FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Global ecological trends are not nearly as dire as they are often portrayed," Reason writer to tell international gather of futurists.

Bethesda, MD: Declining fisheries, shrinking tropical forests, the growing scarcity of water, and other great ecological challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century are "transitory," according to Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine. "Scientific and economic analysis shows that humanity will increasingly withdraw its productive activities from wild nature, enabling ecosystems to heal themselves and to thrive," he says.

Bailey will present a discussion of these ideas to an international gathering of futurists at 12:15, Monday, July 30, at the Hilton Minneapolis as part of at WorldFuture 2007: Fostering Hope and Vision for the 21st Century, the annual conference of the World Future Society.   

More than 1,000 futurists from such institutions and organizations as Kellogg Company, 3M Information Technology, IBM, NASA, Aveda, Rutgers University, Wells Fargo, Sun Microsystems, Saab AB, CSP Japan Inc., the U.S. Army and Air Force, General Motors, and from countries all over the world will converge on the Hilton Minneapolis for the conference July 29-31, which will feature nearly 100 sessions and presentations on such topics as nanotechnology, biotechnology, security and terrorism, and environmental stewardship. 

"We look forward to welcoming fascinating and informed speakers and enthusiastic attendees from around the world to a conference that will be teeming with leading-edge innovations in interactive engagement and communications," said Joel A. Barker, conference chair and co-author of the book Five Regions of the Future: Preparing Your Business for Tomorrow's Technology Revolution, among many others.

Founded in 1966 as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization in Washington, D.C., the World Future Society has some 25,000 members in more than eighty countries around the world. Individuals and groups from all nations are eligible to join the Society and participate in its programs and activities.

The Society holds a two-day, international conference once a year where participants discuss foresight techniques and global trends that are influencing the future. Previous conference attendees have included future U.S. President Gerald Ford (1974), Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1975), behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner (1984), age-wave expert Ken Dychtwald (2005), U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker (2006), and scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil (2006).

Presenting at this year's conference: Gregory Stock of the UCLA School of Public Health; Helen Fisher of the Rutgers University; Tor Dahl, founder, president and CEO of Tor Dahl associates; Nat Irvin II of Wake Forest University; and dozens more from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, MIT, eBay, the Inter-American Development Bank and others. Registration for the conference is $600.

For information about WorldFuture 2007, contact the World Future Society at 1-301-656-8274 or e-mail director of communications Patrick Tucker, ptucker@wfs.org, or Susan Echard, sechard@wfs.org, vice president for membership and conference operations, or check the World  Future Society's Web site, www.wfs.org .