We are moving toward the end of 2007 and there are still people that question whether the planet is warming up and more specifically whether humans have anything to do with it.  I have listened to and read some of the thinking of these people and it falls into several categories.  First, and this is true, there are people, Republicans mostly, that cannot stand Al Gore – they still remember his self righteous sighing in 2000 - and are therefore tying the message with the messenger.  Second, there are those that are natural contrarians, so they will naturally react negatively when every Hollywood star, starlet, celebrity and blow dried news anchor gets on the global warming soapbox again with moral self righteousness (the Polar bears are dying, what about the Polar bears?).  Third there are those that site that the earth has warmed up before, so no big deal this is just a planetary cycle.

I am so tired of all of this dialogue.  The earth is warming up and the scientific evidence is irrefutable, at least to this observer.  The question is not is there or is there not global warming.  The question is not whether we humans have anything to do with it.  The question is managing risk.  Whether there is global warming or not, as a species we should be planning for the worst.  If we don’t, hundreds of millions of us will most likely perish over the next 75 years.   Global warming, by all accounts, seems to …

There is no question in my mind but that oil will rise to at least $100 a barrel within the next year. It is easy to see a scenario of $125 a barrel price in the same time frame. The triple digit price of oil will become the norm. Recently it has been trading in the $80-90 range, and as it approached the upper end of that range the media began again covering the story with “sky is falling” concern about what this might mean for the economy. This reminded me of the comment that James Schlesinger, the first U.S. Secretary of Energy made about the country’s approach to energy: “We have only two modes – complacency and panic”.

At the beginning of this year, when oil was trading in the $50-60 price range, I was on a television program and predicted that the price would be up dramatically in 2007 and could easily top $80. That statement came not from any expertise about an ability to correctly predict commodity prices but from the fact that, as a futurist, I look at the long term, at overarching trends and patterns. The price of oil is on a long term up trend and will continue that way for years into the future.

Some historical perspective will be helpful. The price of oil from 1900 to the early 1970s was single digit. Then the OPEC oil embargo quickly quadrupled the price of oil. The price of oil hit a then all-time high of $41/barrel …

In this ninth installment of our on-going series of interviews with some of the leading thinkers and scientists on the subject of energy, we interview John C. Mankins.Facing and solving the multiple issues concerning energy is the single most pressing problem that we face as a species. There is a lot of media coverage about energy, alternative energy and global warming, but what has been missing is the knowledge and point of view of scientists, at least in the main stream media. If you have missed the first eight interviews, please scroll down the right side of the page and click on ‘Scientists – Interviews’.

John C. Mankins is the President of ARTEMIS Innovation Management Solutions LLC, a research and development management consulting start-up that solves tough innovation challenges for government, industry and not-for-profit clients, and Co-founder of Managed Energy Technologies LLC, a new energy technology start-up that aspires to transform solar energy solutions for terrestrial and space markets. He is internationally recognized as a successful leader in space systems and technology innovation, as a highly effective manager of large-scale technology R&D programs, and as an accomplished communicator. He is also one of the foremost authorities on the subject of space solar power (SSP). Mr. Mankins led NASA’s SSP “Fresh Look Study” in the mid-1990s, managed the SSP Exploratory Research & Technology (SERT) Program, and is the creator of several important SSP systems concepts, including the SunTower, the Solar Clipper, and others. He serves as the President of the Sunsat Energy …

It was 50 years ago this week that the Russians launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite to orbit the earth. It changed the world.  In fact, there are few, if any events of the last 50 years that had such a global impact on just about every aspect of humanity. I can still remember the night that, as a young boy standing in the front yard with my parents; we looked up at the starry sky waiting for Sputnik.  There it was, a slow man-made star moving across the sky. We listened to its’ beeping on the radio. It filled me with wonder.  I did not see it as Russian but rather as man made, that we humans had done this.  The phrase “The sky’s the limit” was now a phrase of the past. This was space!

The launch of Sputnik caused great consternation in the United States.  We had fallen behind the Russians.  We were no longer the only player at the center of the stage of human dreams and aspirations.  It has been universally acknowledged that this event triggered the space race and jump started a decades’ long emphasis on the teaching of science at all levels in the United States.  Within the context of the cold war, …