Future of Arctic Ice – 2011 Nearly Matched All-time Low

For some years now I've been sure to follow the summer-time story of ice in the Arctic Ocean, as tracked by the Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. I began doing this after meeting a cold-weather engineer from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who alerted me both to the special dynamics of the Arctic, and to this Center as a reliable source of data. Because the global temperatures seem to be increasing in the Arctic at about twice the rate of the rest of the planet, the impact on the summer melting of the "permanent" ice cap can be dramatic. Detailed observations begin only in 1979, so the record is short, but in that time a significant increase in the summer melt has been observed, both in terms of the total area of ice, and its thickness. The composite satellite photos you may have seen measure only the area covered. Wind and short term weather patterns can impact the amount of ice observed - winds can push the ice in and out of the Arctic. If you study the data at the Center you will see that in general a pretty dramatic fall-off in the amount of ice at the end of each summer- mid-September - has been the pattern. 2007 was the summer with the least ice, and 2011 came in at second place. Looking at the satellite photos and the amount of clear water that enables ship navigation each summer now also illustrates why the nations that surround the Arctic are jockeying for position to open the Arctic to energy exploration. That tapping the fossil fuels that may be found there and lighting them on fire may only hasten the demise of the ice cap seems of secondary concern to those involved.

Is the Arctic a canary in the coal mine in terms of global impacts of climate change? I think so. I am surprised that it does not generate more attention.

When the subject of climate change comes up, I point everyone to visit this center online for themselves. The data and the photos are there for any one to see.

Yes, I know, if you compare 2007 to 2011 it will look like the ice is increasing! Trust me, it is not. Just visit NSIDC for the evidence.

Is West Side Story still America’s story?

Seattle’s Cinerama has been hosting the 70mm Film Festival for the past couple of weeks, featuring classic films from 2001: A Space Odyssey to My Fair Lady. Yesterday I was able to go see West Side Story. My first time ever having seen the musical, I was impressed with the cinematography (advanced for the ‘60s) and its interaction with the curved screen, which made me feel as if I was actually included in the events on screen.

Too bad the events on screen are beautifully choreographed displays of hatred, racism and murder. Referred to by both police and civilians alike as “PR”s, the Puerto Rican “Sharks” battle against the non-race-specific white “Jets” to be the best gang on the block. Each side gets daily doses of racial slurs and violent threats, a reflection of the intense civil rights problems in America in the '60's.

At the same time that this film highlights fundamental issues with rampant racism and inequality in America, West Side Story does a great job of making light of the situation with foolish insults and melodramatic dance numbers to call attention to the absurdity of violent discrimination. Placing this racially tense story in a musical setting, full of spontaneous dancing and beautiful melodies draws attention to the irrational nature of its content. Fight scenes on the playground are theatrical ballet sequences that correspond perfectly with orchestra music. Absolutely offensive situations presented in the film are lightened with lyrics and dialogue that demonstrate the ignorance of the kids that hate each other for no apparent reason except skin color.

The purpose of presenting a dark and serious subject like racism with a light touch is to show the audience how silly and unsubstantiated the “arguments” are for being discriminatory. It’s almost embarrassing to watch the explosive violence that stems from the smallest comment. Senseless anger and ridiculous name-calling seem petty and laughable while watching it on screen in this way.

And yet we unfortunately haven’t come too far since the 1960’s. There is still illogical hatred and discrimination that leads to incessant violence, and for what?

[Glen Hiemstra note: My wife and I had attended a screening of West Side Story before Mallory was able to go. Today in a speech to the annual conference of the Alliance for Children and Families, in Washington DC, when talking about demographic trends and specifically immigration, I described our experience this way...

For the last three weeks a Paul Allen owned “Cinerama” theater in Seattle has been doing a 70-millimeter Cinerama revival. My wife and I went to West Side Story, made in 1961, 50 years ago, a film that I had not seen as a child. It was amazing. It was the saddest experience, to see how far we have not come in our jingoistic, nativistic, astonishingly prejudiced attitudes toward immigrants. Then it was Puerto Ricans in New York, now it is Mexicans and others from Latin America. Then, major film writers and studios were willing to challenge the status quo in a block-buster, academy award winning film. Now only a low-budget indie film maker would dare to tackle such a subject, while leading political candidates for the highest office can talk about how high a fence to build and whether it should actively kill people. This is not right. Here is my prediction: In the future, when a fence has been built, American business leaders will be climbing ladders with megaphones, to beg those on the other side to please come and do some work.

