likely than white Americans to have diabetes.
• Among 2,608 children under age three, 90% of white children were reported to be in good health compared with only 72% of Hispanic children.

The primary source of these inequalities, according to the Foundation public-affairs director Adam Coyne, is differences in living space: Some Americans’ neighborhoods are more conducive to health than others.

“Much of it has to do with where they live, work, and play,” he says. For instance, Native-American men in South Dakota live to an average age of 58 if they live near a reservation, but they live into their 70s if they live elsewhere, according to the report.

A patient who lives in a low-income neighborhood may face many obstacles to healthy living, such as an abundance of convenience stores that sell alcohol and tobacco, a scarcity of markets that sell fresh fruits and vegetables, and an absence of public space in which to exercise.

“If you’re in inner-city Detroit, where there are hardly any supermarkets, where are you going to get fresh foods? It’s structured such that it discourages some from leading healthy life,” says Jim Marks, the Foundation’s senior vice president.

Marks hopes that communities will do more to promote exercise, balanced diets, and other healthy living habits. They might follow the example of Pennsylvania, which mandated the opening of 58 new supermarkets in inner cities across the state, or the example of U.S. public-school systems that banned high-sugar foods from school vending machines.

Research by Thomas LaVeist, director of the Center for Health Disparities Solutions at Johns Hopkins University, underscores the extent of the problem. In a 2008 study of inner-city communities around the United States, he and co-authors noted that:

• Supermarkets are 4.3 times more likely to be located in predominantly white neighborhoods.

• Full-service restaurants are 3.4 times more likely to be located in predominantly white neighborhoods.

• Low-income African-American neighborhoods have eight times as many liquor stores compared with other neighborhoods.

• Tobacco companies advertise more heavily in African-American neighborhoods.

Clearly such environments matter to health.

“You put anyone in a low-income environment, and they are going to be sick. It doesn’t matter what race they are,” says LaVeist.

When LaVeist and researchers surveyed white and African American residents who lived in the same disadvantaged communities, the disparities shrank or even disappeared: Rates of physical activity were roughly the same, obesity rates were only marginally higher among African Americans than whites, and whites were slightly more likely to smoke.

“When people are living in the similar social conditions, the outcome is more similar,” he says.

LaVeist’s findings corroborate those of the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation’s “Road to Reform” report, which urged a comprehensive approach to public health. The strategy would combine universal health coverage and expanded health-care services with community enhancements that promote residents’ health.

“The entanglement of disease, race, geography, economics, and behavior is terrifically complex and will not lessen until policy and funding decisions match the reality of daily life of people in communities with poor health,” concludes Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, Foundation president.

Marks is optimistic that we can achieve good public health and lower costs. If we invest in public health now, we will get returns in the form of a healthier population that requires less care later.

“If we can lower the amount of illness we might be able to deliver better quality to those who need it,” he says. “We see these as very much tied together.”—Rick Docksai

Sources: Jim Marks, senior vice president of the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation. Web site, www.rwjf.org.

Thomas LaVeist, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. Web site, www.jhsph.edu.

Forecasts in Hindsight

By Cynthia G. Wagner
Every now and then, we at THE FUTURIST are asked to look back at previous forecasts to see how we did. Many magazines have turned back the clock briefly to recall what topics interested the readers (or at least the editors) 10, 20, 50, or even 100 years ago.

So a curious thing happened when I picked up the May-June 1989 issue of THE FUTURIST to see what we were forecasting then. I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

In the Future View editorial “Tomorrow? Who Cares?” economics professor Thomas Oberhofer wrote of the consequences of short-term focused and greed-driven financial maneuvering by businesses and individuals alike. He attributed this phenomenon to impatience.

“When we are impatient with the little things, it is hard to be patient with the big things,” he wrote. “We see this in many areas of contemporary society. Financial markets in the 1980s have been driven by merger activity and corporate raiding as a means of capturing value. This is in lieu of the old-fashioned way of investing in productive capacity and building a business. Consumers have plunged into debt to enjoy a fling today, often with limited concern for the longer-term consequences of their actions. And the American people have tolerated the creation of massive federal indebtedness and the international erosion of their financial power in the world economy.”

Oberhofer advised economic policies that created incentives for patience and disincentives for immediate gratification, though he noted that implementing and enforcing such policies would require a change in the cultural mind-set.

Looking around the international financial landscape just now, I think I can safely say that cultural mind-sets are very difficult to change: Impatience persists, exacerbated by accelerating change in all directions and by a proliferation of distractions.

Several other topics we covered 20 years ago ring familiar today, too, including the cover story, “Cars That Know Where They’re Going” by Robert L. French, a consultant on vehicular navigation systems. Indeed, as he foresaw, the use of GPS in cars today is widespread.

“Once a sufficient fraction of all cars are equipped with navigation systems,” French predicted, “even unequipped drivers will benefit because traffic will be spread uniformly over the road network.” Unfortunately Unfortunately, this forecast has not quite met with success, though perhaps today’s traffic congestion is not as bad as it could have been without drivers’ ability to better manage their personal routes.

