WorldFuture Sneak Preview: William Halal, Michael Marien, and Richard Slaughter Discuss the Global Megacrisis

WorldFuture 2012, the annual conference of the World Future Society, is your opportunity to take part in the biggest discussions of our day.

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William Halal

As an aerospace engineer in the Apollo space program and a manager in Silicon Valley, William Halal was involved in some of the twentieth century’s most important technological leaps forward. Now he applies his firsthand knowledge of innovation to chart technology’s future. TechCast, a forecasting system that he founded, recruits researchers from every corner of the globe to review technological trends. Its audience includes corporations and national governments. Halal is a frequent contributor to THE FUTURIST magazine, a regular blogger at wfs.org, a professor emeritus of management and technology at George Washington University, and the author of Technology’s Promise.

Michael Marien

A consummate writer and macro-thinker, Michael Marien reviews hundreds of nonfiction books every year and presents assessments of the most “paradigm-breaking” titles on his Web site, GlobalForesightBooks.org. Through this site, which Marien launched after having edited the World Future Society periodical Future Survey for three decades, Marien succinctly compiles and recasts the most noteworthy expert opinion from every research sector across the globe. Marien is also a staple contributor to the World Future Society’s World Future Review, every edition of which features his column, New and Forthcoming Books.

Richard Slaughter

Richard Slaughter is the founder of the Australian Foresight Institute. He co-directs Foresight International, and authored the book The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History (Foresight International, 2010).

Together, Halal, Marien, and Slaughter are uniquely qualified to address what they argue is the most important issue that humanity will face in the coming decades...

The Global Megacrisis: How Bad Will It Get?

A global “megacrisis,” a perfect storm of climate change, economic turmoil, socioeconomic inequalities, and corruption, looms in humanity's future, according to Halal and Marien. But as the duo originally detailed in their recent FUTURIST magazine special feature, like all worst case scenarios, the global megacrisis can be averted.

Their forum will review what the world has learned over the past two years about this megacrisis, as well as the new paradigms that the world will have to adopt to avoid or withstand it. Thomas Homer-Dixon will act as respondent.

This conference bulletin was reported by FUTURIST editors Rick Docksai and Patrick Tucker.