The Bush Administration has always made me think of George Orwell and his novel “1984” from the point of view of language.  While all politicians and all administrations I can remember have been somewhat loose with language and the truth, the current administration has realized the vision of Orwell in that language means nothing and is to be used to manipulate the citizens of the country.

What makes me think of this once again?  The Bush EPA blocking California and 16 other states from enforcing states laws to protect the environment and their citizens. EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency, yet the Bush EPA has nothing to do with protecting the environment and everything to do with turf battles and giving in to special interests.  As we all know, the Bush administration has shown no respect for the environment and has shown a total absence of leadership in the area of CO2 emissions.  It actually fought and lost a court case where the court ruled that the EPA does have jurisdiction over the issue of green house emissions.  Who does the Bush EPA protect?  Not the environment.

The signing into law of the energy bill last week allowed the Bush EPA to deny California and the other states from enforcing laws that have more stringent regulations regarding CO2 emissions and automotive fleet MPG.  The emissions standards California adopted in 2004, which were never approved by the federal government, would force automakers to cut greenhouse gas emission by 30 percent by 2016.  If …

As a futurist, I look at long term trends and waves of history.  The three waves of history we know have been the Agricultural Age, the Industrial Age and the Information Age.  The first age began some 10,000 years ago when man first began to literally put down roots.  The second age began some 250 years ago with the invention of the steam engine.  The third age began some 30 years ago with communications satellites, computers, the explosive growth of the white collar work force and the birth of the electronic global village envisioned by Marshall McLuhan.

We are now entering a new age, the Shift Age.  In the months ahead I will write in some detail about this age because – shameless plug here – it is a name I have coined and is also the title of my book that will be published in the first quarter of 2008.  For this column however I will focus on just one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Shift Age.  The Shift Age marks humanity’s last, at least on this planet, stage of evolution, the global stage.  Humanity has ultimately and finally entered this global stage and there is no turning back.

In 1974, around the beginning of the Information Age, humanity reached 4 billion in number.  We are now at 6.7 billion which means that our species has grown 66% in the last 33 years, an astonishing fact.  This is one of the two primary drivers of global warming, the shear growth …

Bali is a word that in 10-15 years I hope will represent and define the time when humanity made an essential shift in direction.  There are currently some 10,000 people attending the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali.  More than 180 countries are represented along with numerous attendees from non-governmental, intergovernmental groups and of course the media.  The general reason for the meeting is to start work on the replacement of the Kyoto accord to address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions which expires in 2012.

The Bali conference is actually the first step since its goals are threefold: to launch negotiations for a climate change deal for the post 2012 period, to set the agenda for these negotiations, and then to reach agreement on when these negotiations will have to be concluded.   While this process sounds ponderous and bureaucratic, that is to be expected given that it is governmental agencies that must make these determinations.  In this world of ever increasing rapidity of change, governments seem to be the part of society that moves most slowly and is now following their citizens rather than leading them. 

The length of this process will actually work to the benefit of those who feel, as I do, that immediate and drastic actions must be taken.  The data about global warming is coming in rapidly and it is alarming to those that study it.  The U.N Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, when they recently released their fourth and final report stated that even …

Thanksgiving is, in many ways, the truest of holidays.  It is not connected to a religion or to a national political event.  It is about giving thanks and sharing life’s abundance, manifested by a large meal to be shared by friends and family.  Giving thanks for all the wonderfulness of this planet.

On Thanksgiving day in 2030, I hope my then middle aged son will be sharing this day with loved ones hopefully including me.  I hope that they all will be able to give thanks for what those of us alive today did between 2007 and 2015 to mobilize humanity to slow and start to reverse global warming.  That is the window we have to allow those of us still living and our descendents to have some semblance of a Thanksgiving that might be similar to the one we celebrate in 2007.

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change issued its’ final, synthesis report this past weekend.  The fact that it had recently won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore gives the I.P.C.C. an amplified voice for this, its’ fourth and final report.  The report is stunning in its conclusions and recommendations. It puts in stark relief the fact that urgent and global action must be taken immediately to avoid almost unimaginable consequences.

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