I might add, West Side Story made me proud of the often maligned 60's.]

Will Austerity Create the Future?

This is the kind of thing that government built the last time we had such a deep economic problem and employment needed a boost.

Are we building anything for the future, today, to help get out of the jobs crisis? Just wondering.

Here are some alternate ideas to austerity as the path to prosperity, offered to the UK Government.

Perhaps there are better alternatives to what we are doing?

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video producer and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke: Prognosticating at 90

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (December 1917-March 2008) was a forward-thinking writer and scientist involved in film, television, government, and especially, amazingly accurate speculation about the future. Clarke collected countless awards, including receiving a Knighthood in 1998 and having a geostationary orbit named after him by the International Astronomical Union.

I was touched this week when I discovered his heartfelt and optimistic speculations, and his "3 wishes" that he recorded in this video on the occasion of his 90th birthday in 2007. He speaks very much to today.

3D Manufacture in Space

It has been possible for years now to do 3D design, 3D prototyping, and more recently 3D manufacture or 3D printing of more and more complex objects. Increasingly this kind of work can be done using small machines, even desktop machines.

This past summer I heard about a project to extend the concept of 3D manufacture to space. It seems like a great idea, if we are eventually going to become space faring. The concept is simple. Rather than manufacturing everything needed on earth and launching it at great expense into space, instead put 3D manufacturing machines into space, and provide a stock of raw materials, either from earth or acquired in space from asteroids, Mars, wherever. Then, when a need for a new or replacement device arises, manufacture it on the spot.

One company with this dream is Made in Space. They are pioneering "additive manufacturing," which means simply the process of building a product layer by layer. Materials can include plastics, titanium, aluminum. When Made in Space conducted their tests over the summer, they manufactured items like a scaled-down wrench, that became the first ever tool manufactured in limited gravity (they were flying on the NASA parabolic flights that simulate zero-gravity.

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video producer and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.

Affordable Energy Efficient Housing for Seniors – A Future Trend

Few issues shaping the future stand out in the U.S. more than the future of housing. We tend to think just of the mortgage meltdown of the past three years when considering housing. No real solutions have appeared yet to really address this problem. But there are three additional forces, beyond the mortgage mess, that have also converged to change the way we need to think about housing going forward – the aging population, the need for affordable and “right-sized” housing for the demographics and values of the future, and the need for energy and thus economic efficiency.

This week I learned about an encouraging effort to leverage the mortgage mess and to address these three issues, in a bell-weather development on the outskirts of Houston. It is Cypresswood Estates.

I had the opportunity to discuss the project with Horace Allison, Chief Development Officer for the Harris County Housing Authority. This is a governmental non-profit corporation that promotes, and develops, quality affordable housing.

The mortgage meltdown has resulted in many foreclosed properties. Mr. Allison and the Authority set out to re-develop one such tract, while also addressing the three dominant trends mentioned – aging, affordability, and economic energy efficiency. I have to say I have not seen a more impressive effort in the nation.

They were able to tap a combination of Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds along with contributions from the State of Texas and the County to build their project. This multifamily development has been named by the National Association of Home Builders as a finalist for the “Multifamily Pillars of the Industry Award” and in my view they certainly should be in the running. You can check out Cypresswood online, but here are some of the basics that I learned from Mr. Allison.

First, the project is aimed at active adults in the +55 age bracket. Second, while some of the 88 units are market rate, most require low-income qualification. Rents range from as little as $560 in the subsidized units to as much as $1200 in market rate units. They are small, starting at 850 square feet and going to up 1050 sf. It really looks perfect for addressing what will become a huge issue in the coming two decades – providing some 70 million aging adults with housing alternatives that are smaller, and cheaper, than the large homes that people will want to, or need to, move out of.

What stands out even more is the way that this project addresses the need for economic, sustainable, and energy efficient housing. The project is the nation’s first affordable housing project that exceeds the criteria for Platinum LEED and Emerald Green certification, the highest possible.

