Archive for 'Environment & Energy'

Underwater view is not clear

If you missed it today, this underwater diving expedition for ABC news by Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Sam Champion is worth watching. I have a foreboding that humans will sacrifice just about anything to acquire the last drops of oil, no matter the risks or the alternatives. I am not sure why we are so [...]

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Future of Energy

I just finished a day of consulting with GHD Engineering in Kuala Lumpur (I am doing a long range planning project with them) and we discussed, among many trends, the future of energy. As I flew back and forth I was reading the recent book by James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren. In it he [...]

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Glacier Retreat in Time-Lapse

Impressive time-lapse film of glacier retreat, promoting an upcoming NOVA program which aired a year ago.

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Hydrovolts offers electricity of the future

You have a chance to vote for the Inc.com new entrepreneur of the year in the next 24 hours, and here is why I suggest you vote for a Seattle, Washington based company called Hydrovolts. Last week co-founders Chris Leyerle, COO, and Burt Hamner, President, sat down for an hour with me, and explained their [...]

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The Prince and The Frog

The Prince and the Frog – it’s not what you think. Prince Charles envites you to embrace the frogs, and in doing so save the tropical rain forest. It’s not a fairy tale, but an SOS to save a crucial part of the planet, upon which we all depend. The rainforests, where these frogs live, [...]

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World on FiRe – Notes & Impressions from FiRe 2009

Last week included four eventful days at the annual Future In Review conference put on by the Strategic News Service. This year, the last at the San Diego Del Coronado was the best of the five I have attended, of the eight that have been held. (full disclosure – I am on the planning committee [...]

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Living Little: Future of Smaller, Sustainable Houses

This past week the annual Seattle Home Show was notable for its emphasis on smaller, more modest, and more sustainable features and homes. For many years, even decades, futurists have presumed that a day would come when it made more sense to build smaller rather than larger dwellings, primarily because of shrinking family size. More [...]

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One Thousand Years is not Enough

In 1999 and 2000 I had the privilege of helping to lead three retreat-like gatherings called Humanity 3000, in which scientists and international thought leaders asked a simple question: “What will it take for humanity to survive for another 1000 years?” Sponsored by the Foundation for the Future, the reports of those sessions can be [...]

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Four Peaks we don’t want to climb

Via The Oil Drum, we learn about the current world energy conference being held in Dubai. The conference began with an address by Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange and the Netherlands, who is “perhaps the only prince in the world who regularly uses a bike to get around and save fossil fuels…” Being [...]

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Oil Prices – Falling into Crisis

Every observer I know has been surprised by the historic crash in oil prices since July 2008. Many experts, including me, anticipated that the price would certainly fall, due to ending speculation and an economic slowdown, but the price has fallen off an historic cliff. How can this be explained? A blogger who goes by [...]

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