Quotations Relevant to Future:
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese Proverb
A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually
- Abba Eban
The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.
- Alvin Toffler
Telling the future by looking at the past assumes conditions remain constant. This is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.
- Herb Brody
There is nothing permanent except change
- Heraclitus (c. 540- c. 470 BCE)
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking
- George Patton

People's Daily Online -- Confucius reenters mainstream culture: "Despite the temporary setback, the spread of Confucian thought has revived fast in many parts of China. To policy makers and entrepreneurs alike, many instructions of Confucius are still applicable today. Government officials see certain Confucius instructions as guidelines for their work and important componentsof Chinese traditional culture the youngsters should inherit. "

Sony Global - QRIO: "In thirty years I think it will be bigger than the personal computer industry. We need to do more research, however, into movement but also into intelligence. So far we've called it 'artificial intelligence', but I'd like to see a new research field branch off from that called 'intelligent dynamics'. This would merge research into both intellectual and physical knowledge. We also need to do more research that scientifically analyzes how information is processed in the brain."

Sony Global - QRIO: "Would that technology be useful for products other than robots? I think that certainly all kinds of products, from automobiles to household appliances, will become intelligent in the near future. I think intelligent dynamics will be the basis for that."

Sony Global - QRIO: "It will be largely a story of the personal robot industry, but that story really has only just begun. Perhaps it will be the first new industry of the 21st century? "

KurzweilAI.net: "The Department of Defense is convinced that a fast-track modernization program is critical to national security. Key trends will be automation of land, air and underwater vehicles, and communication networks that connect all the players in a battle theater. Projects in the works include a missile that flies at mach 7, destroying targets with kinetic energy alone, and space-launched darts that strike like meteors."

The New York Times > Magazine > Encounter: Proceed With Caution: "Of course, genetic engineering isn't ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,'' which Joy urged upon his daughter. But his focus on consequences stays constant. Nanotechnology and biotech are supposed to save lives and brighten the future; Joy isn't sure we can bank on that. We should instead question the bedrock assumption that good science equals beneficial science. Good science, he says, is the discovery of truth -- for example, an experiment that yields an accurate result and that is repeatable. But science may not be good for us anymore if it yields a bad outcome. ''The Greeks knew better,'' Joy says. ''Oedipus was destroyed by truth. He looked like he had a happy life until he learned one too many things. That's the cautionary tale.'' "

The New York Times > Magazine > Encounter: Proceed With Caution: "Joy often uses the free market as an example of a system where any outcome, good or bad, is possible. At the moment, he argues, the same potential for good and bad outcomes exists in various kinds of private-sector research. The problem, though, is that a single bad biotech outcome may quickly become epidemic, unstoppable and irreversible. ''Markets can take us places we don't want to go,'' he says, ''and science, unchallenged and uninhibited, will take us places we don't want to go.'' "

The New York Times > Magazine > Encounter: Proceed With Caution: "He's not exactly optimistic, predicting that public awareness will most likely come only after an actual accident at a company or a university. Until then, he says, speed -- the mad rush for patents and market share and money -- will trump caution. Regulatory agencies are structured to catch shady C.F.O.'s, not reckless private-sector technologists. And markets are ill equipped to play traffic cop. ''Markets are extremely good at go,'' Joy says. ''They're not very good at stop. And I think we need a little bit of stop right now. Or else we're not going to like the outcome.'' "

The New York Times > Magazine > Encounter: Proceed With Caution: "The other Bill Joy, however, would very much like to prevent the inevitable from happening. Four years ago in an article he wrote for Wired magazine, Joy declared that the headlong race in biotechnology and nanotechnology might prove catastrophic. In the time since, he has continued to explore and advance this concern. Joy says he thinks the probability of a ''civilization-changing event'' is most likely in the double digits, perhaps as high as 50 percent. He doesn't merely ascribe these odds to terrorism; he suggests a pandemic disease might arise from a sudden accident or as a consequence of cutting-edge research. For disquieting evidence, he points out that a couple of years ago scientists assembled polio in a lab. That in late 2002 J. Craig Venter, the founder of Celera Genomics, announced plans to create organisms from scratch. That only a few months ago scientists were tinkering with deadly strains of bird flu in less-than-top-security labs. That the genomic sequence for the plague is now on the Web for anyone to see or make use of. "

political rather than development endsIn some instances, aid is again being treated as a tool to achieve political rather than development ends. In the run up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, aid was used as an incentive to support [the coalition’s] military action.

