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 …

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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The impact that humanity is having on climate change is directly related to the fact that there are so many of us. Add on top of our shear numbers the fact that we treat the planet harshly and it is clear why we are moving toward a global crisis.

Consider some facts about the growth of human population. Humans have been on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years. It took until 1804 for our numbers to reach 1 billion. It took another 123 years to reach 2 billion in 1927. It only took another 33 years for us to reach 3 billion in 1960 and 14 years to reach 4 billion in 1974. That means that if you are older that 40 the world’s population has doubled in your lifetime. There are now 6.6 times more of us now than 200 hundred years ago. It is also during these 200 hundred years that the Industrial Revolution occurred, bringing with it the use of fossil fuels for powering our societies and economies.

It is not clear, and has been open to debate as to what the “natural” or “perfect” level of human population is for the earth. What is the global number that could be sustained indefinitely in a perfect and interrelated manner on Earth? There is no correct answer to that question. It is clear that a few hundred million of us living lives of hunters and gatherers …

About a month ago, I wrote a post entitled ‘Water’.  In it I suggested that water would become an increasingly precious resource in the southwestern U.S. and that disputes would occur between states and other regulatory entities over rights to the water of the Colorado River.  It was therefore no surprise to see a huge front page story a few days ago on the topic.  The front page picture was of a fishing pier that was jutting out into the air since Lake Mead was 80 feet below ‘normal’.  Welcome to the new normal.
The two driving forces that are making water so much more scarce are unchecked population growth in the southwestern U.S., and the fact that, according to scientific evidence, what had been thought of as prolonged droughts were, in fact becoming the new normal. This means that everything about water will need to be revisited and rethought.  Usage, recycling, legal interpretations of water rights and ownership, escalating prices for water and a need for fundamental perceptual change on water and it’s usage.  Welcome to the twenty-first century when we have finally come to the crossing of inevitable trend lines.  These are the ever upward trend line of population growth and uncoordinated real estate development and the trend lines of both limited resources and climate change.
Water is a life source.  Water is a life source of all living things to varying degree.  Food, water and oxygen are three things that are essential for …