What else was on THE FUTURIST’s mind? Among the other feature articles in the May-June 1989 issue were “Renewable Energy: Power for Tomorrow” by Robert L. San Martin, “Human Factors: The Gap Between Humans and Machines” by Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown, and “A New Era of Activism: Who Will Frame the Agenda?” by Rafael D. Pagán Jr.

Pagán foresaw the impacts of the Information Age creating better-informed and better-connected citizens, who would pursue an active interest in improving public and private institutions. But he warned of fallout from anticorporate movements: “Leaving the authorship of public policy to activists is irresponsible,” he argued.

“Corporations can find a way to retrieve eroded public trust, can be dynamic participants in the debates of our time, and can fairly balance the social contract between themselves and consumers.”

Pagán was clearly optimistic on corporate responsibility, both for self-regulation and for stewardship. “The doctrine of the stewardship of the earth has developed dramatically in the last two decades,” he noted. “Now we are coming to see ourselves as caretakers, and we are holding ourselves responsible for the way we use our resources.… The choice for industry is no longer whether it will be responsible, but how.”

Our World Trends & Forecasts section likewise covered topics that continue to have an impact on our lives and futures, such as family–work balance, investments in children’s health and education, and the phenomenon of “environmental refugees”—entire groups of people forced into migrating due to insurmountable environmental problems. As Hurricane Katrina painfully illustrated, some problems just cannot be planned away, but they can (and must) still be planned for and, if possible, prevented.

And that lesson continues to be the principal subject matter of THE FUTURIST and the World Future Society.

About the Author
Cynthia G. Wagner is managing editor of THE FUTURIST. E-mail cwagner@wfs.org .

For further discussion of financial manias and their causes and impacts, see Chapter 11, “The Past as a Guide to the Future,” of Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Edward Cornish (WFS, 2004), which may be ordered from the World Future Society at www.wfs.org/futuring.htm .

Build Your Own Island Nation Expert Advice

Sick of pesky government oversight? Don't like taxes? Pessimistic about democracy in general? Why not find your build your own island nation and declare yourself king? Modern land-moving technology makes it easier than ever, but hardly an simple undertaking. As part of our May-June cover story, engineer McKinley Conway, How to Start Your Own Country author Erwin S. Strauss, and micro-nation documentarian George Dunford explain the history of the DIY nation.

THE CASE FOR MICRONATIONS AND ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS
By McKinley Conway

In early centuries, artificial islands were built to create home sites easier to defend against wild animals or hostile tribes. There is evidence that Greek, Roman, and Scottish civilizations built hundreds of small islands for a variety of purposes. Excavations reveal that many islands were built by piling mud on layers of reed mats.

In recent times, new islands have been built to provide sites for airports and other urban infrastructure.

For example, in Japan, boatloads of dirt and rock were hauled from a nearby mountain and dumped into a huge box in Osaka Bay to create an island site for the new Kansai international airport. Hong Kong spent nearly $15 billion to enlarge an existing island for its new airport and to accommodate bridges and transit lines to link it with the city. When growth occupied every available site in Singapore, the small island nation dredged new sites from the shallow waters around its main island.

In addition, there are many primitive villages in remote areas built on stilts over shallow water. I have noted these in the upper Amazon basin between Manaus, Brazil, and Iquitos, Peru, and around Bandar Seri Begawan in Borneo. One of the most interesting was a small village of textile workers in the middle of Inle Lake in northern Myanmar (Burma).

Without question, the most advanced artificial island projects today are found in Dubai. I was there during construction of the pioneering project, the now-famous Burj Al-Arab “sail” hotel built on a small artificial island. This was followed by development of the Palm Island group that went beyond all others in creative design and venture risk, raising the bar for all future island builders.

Perhaps the most intriguing projects are those proposed by creators of new micronations. Among the scores of such ventures, there are many that have been launched by people trying to establish modern utopias, seeking total freedom from the pressures of government or society. Others of a more practical nature have sought to set up tax havens that would attract investors. Some have looked for sites to base lotteries and gambling casinos or pirate radio transmitters.

Founders of such new nations have searched the globe looking for sites. One entrepreneur set up shop on an abandoned World War II gun tower off the coast of England. More imaginative planners have looked for seamounts or under-ocean mountains with peaks near the surface where they could drive pilings to support above-water micronations. A few farsighted developers have experimented with accelerating coral growth to build artificial reefs and islands in mid-ocean.

As yet, we find no substantial successes in launching free-standing micronations. By contrast, artificial islands have proven their worth and practicality around the world. The future will most certainly bring a substantial increase in the number and sophistication of new man-made islands.

NEW LANDS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
By Erwin S. Strauss

Ever since the emergence of modern humans in Africa about a hundred thousand years ago, expanding onto new lands has been a key part of the human story. The issues of new lands and particularly new nations are of perennial interest to me. Where does the quest for new lands go from here? To the oceans.

Currently, international agreements generally recognize a territorial limit of 12 nautical miles from land, and an “exclusive economic zone” extending to 200 nautical miles. The zone provision is focused on securing rights to fishing as well as oil and gas exploitation while allowing a “right of innocent passage” to all nations’ ships; however, it’s clear that most nations would interpret this as precluding the establishment of any independent entity in those waters.