Logic of the Cold WarOthers, however, saw the irreducible logic of the Cold War blight their nascent futures. Proxy wars were funded and fought; corrupt and repressive regimes were installed and backed purely on the basis of whether the people involved were ‘ours’ or ‘theirs’. Particularly in Africa, the legacy of that period is with us still.

Self-interest Aid has always, to some extent, been given with at least one eye on the self-interest of the giver – be it to secure influence, trade or strategic resources.

Donors’ own interestsAid is viewed increasingly as a means of promoting and safeguarding the donors’ own interests, particularly their security, rather than addressing the real needs of poor people. Aid, in other words, is being co-opted to serve in the global ‘War on Terror’.

Item Details: "'The politics of poverty: Aid in the new Cold War' examines how the policies of donor countries are starting to follow those from the dark days of the Cold War. Aid, says the report, is once again being viewed as a means of promoting the donors' own interests, particularly their security, rather than addressing the real needs of poor people. The report sets out the mistakes of the past and shows how they are starting to be repeated. Drawing on evidence from recent discussions in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it demonstrates how some forms of military training and intelligence gathering are now being considered as suitable areas to be funded from aid budgets."

System Condition Three What is System Condition Three and Why?
In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity are not systematically impoverished by physical displacement, overharvesting, or other forms of ecosystem manipulation. The third system condition addresses the physical destruction and manipulation of the biosphere, and, consequently, the services nature provides to society. While violations of system condition one and two also impact ecosystem services, system condition three focuses our attention on how we (from the individual to the societal scale) directly interact with the biosphere. This includes activities such as paving over productive bioregions, overharvesting natural resources such as forests and fisheries, and development leading to urban sprawl. It also includes protecting natural habitats, smart growth and supporting sustainable fishing, agriculture and timber harvesting practices.

TwoSubstances produced by society must not systematically increase in the biosphere. This means that in order for a society to be sustainable, the production and accumulation of human-made substances must not happen faster than they can be reintegrated back into natural cycles, assuming they can be assimilated by nature at all. The focus here is on reducing our dependence on synthetic materials by using safe, biodegradable alternatives which can be reintegrated into natural cycles, as well as decreasing the amount of waste generated by society in general. Why? First, as with system condition one, the earth has a limited capacity to assimilate waste and the sheer volume of material and naturally occurring compounds produced by humans today is building up at a rate that far exceeds the earth’s capacity. Second, nature has no experience with the synthetic compounds humans are introducing and often has no way of breaking them down in order for them to be reintegrated into nature. As a result, it is often impossible to predict the consequences or locate the cause and effect linkages between generating synthetic materials and negative public and environmental health impacts. Even in the rare cases where it is possible to identify the problem source, the damage done is often irreversible or may take long periods of time to rectify.

system condition one What is system condition one (and why)?
Substances from the Earth’s crust must not systematically increase in the biosphere. This means that in order for a society to be sustainable, the balance of flows between the ecosphere (living organisims and the physical systems with which they interact) and the lithosphere (the earth's crust) must be such that concentrations of substances from the lithosphere do not systematically increase in the whole ecosphere, or in parts of it. Why not? Over billions of years fossil fuels, heavy metals and minerals were sequestered into the earth’s crust (the lithosphere) and nature has adapted to specific amounts of these materials. Mining and burning fossil fuels release a wide range of persistent substances into the ecosphere that build up and spread. Current living systems are not equipped to handle magnified amounts of lead, mercury, radioactive materials, and other hazardous compounds. Consequently, when humans support a systematic increase in the concentration of matter that is introduced into the biosphere from the lithosphere we risk destroying the functions and biodiversity of the ecosphere.

The Natural Step : About : FAQ: "In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing:
concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust;
concentrations of substances produced by society;
degradation by physical means;
and, in that society,
human needs are met worldwide. "

Outlook 2004: "the biggest wild card remains a major terror attack on the U.S., one using biological, chemical, or dirty nuclear weapons. This would deal a gigantic blow to the global economy. Not likely to happen, but possible."

