The New York Times is my favorite newspaper.  Amidst all the media that I consume, it holds a disproportionately influential place in my life.  It is a pleasure to read.  In fact a number of columns I have written for this blog have been reflections on an article that I read in the Times.  So it thrilled me today when I opened the Times and saw that www.evolutionshift.com had scooped it.

Several weeks ago, I wrote a column about Planktos and interviewed its founder and CEO Russ George.  I had met Russ at a unique conference about the future of energy and humanity hosted by the Foundation for the Future and was so taken with his vision and what he was doing that I prevailed upon him to be interviewed.  Just last week we met up again at a ‘green business convention’ in Chicago.  He had just made the entire convention carbon neutral and had also made Mayor Daley’s car carbon neutral for a year.  He does this by the planting of thousands of acres of trees in Eastern Europe and, more interestingly the seeding of vast plankton blooms in the Ocean.  Both the trees and the plankton blooms absorb vast amounts of CO2, thus allowing Russ to build a business of carbon offsets, which helps the Earth survive until we can replace fossil fuels as our primary source of energy.

So it was with great delight that I opened today’s New York Times and saw that the

Last week I wrote about an incredible energy conference hosted by the Foundation for the Future.  As one of a select few invited to observe and participate in the conference, I had the incredible experience to listen to and meet with 15 of the top thinkers and scientists in the world today on the subject of the future of energy.  The brilliance of both the participants and the level of discussion were so great that I decided that it must be shared with the readership of this blog.  A number of the participants agreed to share their views and research with me.  This then is the first of several columns that will give you insight into our energy future, as seen through the eyes, minds and research of some of the most well known, most accomplished energy experts alive today.

Russ George is a man who is doing what he can to save the planet, literally.  In addition, he is an entrepreneur who hopes that by helping us to help him save the planet, his company can make money. [As regular readers of this blog know, I am fully in support of this, as there is a need to counterbalance the status quo of the energy business with new ways to make money that provide help to the planet and develop a future of sustainable and renewable energy.]  Russ is Founder and CEO of Planktos, a company that “Restores Ecosystems and Slows Climate Change”.  Planktos is the leading ecorestoration …

This past weekend I had the great good fortune to attend a three day energy conference attended by some of the world’s greatest energy experts.  Thanks to the good graces of the Foundation for the Future I was invited to attend the conference as an observer.  The Foundation invited 15 of the foremost physicists and energy experts in the world to come together for three days of presentations and discussions on the future of energy.  An additional 15 or so people were invited to attend as observers.  

The name of the conference was “Energy Challenges:  The next Thousand Years”.  The goal was to “consider all potential sources and technologies for energy production over three time frames: the near term (rest of this century), the medium term (next few centuries), and the longer term (thousand-year future), as well as the challenges facing humans on the planet in developing and implementing self-sufficient strategies for energy”.  This framework was shaped by the mission of the Foundation for the Future, which is to continue to look toward the long term future of humanity, under the umbrella “Humanity Three Thousand”.

This structure led to two clear results.  First some incredibly interesting discussions of long term energy solutions, some that are available to develop, and some that are almost beyond the minds of even physicists to fully comprehend.  I will take a look at some of these solutions in future posts.  Second a unanimous position that in spite of the title of the conference, new forms of …