Super levels of insulation combined with a unique way of enclosing ductwork and sealing the exterior of the buildings begins the process of saving on both air conditioning (this is Houston!) and heating costs. Insulation is so good that many units seem able to keep cool with just the ceiling fans, barely needing to run their AC. Energy star appliances in every unit are the next step, along with the use of high end, sustainable materials. Solar panels on the roofs of several of the units provide 30% of the energy needed in this all-electric development, and enables some of the units to be “Net 0” in energy usage. Water is efficiently conserved through low-flow fixtures, rainwater reclamation, and drought-tolerant landscaping.

Since the location is not walkable for shopping, the development offers walking trails for recreation, and takes on sustainable transportation needs in three ways. First, a set of shared bicycles are available for use. Second, several high-grade automobile charging stations are built in for plug-in cars. And third the project maintains an on-site vehicle available to take residents to local stores and appointments. This attention to sustainable transportation was, for me, a significant factor in judging this development as a bell weather.

When I asked Mr. Allison about their plans for the future (this project is 50% leased and will be full by year end), he said they are eyeing four more possible projects, and that they hoped to apply several lessons learned. For example, the Authority will not do any future projects that are not at LEED standards. The cost for this project was only marginally higher, about 8-10% more per square foot, than comparable projects that do not meet the same standards. The payback on the extra investment is estimated to be as short as 5-10 years, while the sustainable benefits will last for decades. Other lessons…

• There were reservations about the cost and feasibility of adding solar energy, but they found solar more available, affordable, and easier to install and to maintain than anticipated. Several companies competed for the contract.
• In future projects the hope is to get into more passive cooling designs, such as ground geothermal.
• The hope is to do a full-on Net 0 project, as compared to a couple of Net 0 buildings in this project.
  The Housing Authority expects that Net 0 will become a standard for HUD, and eventually for other agencies (such as the U.S. Army, as I learned this year when I did projects for the Corps of Engineers).

Gorgeous looking place. Talk about being on-trend with future needs! Check it out.

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video producer and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.

Future Trends and Philanthropy: How good are your predictions, Glen?

One of the most frequently asked questions to me as a professional futurist is, "So what have you gotten right in the past when you've been predicting the future?" Now, I don't sell myself as a predictor, really. In fact I tell people I am more a consumer of those who specialize in predictions, and from that information I try to see the big patterns so that I can help clients most effectively plan to create their own preferred future. Still, when doing a keynote speech, I always say, "here are some future trends, and what they might mean," so of course, I am rightly subject to the question of whether I get things right, or wrong, in retrospect.

Not long ago I was editing some video, and came across a speech I did for the American Red Cross, on the occasion of their 125th Anniversary Celebration, in 2006. It was one of my all-time favorite speaking events, in Washington DC. I admire the long history and the good work of this volunteer organization. The assignment included not just a 30-minute keynote, but facilitating the whole audience of several hundred in a set of quizzes using electronic polling, as well as moderating a panel that immediately followed my keynote. But in this blog, and in the video, I want to zero in on a 15-minute segment in which I outlined what I considered, in 2006, to be the five major trends and their related challenges for philanthropy in general and the Red Cross specifically as they looked ahead to their next century.

When I look back at this speech, I must say I am pretty proud of how well I was anticipating the next several years. For example, in the speech I say,

It is quite clear that we are living in a time period in which the gap between rich and poor is growing, by most measures. The middle class is being more and more squeezed...that means a growing wealthy class with large amounts of money to give, and therefore the creation of [their own] foundations and significant new large scale programs...but it means a squeeze on workplace giving...As the middle class feels their budget extremely squeezed, and that appears to be the case in the next few years, the likelihood of them increasing their amount of giving diminishes, and therefore the [need] to increase giving means we have to increase participation in giving, more so than the amount of giving, from a squeezed middle class.

This was in 2006 remember, when attention to the growing income gap was generally off the radar, except among a few futurists, economists and other social observers. I also discussed the tremendous impact that the rapidly accumulating public debt would have on public agencies and their ability to spend in the future, some two years before the economic collapse of 2008. All the attention we pay now to public debt did not hit full force until just the past year. This is some of what I said back then:

In terms of public agency trends, what is going on [in 2006 remember] is quite clear. The deficit that we are in the process of creating at a federal level in the United States will, once again, for the next decade or two create a tremendous drag on public agencies to flexibly and creatively respond to the issues of our day. Now we will probably work our way through this again, as we work our way through political elections and changes over the next couple of decades, but for the next two decades this deficit is going to be a tremendous drag.