This leaves a substantial amount of water unaccounted for, including some that is quite shallow. There are two basic approaches to occupying such places: artificial structures and building up land.

Over the years, there have been many experiments and some notable failures regarding the latter.

An Italian engineer named Giorgio Rosa built a platform off Italy in the 1960s as a gambling resort, but the authorities seized and destroyed it. More recently, a group in Las Vegas proposed a floating city to be called

Oceana; the group spent about $100,000 building a detailed model. No investors came forward.

In the 1970s, a group sent a dredge to the South Pacific, and in a shallow area built up enough land to stay above the water even at high tide, proclaiming it the nation of Minerva. Again, investors failed to materialize. After the king of Tonga sailed over and claimed it, King Neptune soon reclaimed his own: In a few months, without further dredging, no trace remained above the waves.

A Los Angeles B-list celebrity named Joe Kirkwood famously took a barge out over a nearby sea mount and scuttled it, intending it to extend above the surface. The water was deeper than he had figured, and his plans disappeared with the barge.

Building up new land may be the most practical method for starting a new country; however, as history shows, new land construction is hardly an easy undertaking.

More importantly, the geopolitical climate may be less open to that sort of experimentation. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Cold War was in full swing, and each of the superpowers was hesitant to push smaller countries too hard, for fear of driving them into the arms of their rival. This opened exploitable interstices in the international system. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, and especially since 9/11, the major powers (and the United States in particular) have been much more aggressive in dealing with entities that appear to have the potential to upset the established international order.

When I wrote on this subject in the 1980s, I suggested with tongue in cheek that such ventures plan on acquiring weapons of mass destruction, invoking the film comedy The Mouse That Roared, about the tiniest country in the world that accidentally stumbles upon a nuclear weapon. Nowadays, such an idea hardly seems funny.

So those following in the footsteps of the ventures above will have to deal with this geopolitical fact, as well as all the national and financial obstacles the earlier efforts faced. I can only wish them good luck; they’ll need it.

A MINI-HISTORY OF MICRONATIONS
By George Dunford

Regardless of UN recognition or constitutional definitions, micronations have been appearing for decades. For some, it’s a matter of political protest, fervent belief, or the kind of megalomania associated with super-villains, while others are just playing it for laughs.

To search out the granddaddy of the modern micronation, you have to visit an abandoned military installation in the North Sea just off the coast of the United Kingdom on the way to Belgium. Sealand is a platform about the size of a baseball diamond that was originally designed by England as a fort to repel German bombers during World War II. In the mid-1960s, two pirate radio operators had other ideas. The platform seemed a perfect place for their illegal broadcasts, as it was just outside the UK’s legal territory but close enough for transmission.

Unfortunately, the two piratical nation builders squabbled (one argument got so heated that it reportedly involved a flame-thrower). Of the two nation builders, Roy Paddy Bates emerged victorious, declaring the platform the Principality of Sealand with himself anointed Prince Roy. Despite UK attempts to unseat him and a brief spell as a “data haven” hosting the Internet’s most dubious sites, Sealand endures as a micronation.

Sealand’s success story inspired other micronationalists the world over. In a distant corner of Western Australia, a troubled wheat farmer heard the call. Leonard Casley was one of a number of farmers informed by the Australian government that he had grown too much wheat. With thousands of acres ready to be harvested, he could only reap 100 acres. While others towed the line, Casley seceded from Australia, creating the Hutt River Principality with — you guessed it — himself as head of state, Prince Leonard, alongside his wife, Princess Shirley.

The principality has made a living through stamp exports and tourism, probably because it’s one of the few royal tours that concludes with an offer of a regal cup of tea or a dip in the monarch’s own pool. The new nation ran into strife in 1977, when the Australian Tax Department noticed just how well it was doing. Never one to back down, the prince responded to threats about unpaid taxes by declaring war on Australia. Australia ignored the declaration, allowing the prince to declare himself victorious and continue his reign.

The best micronationalists know there’s some fun to be had. Segway inventor Dean Kamen refers to the New York state island he bought as the Kingdom of North Dumpling Island. His reason for seceding came when local authorities refused to let him build his own turbine, and he got his buddy, then-President George Herbert Walker Bush, in on the joke by signing a nonaggression pact with the kingdom. Kamen made several appointments to his court, including ministers of Nepotism, Brunch and Ice Cream (the latter officers were the founders of Ben & Jerry’s). He reputedly carries his own made-up currency in his wallet, which he has attempted to use as payment on the mainland. And in shaky economic times, Kamen has eschewed the gold standard in favor of ice cream. “As long as we keep it below 32°F,” he quipped, “our currency is rock solid.”

But the days of micronations as good clean fun may be over. In 2008, Sealand was looking to monetize itself as Sealand Casino. There’s still hope that technology will further the frontier, however, as new micronations are forming online or as budding micronationalists claim territory in Antarctica or, more recently, outer space. Many more aspiring micronationalists find hope in Frank Zappa, who opined, “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline — it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” Never mind the UN. On these terms, statehood is just a microbrewery away.

