James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, that the Earth is a holistic self-maintaining system, died last week. As a coincidence I read his last book, Novacene, over the weekend before I had heard the news.
All change creates both challenges and opportunities.
All life is change: being born, growing, learning, maturing, dying, evolving.
Society is continually transforming: moving from the past to the future, building on our human history, creating new and unique manifestations of humanity.
Our world is morphing: the turning of the seasons, the movement of the continents, shifts in climate and flora and fauna, both natural and anthropogenic.
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In order to gain more clarity for myself on what is important to me, I have created a draft Thought Landscape of primary topics, arranged across four related themes: Thinking, Technology, Business, and Humanity. This will be useful for me in filtering information and guiding the frameworks I develop on these topics.
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For decades one of the most reliable possible predictions has been that official forecasts for renewable energy would underestimate the actual pace of cost reductions and installations.
The chart on the left shows the actual growth in photovoltaic (PV) solar installations in black, compared to the annually updated forecasts from the World Energy Agency in color. Linear thinking prevails, while exponential factors are at play.
An insightful new report from the Oxford Martin School’s Institute for New Economic Thinking Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition takes a more realistic and empirical perspective on the likely trajectory for costs and uptake of renewable energy. The report concludes that:
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We’ve come a long way this year. Currently over 50% of Americans, close to 60% of Western Europeans, and 24% of the global population have been fully vaccinated against COVID. Every day around one in 200 people in the world receives a vaccination.
Of course this does not portend the end of COVID. This is underlined by recent data from Israel, where there are around 8000 cases daily, despite 78% of the population being double vaccinated.
Pandemic (from pan meaning ‘all’) is used to describe an epidemic that has spread across nations and sometimes the world. Endemic refers to diseases that may be widespread, but with relatively consistent numbers over extended periods.
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An article in Sydney Morning Herald today, What we do now that will be unfathomable by 2050, looks at what we might not be able to imagine about our lives today.
The piece quotes me on cars and parking:
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The US National Intelligence Council has been using scenario methdologies to look into the future since the 1990s.
Today they released the 7th edition of their Global Trends report, examining the risks and challenges of the next 20 years.
Below I have selected some visual highlights from the 156 page report that distill some of key insights.
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The end of each year is always a good time to distil predictions for what is coming. 2020 has been an absolutely pivotal year, it is a critical time for us to actively make sense of our path forward.
In the slides below I have laid out 9 themes that I believe will be at the center of our world in 2021 and beyond.
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A recent article in ICON magazine looks at what to expect as we think far into the future, potentially the end of this century, based primarily on an interview with me.
The full article is well worth a read. Below are some excerpts from my quotes in the piece.
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One of the deepest questions we can ask is:
Are humans fundamentally good or bad?
Of course the answer is neither and both.
Yet day by day how we feel about this question fluctuates with our moods and what we observe in the world.
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