To summarize all of the five trends that I outlined in 2006..

Demographic Trends, including increasing diversity in the U.S., the aging population, the millennial generation, and on the horizon the impending population decline in parts of the world. There are implications for what the Red Cross looks like, who it serves, and the possibility of a major surge in volunteerism.

Trends in Philanthropy, including the impacts of the rich-poor gap and the squeezed middle class discussed above, and the demand for competency and transparency in large non-profits, driven especially by our "highly interconnected and blogged world."

Communications and Technology, including the coming dominance of the cell phone world-wide and thus its utility in changing communications during disasters, and the lesser known impact of nanotechnology, specifically the introduction of nano-water filtration. In 2006 1.2 billion people lacked access to clean water, and half of those hospitalized in developing nations were there because of water borne illness. I note the recent, at that time, availability of simple technologies like the Life Straw, that can filter water simply for very low cost, simply by sucking on a straw.

Trends in Public Agencies, primarily the coming issue of public debt, which was completely obvious to me during the second term of the last U.S. President, but was generally off the radar at the time.

Global Warming. This is a term that has lost favor five years later, because it has been effectively politicized rather than left as a scientific issue. But in 2006 I was noting that, for science, global warming was a settled issue, and just months after Hurricane Katrina, the long-term implications for an organization like the Red Cross, were clear to me,

What this means is the potential in our lifetimes, not the next several centuries, but in our lifetimes, of changes to weather patterns on the planet. Wild weather, in other words. As the planet heats up the frequency and intensity of storms is likely to increase...Global warming is real. It means as an organization we are going to have to face wild weather over the next many decades. It's time to acknowledge it. It's time to do more than ever to get ready for it, and perhaps it is even time to begin lobbying for everything we can do to reduce the impact of global warming.

Looking back now, five years later, I feel pretty good about that speech and my ability to help an important organization accurately see what was coming.

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video producer and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.

A Successful Second Annual State of the Arts Conference

Last Thursday The Millennium Project, c3:Conscious Creativity and Producers Guild of America teamed up to present the “State of the Arts 2011: Producing Change” event at LA Center Studios. Before the actual program there was a two-hour Think Tank session that was streamed online. I got a chance to tune in and hear some great ideas from a broad spectrum of media and art professionals. The topics of the conversation ranged from Haitians ravenous for the arts, to a rock opera about Burning Man, to the Conspiracy for Good.

Though the subject matter covered a vast range, the focus stemmed from the same place- a shared desire for a channel through which networking and brainstorming could occur, ultimately resulting in the development of innovative arts and media projects with the future in mind. Led by Kate McCallum, Co-Founder and Executive Director of c3, Center for Conscious Creativity, the Think Tank was very successful and fostered several potentially productive relationships between professionals looking for help with their individual ventures. Co-founder and Director of The Millennium Project, Jerome Glenn, was also there to keep the Think Tank session discussions flowing in the direction of the future, initially presenting the Project’s 15 global challenges facing humanity.

It is obvious from this event that there is a lot of work being done to inform the public about what is important about the future and how arts and media can influence that.

[Glen Hiemstra note: I was able to catch the live stream of the Producing Change think tank while traveling in Dallas. Kate McCallum is a collaborator on a transmedia project about future visions, and Jerome Glenn an old colleague from the World Future Society. Their mutual work on leveraging media and the arts to support the work of the Millennium project is very impressive.]

Future of transportation – driverless pods at Heathrow

Personal Rapid Transit systems have been on the drawing boards for ages. Call up a small, personal, driverless, autonomous vehicle, program your destination, get in and off you go. Prototypes have been built but such systems have generally not gotten off the drawing board. Until now at Heathrow airport in the UK. Yes, the destinations are limited but watch how cool this is, and note how many buses and the level of emissions avoided. Nice to see a country taking the lead in infrastructure.

Hat tip to Gerd Leonhard for flagging this on Facebook.

Have a great weekend !

Climate and 24 Hours of Reality

I missed the 24 Hours of Reality programming from the Climate Project yesterday. They went round the world to 24 locations, with a show in each location describing local climate issues, and "what you can do." If you are interested visit their website where you can view a video on each of the 24 cities or global areas, and see what the locals hope will be effective local actions.