About the Authors

McKinley Conway is an engineer and founder of Conway Data Inc., a firm involved in research, publications, and telecommunications, specializing in futures studies, global megaprojects, and site selection. His address is Conway Data Inc., 6625 The Corners Parkway, Suite 200, Norcross, Georgia 30092. Web site www.conway.com . His last article for THE FUTURIST, “The Desalination Solution,” appeared in the May-June 2008 issue

Erwin S. Strauss is the author of How to Start Your Own Country (Paladin Press, 1985), which discusses these matters in more detail.

George Dunford is a co-author of Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-made Nations. As well as writing articles for a variety of publications, he blogs about travel, journalism, and culture at hackpacker.blogspot.com . His latest book is The Big Trip: The Ultimate Guide to Gap Years and Overseas Adventures (Lonely Planet, 2008).

COPYRIGHT © 2009 WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814. Tel. 301-656-8274. E-mail info@wfs.org. Web site http://www.wfs.org. All rights reserved.

Increasing Mental Fitness

Review:
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
by John J. Ratey. Little, Brown and Co., www.hachettebookgroup.com. 2008. 294 pages. $24.99.

In Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Ratey gives the majority of Americans and the 60% of the world’s people who do not exercise enough for good health even more reason to get off their duffs and start moving. Ratey effectively summarizes recent research and case histories to show that exercise is good for you mentally as well as physically — a regular exercise program can literally heal a troubled mind.

The first chapter, “Welcome to the Revolution,” sets the stage by discussing the innovative physical-education program at Naperville Central High School in Naperville, Illinois. The program emphasizes cardiovascular fitness rather than development of skills for team sports. The students are continually moving rather than waiting for a turn to shoot a basket or bat a ball. They are self-motivated by comparing their current to their past performance, so that even the most uncoordinated or overweight kid can get a sense of accomplishment.

While Ratey does not tie the exercise program directly to the students’ academic success, he points out that Naperville Central students do exceptionally well on standardized tests. The reader gets the feeling that a lot more adults would be physically active in their leisure and mentally healthier if everyone’s high school had a physical-education program like that at Naperville Central. In subsequent chapters, Ratey explains how exercise makes one sharper mentally and, in combination with — or even instead of — medications, improves mental health and relieves mental illnesses. He explains the biological mechanisms involved, cites relevant scientific studies, and relates his experiences with patients. He shows that exercise helps one to learn better, relieve stress, control anxiety and depression, live with attention-deficit- hyperactivity disorder, recover from addictions, alleviate the undesirable effects of hormonal changes, and stave off the deleterious effects of aging. The beneficial effects of exercise on some of Ratey’s patients are particularly interesting:

Susan learned to deal with the stresses of motherhood by jumping rope instead of drinking wine.

Amy went off Prozac and gained control of her anxiety with an exercise routine consisting of yoga and workouts on a treadmill.

Rusty found that playing the exercise video game Dance Dance Revolution blunted his drug cravings, keeping him free from drugs and out of jail.

Stacy relieved her postpartum depression by workouts on a treadmill, which she and her husband bought immediately after leaving Ratey’s office.

To stave off the cognitive decline, emotional decline, and dementia that can accompany aging, Ratey recommends that anyone over 60 years old exercise six days a week: aerobic exercise on four days and strength training, balance, and flexibility exercises on two. One of his most interesting examples is 80-year-old Harold, who lives with his wife in a retirement home because she has Alzheimer’s disease. The retirement home, University Living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has a fitness center called “Preservation Station” with aerobic and strength-training machines. Preservation Station is headed by an exercise physiologist who specializes in aging. Under her supervision, Harold works out on a weight machine, does balance drills on the physioball, and completes 30-minute drills on the NuStep exercise machine. The payoff from this regimen for Harold is that he is able to play 18 holes of golf twice a week in the summer and ski in the winter. Ratey begins the concluding chapter, “The Regimen: Build Your Brain,” with this significant statement: “The point I’ve tried to make — that exercise is the single most powerful tool you have to optimize your brain function — is based on evidence I’ve gathered from hundreds and hundreds of research papers, most of them published only within the past decade.” Significantly, he recommends more exercise than the familiar 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and the American Council on Exercise.

“Americans are so inactive that the experts are wary of providing guidelines that are too stiff for fear the whole country will give up,” he says.

He recommends aerobic activity six days a week for 45 minutes to an hour, plus strength training. And he echoes the familiar recommendation to stick with whatever exercise routine you start. Perhaps the soundest advice buried in the concluding chapter is that “the most important thing is to do something. And to start.”

Ratey is optimistic that attitudes are becoming more favorable to exercise, particularly in the medical community. The president of the American Medical Association has urged all AMA members to read a pamphlet called “Exercise Is Medicine” to help each patient plan an exercise regimen.

Based on my own studies, I am also optimistic that Americans and others in the developed world are increasingly heeding the advice of Ratey and others and becoming more physically active in their leisure time, or at least feeling that they should. In a world where medicine is increasingly high tech and increasingly expensive, simple behavioral changes like starting and sticking to an exercise routine can also contribute significantly to good health. We cannot afford not to keep urging people to adopt them.