Outlook 2004: "Now Toyota, through its Lexus division, will win the race to market. Using their powerful �hybrid synergy drive� enables them to produce a V-6 gasoline hybrid engine assisted by four electric motors and synchronized hybrid operation that meets two critical performance tests. The V-6 will outperform an internal combustion V-8, with quicker acceleration and more power. At the same time, fuel economy will match a compact car, and pollution will be dramatically reduced. And a bonus is that noise pollution will diminish, as the car�s electric motors run silently."

Your Questions: "The Futures Wheel is a useful tool for anticipating the possible consequences of a development or a trend. Years ago I was student in a program called “social management of technology” and we were especially interested in what are called “second order” consequences of any particular technological development. The Futures Wheel helps you to see multiple levels of consequences. It works like this. You place in the center of a circle the development you wish to analyze. For example, it could be a technical development like introducing inexpensive wireless phones to a developing region... The first analysis step is to ask, “what will be primary consequences of this development?” A ring of circles is drawn around the center circle, with lines connecting to the center circle. This first outer ring captures three to five of the most important immediate consequences. For example, a primary consequence of inexpensive wireless phones would be to increase contact with other regions... It is the next analysis step that is the key utility of the Futures Wheel. Rather than ending the analysis with these primary consequences, each of the primary consequences is looked at in turn. A second ring or circles is drawn around the first ring. You ask, for the first primary consequence, what is a consequence of that? And so on. Lines are drawn connecting these “second-order consequences” to the relevant primary consequence. For example, a second-order consequence of increased contact with other regions would be increased economic exchange…buying and selling things. Another second-order consequence would be increased exchange of ideas. ... One can further rounds of analysis, looking for third-order and then fourth-order consequences, depending on how far you want to go. Thus, the Futures Wheel can help you to see possible futures, and to imagine alternate scenarios and strategies for the future.

An Immense Charge - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "Intervention is the starting point for a complex political process whose eventual end point cannot be predicted. Political conflicts do not come to an end just because outside forces have interposed themselves between combatants. About the most that can be hoped for is that an intervention will channel tensions into the political arena, preventing more violent expressions of communal discord. "

An Immense Charge - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "Intervention opens the political space to new, often unexpected, actors. Outside intervention, by displacing the old political order, allows new forces to emerge. Some will be old opponents of the former rulers, others will represent entirely new movements. While some of these new actors may be benign, others represent graver threats. "

An Empire of Denial - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "The US government knows that if you control the diminishing resource on which every other nation depends, you will, as that resource dries up, come to exercise precisely the kind of indirect rule that Ferguson documents elsewhere. "

Security Council Reform: How and When? - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council: "There is today a widespread consensus that the UN Security Council urgently needs to be reformed. Two factors are specifically being mentioned as undermining the Council�s legitimacy: first, its biased composition, second the veto-wielding power of its five permanent members (P-5). "

Renewable Energy: Special Report on the International Conference for Renewable Energies (Renewables 2004): "China pledged to increase its use of small hydro, wind, solar, and biomass power generation to 60,000 megawatts (the equivalent of 60 giant power plants), providing 10 percent of its generating capacity by 2010. With this announcement and the related new policies now in the works, China may be on the verge of becoming the world�s next leader in renewable energy.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced plans to increase Germany�s use of renewable energy to 20 percent of its energy supply by 2020. Germany also committed to provide 500 million Euros worth of low-interest loans over the next five years for renewable energy projects in developing countries.
The World Bank committed to increase its renewable energy lending by at least 20 percent annually over the next five years. "

Renewable Energy: Special Report on the International Conference for Renewable Energies (Renewables 2004): "The need for clean, renewable energy sources has never been greater. Throughout the world, energy use is rising rapidly in industrial and developing countries alike. And roughly 2 billion people still lack access to electricity and other modern energy services. This ever-growing demand, along with turmoil in the Middle East, rising gas prices, concern about climate change, and as pollution-induced health problems all send a clear message: today?Ds global energy system, which depends heavily on fossil fuels, is unsustainable in economic, social, and ecological terms. "

Global Trends in or AffectingOrganizational Structures in the 21st Century: "Well, for one thing, organizations are strongly affected by the available technology. The fact that transportation, communication and information technologies have changed so much in just the last 50 years has completely transformed how business is done. Two hundred and fifty years ago it took months to get a message from New York to Japan. Today, you can talk to people on the phone, in real time, anywhere on the planet (and a little beyond!). You can get an object, such as a product, into someone's hands in any major city on the planet in about 20 hours. So now it is reasonable to not only have global customers, but to have offices around the world, and to have organizational functions, like manufacturing or design, spread out across the world. "

