I have stated the above words several hundred times to audiences around the world since my speaking career as a futurist started to take off in 2007. The context of the statement is my general “The Shift Age” presentation, when I say that we have entered the global stage of human evolution.

Up through the Industrial Age, the highest form of human construct was the nation-state.  National economies, national identities and national cultures shaped thinking. During the Information Age, growing connectivity, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the true beginning of the global economy moved everything to a more global orientation. The nation-state remained. It had been clear to me for years that we were entering a period when the nation-state would begin to look ineffectual, as nation-states would no longer be able to separately deal with global problems. Can one or several nation-states deal with climate change or a globally connected financial crisis?

Post WWII, the United States, and to a slightly lesser degree, the Soviet Union, were so powerful they each could single-handedly initiate solutions or solve major world problems. That time – the modern height of the nation-state – has passed. Internally, we no longer follow our leaders; our leaders follow us. We listened to FDR, Churchill, Gandhi, JFK, Brezhnev, De Gaulle and Adenauer for direction. Now, our leaders ask their pollsters what we think. In effect, the people are now leading, and the leaders are following. “What do the latest polls say I should do?”

The only …

I find that the insights I gain relative to the future often come from reading small articles, graphs or photos that are buried deep in periodicals be it in printed or digital form.

Amidst all the media coverage of the past few weeks on Weinergate, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and who is or isn’t running for the Republican nomination for president there were two separate articles about water buried in the back pages of the New York Times.  The significance of these two short articles about water to me far outweighs all the coverage on the more popular subjects.  We all get seduced or distracted by immediate superficial media stories, but that is for another column.

Now back to the subject of water.  Water is a determinate of life, at least how we on Earth define life. I have written here about water before, relative to other planets, the relative droughts we have experienced in the past few decades, the dying oceans or a critically important new way to utilize water.  Water is more important than almost anything else in our lives, yet it only becomes a story if there is too much of it, too little of it or in the years ahead, it becomes too expensive.

In late May there were two stories about water that leapt off the page.

The first was about the reanalysis of some Moon dirt.  For decades the prevailing scientific view of the Moon was that it …

In a recent column, I expressed how, as a futurist, I often feel like I live in a déjà vu world. I am called upon to deliver forecasts about the future. I spend much time researching and thinking about trends as well as economic, social and technological dynamics so that when I make the forecast, I have “lived” its reality. That may sound odd, but it is often the way it seems to me.

Since 2006, I have been extremely accurate in my forecasting of the price of oil. I don’t know the natural gas, shale or coal markets at all, just oil. In 2006, I forecast that the price of oil would reach $125 a barrel in 2008. As it turns out, the price overshot my prediction by $22.

When I was on a nationally syndicated business TV program in early 2007, I said that oil would come close to but not cross $100 a barrel by the end of the year. The reporter, who is no longer with the program, smugly said that having heard from a futurist, it was then time to hear from a respected energy analyst who would give us a more “realistic” forecast. The analyst delivered his forecast that oil would trade between $50 and $70 a barrel for the next few years (it was at $55 at the time). In today’s society, analysts seem to be granted automatic authority; futurists, not so much. Ah, sweet victory!

In January 2009, with oil around $50 a …

I have been writing this blog for more than five years. Particularly in the first three years, I wrote a number of columns on energy, peak oil, electric cars, alternative and renewable forms of energy and conservation. I wrote early and often about how humanity, and the United States in particular, would in the future need to completely alter its view of energy and the use of resources.

One consequence of those columns was that I was increasingly regarded as a “thought shaper” in the world of energy, the environment and all things “green.” This resulted in me being invited to attend and speak at conferences about the energy and green future of America. In addition, people and companies began sending me press releases about new and innovative products, new research and new conferences. This in and of itself was good, as it helped me stay current on innovation in the area of energy and sustainability.

Unfortunately, two other things occurred in relation to this ever-increasing in-bound flow of PR and news items. First, the awareness of my blog increased the amount of less-than-relevant information I received when the “greenmailing” of America exploded. Second, entities felt that they could earn points by making announcement on or around Earth Day.

Now, I am the first person to say that anything that creates alternative and renewable sources of energy, increases sustainability, changes thinking on use of resources and opens up thinking for this new century on how …

In the past two years, I have given around 200 speeches and presentations. I speak to the reality that humanity is entering a new age – the Shift Age. The last few years have been extremely disruptive, as it is the transition between the Information Age and the Shift Age. I have presented my view that, after this re-organizational recession and time, we have entered not only the global stage of human evolution, but also an exciting time of transformation almost unparalleled in human history.

In small situations – such as corporate retreats and CEO groups – I spend a lot of time interacting with people, answering questions about the future. I’m often asked whether Islamic extremists, dictatorships and governmental bureaucracies will keep this transformation from happening. My answer has always been that the three forces of the Shift Age – the Flow to Global, the Flow to the Individual and the Accelerating Electronic Connectedness of humanity – will ultimately triumph over these impediments to transformation.

Accelerating Electronic Connectedness is not just about social media, the creative destruction of 20^th century-business models and mobile apps. It is about the collapse of wall gardens and ignorance. Dictatorships survive not only through brutality but also by controlling information. Religious extremists gain power by creating walls to block outside views and information. In both cases, ignorance is a key part of the foundation of dictatorships and religious extremists. As humanity becomes ever more connected, this is much harder to maintain.

In these past two years, I …