About the Reviewer
Kenneth W. Harris is secretary of the World Future Society, chairman of the Consilience Group LLC, and transportation field editor for Techcast.org. E-mail kenharris39@mac.com .

Recession Could Lead to Labor-Force Growth in 2009

The U.S. labor force could rise considerably in 2009 and 2010. This means the number of people working and the number of people actively looking for work will increase. It means more people competing for jobs in the short term, adding to stress on U.S. job seekers. Increased competition also implies that the U.S. labor force will become more efficient as vacancies are filled by higher-caliber employees.

This scenario runs somewhat counter to recent trends. However, looking at previous forecasts in the light of the present situation does yield some surprising insights.

First, here’s what the data say today:

• The labor force is shrinking. U.S. labor force participation was 65% in January 2009 which was down slightly. This means 65% of the population who were legally old enough to work and younger than the retirement age were either working or seeking work.

• More people are on the periphery of the working world. About 2.1 million people were marginally attached to the labor force in January, about 400,000 more than 12 months earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). “These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the [four] weeks preceding the survey,” the Bureau reported.

• Discouragement is growing. Among the marginally attached individuals, some 270,000 more workers were identified as “discouraged” than a year before, meaning they did not believe any work was available to them and had not looked for work in the four weeks leading up to the survey. There were 734,000 discouraged workers in the United States in January 2009.

Given these dismal statistics about some very discouraged people, how is it possible that the number of Americans participating in the labor force will stop moving down and instead start moving up? For answers, it becomes necessary to look at what people were forecasting before the downturn, when economic trends pointed upward toward more uninterrupted economic growth.

• Boom times were causing some young people to opt out of the work scene. In 2005 and 2006, during the height of the housing bubble and when employment rates were far better (around 4% during the last quarter of 2005), many young people were actually opting out of the labor force in the United States. If employment was readily available, why were these young people not looking for work?

Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University labor expert interviewed by THE FUTURIST in December 2006, observed that many young people were spending more time in school, getting extra degrees, and just living life, backpacking around the world, etc., before settling down into a steady job, marriage, and the sorts of adult commitments that require labor-force participation.

How has the story changed? The dropoff in easy credit (less money for students to pursue advanced degrees, lower credit-card limits on people without established credit) and worsening economic conditions for baby-boomer parents could force more of these young people into the labor force earlier than they would have wanted to go. This would cause the number of people actively looking for work to rise.

• More 50- and 60-somethings may realize they can’t afford to retire and put it off. Retirees in the United States may also return to the workforce in large numbers. Statistics from 2005 showed that one-third of Americans who retired went back to work two years later. In other words, even in times of economic growth and stability, many baby boomers and pre-baby boomers who had planned to retire but had not actually saved enough for retirement were forced back into the labor force unexpectedly. Now, many may opt to simply stay in their jobs.

In the next few months, a labor force jump means more people looking for work and more people who were going to retire hanging on to their jobs. A larger labor force also implies that job vacancies will go to the best possible job seekers and employers will reap the benefits. For anyone seeking work, however, that consolation may be meager.— Patrick Tucker

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov . Claudia Goldin, Harvard University (interview, December 2006).

Rehabilitating Terrorists

Following a number of deadly attacks in 2003, Saudi Arabia has begun to incorporate so-called “soft” measures into its counterterrorism efforts, including such tactics as providing psychiatric counseling to imprisoned jihadists.

These strategies are “designed to combat the intellectual and ideological justifications for violent extremism,” according to Christopher Boucek, former media analyst for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C. Because these methods address the underlying factors of extremism, they hold a distinct advantage over strong-arm approaches, Boucek notes in a paper for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The counseling program, for example, has been very effective in persuading former jihadists that the use of violence to bring about change is unacceptable

The apparent success of the Saudi program has inspired similar ones, such as the Religious Rehabilitation Group in Singapore. Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and even the U.S. military in Iraq have begun to employ these measures as well. The Saudis’ “soft” approach is divided into three stages: prevention, rehabilitation, and postrelease aftercare.

• Prevention. Prevention programs in Saudi schools educate students about the dangers of terrorism in much the same way that American school programs warn about the dangers of using recreational drugs. Students are encouraged to participate in writing contests and art competitions on the topic, and the government also supports other youth activities, including organized sports and athletic events. Such endeavors can lure children away from the ideological summer camps and religious retreats run by extremist groups.

“By some government estimates, about seven different activities aimed at reducing the tacit and implicit support for extremism occur each day at thousands of schools throughout the kingdom” — and at mosques as well, according to Boucek. The government has also launched public information campaigns that target all age groups as part of a broader effort.

• Rehabilitation. The counseling program for convicted jihadists is the cornerstone of the overall strategy.

Over the past few years, Boucek writes, “a comprehensive effort to rehabilitate and reeducate violent extremists and extremist sympathizers through intensive religious debates and psychological counseling” has been under way. Those recruited by terrorist groups often have little formal and religious education, and while in prison, they are encouraged to discuss and debate Islamic law with sheiks and scholars. This type of religious counseling seeks to correct the detainees’ interpretations of Islam through open dialogue. Currently, minor offenders (low-level support personnel and terrorist sympathizers promoting extremist views online, for example) are the most likely to participate.

