The speed of transportation
There is an alternative to reducing the volume of transportation. We may reduce the necessary speed of transportation, at least in the case of goods transportation. By reducing the necessary speed of transportation we could move more goods from air and truck to railway and ship, which would reduce the energy needed for transportation. Transportation [...]
An energy efficient transportation system
The energy efficient solutions of the future need to be built on the basis of an overall picture of how energy efficiency will or can be created in the total system of society. Both large companies and governments need to build scenarios. Companies need to build scenarios in order to position themselves, the technologies and [...]
Embracing Change
In The Washington Post, op-ed columnist Michael Kinsley writes that Americans are favorable to change in theory, but they don’t like it in practice. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703254.html?wpisrc=newsletter This is probably true of all nations in the world and of all groups of professionals. Change management experts are among the worst in refusing to change themselves. This is [...]
Investment Wave
The large scale transformation of energy systems that will become necessary in the near future will cause a number of large investment waves in energy efficient, sustainable, technology. It is at present not clear which technologies, raw materials or system solutions that will become favored and it is highly probable that not all possible bio-fuels [...]
A process of learning for society
As a society we are now in a situation that we have never been in before. We need to learn how to solve a completely new set of problems, that will affect global economic growth and prosperity and national economies, in the future. The United States, for example, is facing a large budget deficit. At [...]
Buffet on "the greenback effect"
Warren Buffet, the famous investor and fund manager, wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19buffett.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=global-home In this he analyzes the debt situation of the United States with the global climatic consequences of pollution. Buffet argues that the budget deficit of the United States in 2009 has to be dealt with, and [...]
The stories we need to tell
In order to develop images and visions of the direction and methods for change, we do not only need analysis and dry conclusions. We need vivid accounts of the transformation process and methods. In the same way that novels and stories of earlier generations have ushered in new ideas and helped us give up out-dated [...]
The power of literature
I have been thinking about how literature has contributed to form society and its values. This process has been on-going and it works two ways. Of, course literature is also formed by society, as in the painting by MC Escher of two hands that draw each other. “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald described [...]
We need stories
Last week I read a book in the field of History of German Literature by my friend Dr. Anna Helm (The Intersection of Material and Poetic Economy – Gustav Freytag’s “Soll und Haben” and Adalbert Stifter’s “Der Nachsommer”, Publisher: Peter Lang, Editor: Jeffrey L. Sammons). Anna has studied two German novels from the 19th Century. [...]
Building the future by reflecting on the past
I’ve recently reflected on how our present society has developed through the past few centuries from an agrarian society, largely based on self sufficency and local markets, to a society in which market based interaction and global trade has become the norm. Past generations have experimented, learned from their successes and mistakes, repeated successful patterns [...]
« go back — keep looking »