Global Trends in or AffectingOrganizational Structures in the 21st Century: "Technological change breeds technological change. This is because technological change is a function of knowledge, and knowledge is increasing rapidly. This is a function many things, including:
larger population (more minds working on problems)
better tools for research (fast computers, ability to look up other people's work)
more knowledge (it takes knowledge to make more knowledge)
The rate of change is itself changing (getting faster) because most innovations are produced not as a result of new knowledge, but of recombinations of old knowledge. And the number of possible combinations increases exponentially with the number of bits being combined."...Of course, most combinations of knowledge chunks are useless -- combining the technology in a hair dryer with the technology for door hinges probably gets you nothing. But if just 1 in one billion combinations produced something useful, the rate of new product innovation would be absolutely staggering. So it's not surprising that when we look at the number of innovations in human societies over the last 250 thousand years, we find very little change for 99% of the that time. By most estimates, there has been as much technological change in the last 250 years as there has been in the preceding 250 thousand years.

Asociaci?n de Historia Actual. Article: "After the terrorist attacks of S-11-2001 the US engaged in the policies of new imperialism and in the construction of a new kind of world(-)empire. US global policies can be divided in detached, economist, cooperative, rule-based Wilsonian Idealism and Theodore Rooseveltian Imperialism, based on aggressive nationalism, militarism, unilateralism and global governance based on direct rule, physical presence and coercion. "

BBC NEWS | Business | Africa's 'tragic' economic record: "In a damning assessment of the continent's economy, the report says income per head has fallen by 11% in sub-Saharan Africa since 1974. "

State of the World Trends and Facts: Watching What We Eat: "By 2020, people in developing countries will consume more than 39 kilograms per person?twice as much as they did in the 1980s. People in industrial countries, however, will still consume the most meat?100 kilograms a year by 2020, the equivalent of a side of beef, 50 chickens, and 1 pig. Yet it is questionable whether the system that delivers all this meat to them can persist as its deficiencies mount and as alternatives such as vegetarianism and pasture-raised meat flourish."

State of the World Trends and Facts: Watching What We Eat: "Global meat production has increased more than fivefold since 1950, and factory farming is the fastest growing method of animal production worldwide. Industrial systems are responsible for 74 percent of the world?s total poultry products, 50 percent of pork production, 43 percent of the beef, and 68 percent of the eggs. Industrial countries dominate production, but developing nations are rapidly expanding and intensifying their production systems. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Asia has the fastest-developing livestock sector, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean."

State of the World Trends and Facts: Watching What We Eat: "These consumer actions are aimed at grabbing control of how food is produced and steering the global food system away from its current trajectory. The choices in the average supermarket are, of course, endless. But some of the most profound changes ?eaters? can make include rethinking their relationship with meat, selecting food produced without agrochemicals, and buying locally grown food. "

State of the World Trends and Facts: Watching What We Eat: "The ?conventional? way to raise food relies on monocultural fields and a cocktail of chemicals, from antibiotics and pesticides to fertilizers and food preservatives. But perhaps the most overt example of consumption gone awry in the food supply is the expanding waistlines and the crippling rise in obesity that is becoming epidemic not only in the richest nations but in the urban centers of poor countries as well. "

State of the World Trends and Facts: Watching What We Eat: "The rise in international food trade and the proliferation of heavily processed and packaged foods has distanced most people from what they eat, both geographically and psychologically. But because humanity devotes such a large share of the planet?s surface to food production?25 percent, more than the world?s forested area?it is impossible to separate the way farmers raise food from the health of rivers, wetlands, forests, and our living environment. According to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, our food choices rival transportation as the human activity with the greatest impact on the environment. "

New Scientist: "A terrorist attack using a dirty bomb is 'a nightmare waiting to happen', says Frank Barnaby, a nuclear consultant who used to work at the UK's atomic weapons plant in Aldermaston in Berkshire. 'I'm amazed that it hasn't happened already.'"

New Scientist: "A terrorist attack using a dirty bomb is 'a nightmare waiting to happen', says Frank Barnaby, a nuclear consultant who used to work at the UK's atomic weapons plant in Aldermaston in Berkshire. 'I'm amazed that it hasn't happened already.'"