• Aftercare. The jihadist recovery program begins in prison and continues at the Care Rehabilitation Center just outside the capital city of Riyadh. Here, former jihadists participate in a wide variety of activities ranging from Koranic studies class to art therapy. This is the transition point from prison to society: a place where the guards don’t wear uniforms and where there is 24-hour telephone access. A typical stay at the Center lasts eight to 12 weeks. Afterwards, the detainee begins the process of reentering society, and the government is there to monitor his progress and offer its continued support.

“Once an individual has satisfactorily renounced his previous beliefs, assistance is provided in locating a job, and receiving other benefits, including additional government stipends, a car, and an apartment,” Boucek reports. Authorities continue to meet with former detainees on a regular basis. If there seems to be something vaguely Orwellian brimming beneath the surface, then here’s one more thing to consider: “Success of the program … is based in part on the recognition that being radical is not inherently a bad thing. Acting on radical beliefs with violence, however, is, and that is the behavior that needs to be modified,” Boucek writes. — Aaron M. Cohen

Source: “Saudi Arabia’s ‘Soft’ Counterterrorism Strategy: Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Aftercare” by Christopher Boucek. Carnegie Papers. 2008. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Web site www.CarnegieEndowment.org .

Smarter Smart Phones

A mechanism that accelerates personal computers’ performance might work wonders if placed inside new cell phones, according to a European Union funded research team, eMuCo Project.

The multi-core processing unit, as the mechanism is called, consists of a computer chip that has two or more processing cores, which calculate data. Multi-core processing units are common in desktop computers today since they have double the power of their single-core predecessors. The eMuCo Project hopes to give the same upgrade to smart phones, the highly popular category of cell phones that feature Web-based amenities like Internet access and MP3 players. The finished products might give consumers more features while requiring less battery power.

“With the recent advances in wireless networks and the exponential growth in the usage of multimedia applications, multi-core platforms point to be the solution of future mobile devices. With them, a new paradigm has emerged,” says Maria Elizabeth Gonzales de Izarra, a researcher with the eMuCo Project.

Unlike present-day smart phones, whose single-core chips all work overtime to power both the phone and its Web-browser applications, the multiprocessors’ cores split up work — one core will maintain phone service while another enables Web browsing, and each powers down when not in use.

There are currently many Web pages that smart phones are just not powerful enough to display, notes Jason Parker, senior project manager for smart-phone manufacturer Symbian.

“Take a typical MySpace home page as an example,” says Parker. “It will probably include a number of plug-ins for media that have been designed for a desktop environment. As a result, a PC may easily use half its CPU capacity to display some seemingly trivial item of content.” A multiprocessor-equipped smart phone will not run into this problem; it will be using the same systems that desktops use.

Cell phones have been a tough sell in the past year due to the recession, but smart phones were one glimmer of hope, according to market-research firm IDC. Their sales shot up by 22.5% from 2007 to 2008 worldwide, and by 70% in North America. It seems that cell phones can retain their market shares if they offer new products with good enough features. Multiprocessors may be the power-up that the cellphone market needs.

“As long as developers continue to enhance applications, then this segment will be a silver lining in an otherwise gloomy market,” says IDC senior research analyst Ramon Llamas.— Rick Docksai

Sources: Ruhr-University Bochum, www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de . Symbian, www.symbianone.com . “Smartphones offer hope in declining cell phone biz” by Marguerite Reardon. CNET News, http://news.cnet.com .

Stalking Goes High Tech

It's easier than ever to stay in touch with people you know — including the ones you really don’t want to hear from.

Growing numbers of men and women report being pursued by stalkers via cell phones, Internet services, GPS systems, wireless video cameras, and other technologies, according to law-enforcement agencies and victims’ groups.

“Technology is more widely available, and so stalkers have more tools to use against their victims,” says Will Marling, executive director of the National Organization for Victim Assistance.

Of the 3.4 million Americans who reported being stalked between 2005 and 2006 — up from 1.4 million annual cases a decade earlier — according to the U.S. Department of Justice, 27% reported being cyberstalked, or stalked through computer programs, while one in 13 said their stalkers used tracking devices to monitor their locations.

E-mail and instant messaging are the most common stalking methods, according to the Justice Department— 83% of victims reported getting unwanted e-mails from their stalkers and 35% reported getting instant messages.

Six percent said that their stalkers stole their identities to open or close financial accounts in their names, steal funds from their existing accounts, or make unauthorized charges to their credit cards.

Marling recalls one man whose exgirlfriend infiltrated his computer via a Wi-Fi account and repeatedly posted content onto his Web site in his name.

“People who become tech-savvy, as perpetrators they can find weak spots,” he says.

High-tech stalking comes in many forms:

• Caller ID. The Caller ID systems on many new phones reveal callers’ names and locations. Using an online phone directory, a stalker can pinpoint a victim’s new place of residence.

• Cell phones. Whenever a victim’s cell phone is in analogue mode, a radio scanner can intercept it.

