The idea that the globalising wave of the last quarter of a century was mostly built on cheap energy and easy money is one that we’re now getting the opportunity to test. So far, the hypothesis is holding up. In particular, according to a story in this week’s Daily Telegraph, high energy costs seem to [...]
Just as we’ve got used to the idea that the moment of ‘peak oil‘ might be upon us (at the moment 2005 is the year of highest oil production) new figures suggest that the figures for world coal reserves might have been inflated. The widely held view that we are sitting on hundreds of years’ [...]
I blogged last week about the potential impact of expensive energy on the future shape of the internet. Now it turns out that Sun has already started changing the design of its computer systems to favour efficiency rather than performance because of energy costs. It seems to have moved them to a different market space [...]
One of the most consistently interesting thinkers online about the long-term future of industrial society is John Michael Greer, who takes an impressively long-term and wide ranging (if also pessimistic) view of civilizational change. In his recent post Back Up The Rabbit Hole, he speculated on the way in which the ‘ultra cheap energy’ [...]
I’ve just noticed an interesting article on the recently re-launched ‘History & Policy‘ site which suggests - by looking at the historical evidence - that our chances of reducing energy consumption without sanctions or limits being imposed is, frankly, wishful thinking. Even though we have in the past achieved the energy efficiency gains needed now [...]
The recent DARPA ‘urban challenge’ car competition has directed attention towards the futures of the the car - especially the urban vehcile - as a transport mode. It’s a reminder of how much our social assumptions about technology shape the way we imagine their futures.
I spent some of the weekend in Newcastle (or more precisely Gateshead) at the DOTT ‘07 exhibition which marked the close of this ambitious two year project. Three essential lessons for me, which won’t be surprising to those who know the work of John Thackara, who directed the project:
Sustainability is about flows, not stuff
Those flows [...]
If this is true, it’s alarming. The German energy consultancy Energy Watch Group [EWG] says in its latest six-monthly oil report (report and executive summary can be opened in pdf from here) that global oil production peaked in 2006 - and has since declined quite sharply.
EWG’s conclusions are based on production data rather than information [...]
There was an article in Technology Guardian last week about an Irish innovator who was developing a prototype of a wave power generator in the Galway Bay. It captured well the obsessive nature of much innovation. But from a futures perspective the most interesting part of the article was a passing comment by a [...]
The notion that on-street advertising - ‘outdoor’ as it’s known - is a blight which might damage the public’s “mental environment” was floated by Culture Jammers in the last decade - as part of a wider critique of the impact of advertising. It was one of those weak signals of change which seemed unlikely [...]