New Scientist: "The risk of somebody somewhere triggering a radioactive 'dirty bomb' is growing, evidence gathered by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency suggests.
The IAEA's records, which it has released to New Scientist, show a dramatic rise in the level of smuggling of radiological materials, defined as radioactive "

New Scientist: "The risk of somebody somewhere triggering a radioactive 'dirty bomb' is growing, evidence gathered by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency suggests.
The IAEA's records, which it has released to New Scientist, show a dramatic rise in the level of smuggling of radiological materials, defined as radioactive "

Headlines for Tuesday, June 1, 2004: "On macro policy, the key lesson to be learnt from China's success in reducing poverty is that rapid economic growth does the trick. China's output has grown eight-fold in the last quarter century and per capita real income has risen by an annual average of 7 percent over the period. This has been achieved through vastly enhanced trade and step-by-step internal liberalization. Another key enabler has been massive investment in infrastructure. Fiscal stringency and opening up the financial sector internally and externally have taken second place. But China's rapid growth has increased regional inequality and it is doubtful if the Chinese leaders would have been able to persist in their approach without the political control they concentrated in their hands. So the Chinese way is not entirely replicable in democratic India."

People's Daily Online -- Nobel laureate warns of risks of RMB appreciation: "China should be determined in saying 'no' to the appreciation of the Chinese currency Renminbi (RMB), said Nobel Prize laureate Robert Mundell in Beijing Sunday. ...As for the "Asian Dollar", the "father of the euro" said it is difficult to tell the possibility and timetable of a unitary Asiancurrency, which has high requirements for regional economic integration, while for the euro zone, such objective is likely to be achieved in the next 10 to 15 years. The RMB will become a successor of the US dollar and euro, he predicted, which means China should not make the yuan a supranational currency in Asia.

Plate tectonics and people [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]: "As global population increases and more countries become industrialized, the world demand for mineral and energy resources will continue to grow. Because people have been using natural resources for millennia, most of the easily located mineral, fossil-fuel, and geothermal resources have already been tapped. By necessity, the world's focus has turned to the more remote and inaccessible regions of the world, such as the ocean floor, the polar continents, and the resources that lie deeper in the Earth's crust. Finding and developing such resources without damage to the environment will present a formidable challenge in the coming decades. "

Historical perspective [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]: "According to the continental drift theory, the supercontinent Pangaea began to break up about 225-200 million years ago, eventually fragmenting into the continents as we know them today. "

PlanetVolcanic eruptions and earthquakes are awe-inspiring displays of the powerful forces of nature and can be extraordinarily destructive. Some societies have been devastated by them. About 60 of the Earth’s 550 historically- active volcanoes are in eruption each year, but far more volcanism takes place unobserved on the ocean floor. Steady earth movements often culminate
in rock fractures that produce earthquakes. In 1992 alone, 85 earthquakes worldwide exceeded magnitude 6.5 on the Richter scale, and many of them caused extensive damage.

Some unanswered questions [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]: "Eventually the Earth, too, will lose so much heat that its interior will stop convecting. Earthquake and volcanic activity will then cease. No new mountains will form, and the geologic cycle of mountain building, erosion, sedimentation, and soil formation will be disrupted and also will cease. Exactly how a cooled-down Earth will change surface conditions -- and whether our planet will still be habitable -- nobody knows. Fortunately, these changes will not happen for many billions of years! "

Some unanswered questions [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]: "The Earth may be unique in our solar system because it appears to be the only planet that is still volcanically and tectonically active; our planet therefore remains very much alive, while the others apparently have long ceased activity. Volcanic activity requires a source of internal heat, and it is the escape of this heat that fuels plate tectonics. While volcanism played a major role in the early history of Mars, the Moon, and probably Mercury, their small sizes relative to Earth resulted in the loss of internal heat at a much faster rate. They have been inactive globes for the last billion years or so.
Venus may still be active, though the evidence is questionable."

Some unanswered questions [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]: "The tectonic plates do not randomly drift or wander about the Earth's surface; they are driven by definite yet unseen forces. Although scientists can neither precisely describe nor fully understand the forces, most believe that the relatively shallow forces driving the lithospheric plates are coupled with forces originating much deeper in the Earth."

talking points for transformation: ". What are some of the driving forces of the major changes underway
Science and Technology (e.g., genetic engineering, information technology, materials)
Population changes and demographic shifts (worldwide)
Political, social, and economic considerations "