• GPS services. A Wisconsin woman wondered at her ex-boyfriend’s ability to continually find her whenever she was driving her car. Then she discovered the global positioning device he had installed beneath her car ’s front grill. Many stalkers use these devices, which pinpoint carriers’ exact locations, to track victims. Telephone-based instant-messenger services and some cell phones’ location services are also potential tracking tools.

“Every cell phone has its own identifier, so you can theoretically know the location someone is in,” says Marling. “It’s definitely a growing problem.”

• Spyware. A Michigan man remotely installed a software program on his estranged wife’s computer; the program would e-mail him daily notifications listing all the sites she visited and the contents of every e-mail she sent or received. Stalkers can also use keystroke loggers, which record every key typed and thus disclose passwords, PINs, Web sites, and e-mails.

• Cameras. Cameras today are more powerful, less expensive, smaller, and easier than ever to secretly place inside a wall. A New Jersey man monitored his ex-wife daily through a video camera in her bedroom.

• Public databases. A surprising amount of information about individuals is public record. For example, the court system of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, publishes the names and addresses of individuals who obtain protective orders.

• Headers on fax documents. One woman fled an abusive partner, but had to send him papers. She faxed her attorney papers from her shelter’s fax machine, and he in turn faxed them to the abusive partner’s attorney, who passed them along to him. The woman’s partner spotted the shelter location on the fax head and tracked her down, forcing her to relocate a second time.

• E-mail and instant messages. Stalkers send their victims abusive messages. They can also impersonate their victims by sending out messages in the victims’ names. One abuser changed his wife’s e-mail password and sent threatening messages to himself from her e-mail account. Then he took the messages to the police and convinced them to arrest her.

Defending against Stalkers. Stalkers who use e-mail and other electronic means are sometimes harder for law enforcement to stop. Michelle Garcia, executive director of the Stalking Resource Center, notes that many investigators don’t know how to prove that a stalker’s e-mails came from the stalker — consequently, they don’t count e-mails as evidence.

“We have to get our responders up to speed on how to trace those technologies back to the offenders,” she says.

Technology can also protect victims, however. The Internet is a means to find counselors, employment agencies, housing opportunities, shelters, and support services. It also provides forums for victims to share their stories with each other.

Meanwhile, communities have become much better-equipped to confront stalking. In the last 10 years, new programs for training law enforcement officers, new victims’ support services, and tougher laws have all been introduced.

The Justice Department report offers some advice for keeping safe from stalkers:

• Know who calls you. Use per call (*67) when you get an unknown call, and make sure your phone has caller ID.

• Keep your contact information private. Clear your name from any database that might be published or sold from one company to another.

• Do not send any confidential information via a personal computer Use a library computer, which a stalker will not be able to track. Marling further advises destroying as much personal information as possible and routinely checking your computer for viruses and intruder programs.

“You have to be smarter than your stalker,” says Marling. — Rick Docksai

Sources: Michelle Garcia, Stalking Resource Center, www.ncvc.org/src . Will Marling, National Organization for Victim Assistance, www.trynova.org . Office of Justice Programs, Department of Justice, www.ojpdoj.gov . Stalking Awareness Month, www.stalkingawarenessmonth.org

Tomorrow in Brief (May-June 2009)

Raising Saltwater Fish Far from Oceans

Two of the ocean’s tastiest saltwater fishes, cobia and pompano, may be raised hundreds of miles away from the ocean, thanks to improved aquaculture systems that clean and recirculate water. U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) tanks for raising the saltwater fish. The reused water has salinity levels of just five parts per thousand, compared with 35 parts per thousand in ocean water. Further development of the RAS tanks could produce a highly desirable source of fish while reducing fish-farm effluent; fish wastes and unused food could be recycled as compost.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, www.ars.usda.gov .

Word Watch: Ecoflation

Coined by the World Resources Institute, ecoflation refers to a future scenario in which resource scarcity dramatically raises the prices of vital commodities.

These forces add environmental costs to other costs of doing business. The report warns that companies could see their earnings drop by up to 31% by 2013 and by 47% by 2018 if they fail to develop strategies to mitigate these risks.

“We believe that in order to adapt to these challenges, companies will need to implement real structural changes, such as product innovation and restructured value chains, which will affect both the company and millions of existing and new customers,” the report concludes.

Source: World Resources Institute, www.wri.org .

Saving South America’s Vicuña

A traditional, capture-and-release approach to managing wildlife may have helped bring the South American Vicuña back from the brink of extinction. A relative of the llama, Vicuña were once abundant in the Andes. Rising global demand for their high-quality fleece led to sharply dropping numbers in the 1960s; a 1969 moratorium on sales helped populations begin recovering. In 1987, community-based conservation policies were enacted, reinstating ancient Incan methods of “capture-shear-release” of wild populations that are now credited for saving the species. Australian researcher Iain Gordon believes the Vicuña’s success story provides lessons for wildlife management in Australia, where nearly half of the world’s mammal extinctions of the last two centuries have occurred.

Source: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, www.csiro.au . See also The Vicuña: The Theory and Practice of Community Based Wildlife Management by Iain Gordon (Springer, 2008).

