May-June 2008

THE FUTURIST

May-June 2008
Volume 42, No. 3
Order a print edition of the May-June 2008 Futurist.

Cover Story

Draining Our Future: The Growing Shortage of Freshwater

by Lester R. Brown
Global demand for water has tripled in the past half century. Water is a food, energy, and political issue as well as a resource issue. Since most of the water we consume comes in the form of food (70% of water use is for agricultural irrigation), the competition for water between rural and urban areas will impact future food supplies. Moreover, as water tables fall, more energy is required to dig deeper and pump it out; meanwhile, diversion of water for hydroelectric power is draining many rivers dry. The basic strategy for solving these problems involves both stabilizing population growth to reduce demand and improving water efficiency to increase supply. PDF Available

Plus

The Desalination Solution

by McKinley Conway on the growing need to increase freshwater resources locally through desalination projects.
PDF Available.

Bioviolence: A Growing Threat

by Barry Kellman
The nuclear threat has been the nightmare scenario for more than a half century, but an even more frightening possibility is the deliberate spread of fatal diseases such as Ebola, smallpox, or anthrax. Bioviolence is about the destruction of living organisms, and, unlike nuclear or even traditional bombs, its destruction can be executed quietly and anonymously, making its prevention even more challenging. As yet there is no single international authority tracking or preventing the use of bioweapons, and this "nobody-in-charge" situation could prove disastrous to humanity. The author, director of the International Weapons Control Center at DePaul University, offers several strategies, including the establishment of an international Bioviolence Prevention Office.
PDF Available.

PLUS: Germ Warfare Under the Microscope:

interview with Jeanne Guillemin, author of Biological Weapons, on what governments should do to reduce the worldwide threat of bioviolence.

AND: Nanopollution: The Invisible Fog of Future Wars

by research scientists Antonietta Gatti and Stefano Montanari , on the environmental and health impacts of nanodust resulting from the use of high-tech weaponry.
PDF Available.

Discovering the Future

by Paul Crabtree The author of future-oriented fiction works like The Time Machine and nonfiction works like Anticipations was uniquely able to draw trends together from across a spectrum of human activity and imagine scenarios that are both vivid and plausible. And uncannily accurate. What were the building blocks of Wells's predictive technique? He explained the basic principles behind his methodology in an address to the Royal Society in 1902.

Trends Shaping Tomorrow's World: Forecasts and Implications for Business, Government, and Consumers (Part Two)

by Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies
This special report (second of two parts) updates the major trends that have been tracked in a four-decade research project by Forecasting International. Trends covered in part 2 include the ongoing dominant role that technological change plays in the economy and society; the continuing rapid growth of the service sector; the disappearance of "retirement," or at least a meaningful "retirement age"; the growth of entrepreneurialism; the loss of multiple management levels; and the growing risk of exposure to terrorism among increasingly international organizations. The authors summarize the implications of each trend.
PDF Available.