Producing Artificial Skin, Factory-Style

A factory-like approach to tissue engineering may help produce artificial skin, cartilage, and other body parts quickly and in large quantities, thanks to research at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biology. The team aims to break down and automate many of the labor-intensive procedures, such working with biopsied material, preparing cells for stimulating growth, and cryopreserving or packaging the new tissue for shipment. The result could mean improved treatment for burn victims using skin grown in laboratories, as well as the creation of tissue that is suitable for chemical testing, thus avoiding experiments on animals.

Source: Fraunhofer Institute for Facial Engineering and Biotechnology, IGB, www.igb.fraunhofer.de.

Nano-sized Additive Strengthens Concrete

A nanomaterial additive for concrete could slow down the deterioration of roads and bridges, thus reducing maintenance costs as well as the possibility of catastrophic failures. Engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a nano-sized additive that thwarts the penetration of chloride and sulfate ions from road salt, seawater, and soils into concrete. The engineers were reportedly inspired by additives in food processing that thicken foods like salad dressings and give ice cream its texture. Their additive for concrete increases the viscosity, so the damaging chemicals that the concrete is exposed to cannot penetrate it so quickly.

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology, www.nist.gov .

Wild Cards in Our Future

In the January 2009 issue of Futurist Update, the World Future Society’s free e-newsletter, we invited readers to submit their ideas of “wild cards” that futurists need to be looking at critically right now. This section showcases a few of the responses.

What is a wild card? According to FUTURIST editor Edward Cornish, author of Futuring: The Exploration of the Future, a wild card is “an unexpected event that would have enormous consequences if it actually occurred.”

Many wild cards are disasters, such as an asteroid striking the Earth. However, a wild card might be highly beneficial, such as a revolutionary technology that leaves zero carbon dioxide, or a surge of peaceful co-existence among long-standing enemies.

The “advantage” of disaster scenarios, in terms of futurists, is that they give clear and urgent reasons for thinking ahead, whereas the possibility of a pleasant surprise does not normally inspire a need for planning. Some obvious exceptions to that complacency are when we unexpectedly receive a marriage proposal or a job offer, or learn of a new baby on the way—all of which require a great deal of futuring skills.

As you examine the following wild-card scenarios, think about the trends that may lead up to these surprise events, what might be done to prevent them (or promote them, in the case of beneficial wild cards), and how you, your family, business, and community might prepare for a world that has suddenly become quite different.

And if you can think of other wild-card scenarios, feel free to share them with us. —Cynthia G. Wagner

Cynthia G. Wagner is managing editor of THE FUTURIST. E-mail cwagner@wfs.org.

For more on wild cards and other tools of foresight, see Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Edward Cornish (WFS, 2004), which may be ordered at www.wfs.org/futuring.htm.

Costs Threaten Nuclear Power

Nuclear power appears to be an increasingly expensive proposition. Those looking to invest in alternative energy may find nuclear to be more cost-prohibitive than other options, says Lester R. Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute.

Costs include the decommissioning of nuclear power plants when they are worn out - a massive and expensive undertaking. According to the World Nuclear Association, it is common for plants to build in a decommissioning fund during the life of a facility by including it in the price of the electricity they produce. Construction and fuel expenses are also on the rise. Brown points out that this increase reflects the paucity of skilled engineers and construction workers in a "fading industry."

The price of uranium has skyrocketed in the past decade as well, although some speculate that increased production and enrichment may cause the price to decrease. Accident insurance adds to the overhead. Companies are required to purchase the maximum coverage - $300 million per reactor - although critics claim that even this amount is inadequate to cover the risks.

Nuclear waste disposal is also costly, and Brown points out that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the United States is billions of dollars over budget and almost 20 years behind schedule.

"Originally slated to start accepting waste in 1998, it is now set to do so in 2017, assuming it clears all remaining hurdles," Brown notes. Currently, spent nuclear fuel is stored in more than 100 temporary facilities (mostly on-site) in 39 states. However, some experts argue that the spent fuel can be recycled, thus reducing the amount of toxic waste, cutting disposal expenses, and conserving resources.

Future nuclear power might be safer and more affordable with innovations such as the Hyperion Power Module (HPM), a small, self-regulating, factory-sealed nuclear power plant about the size of a hot tub. HPMs would potentially provide power to an entire community or college campus for at least five years before it would need refueling. It would not contain weapons-grade materials such as enriched uranium, and, according to Hyperion, "the waste produced after five years of operation is approximately the size of a softball and is a good candidate for fuel recycling." Hyperion received the commercialization rights from the United States' Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the technology was developed. Orders for HPMs (priced at $25-$30 million) are already arriving, and they should hit the consumer marketplace within five years.

Electricity from a conventional nuclear plant is estimated at 14¢ per kilowatt hour, and Hyperion's goal is to decrease the cost even further. However, Brown reports that wind energy is currently estimated at just 7¢ per kilowatt hour, making it significantly more economically attractive. In addition to generating more (clean) energy per dollar, wind is much safer than conventional nuclear plants: You don't have to decommission a wind farm. Also, unlike the HPM, wind energy creates "green-collar jobs" that benefit local and rural economies.

- Aaron M. Cohen