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Author: Future Agenda | https://www.futureagenda.org
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https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/page/3/
These initial perspectives were used to initiate conversations during open foresight workshops. Often written by a leading expert in each field, they serve as provocations or points of departure for further discussion, conversation and exploration.
The demand, supply and composition of food over the next decade is facing a number of major challenges ranging from demographics, obesity, hunger and food security to the implications of globalization, sustainability, consumer choice and new technologies. Taken in isolation, each of these challenges provides us with some fundamental decisions. Taken together they are a formidable and accelerating global test.
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-food-2/
Money has four basic functions, each of which can be implemented in a different way and so each of which are available for different types of change.
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-money/
We live in a world at the point of significant change: Around half of us recognise that we need to travel less, just at the same time as the other half want to travel more. There is little doubt that, without a major technology shift, those in the developed, world who are used to high levels of personal mobility, cannot all continue to behave in the same way as they have done in the past. While in the fast-growing emerging economies, with burgeoning middle classes, many see the desire for individual car ownership as a credible and realistic aim. We…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-transport-2/
Global waste production is predicted by some to double over the next twenty years. Much of this will be due to increased urbanisation and greater waste generation per capita as emerging economies grow.While some regions are aiming at creating zero waste ecosystems, others are yet to truly recognise the scale of the challenge we face.
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/waste2020/
Not since the Industrial Revolution, when work migrated from fields to factories, from villages to company towns and cities, and from families to corporations, have the context, form, and nature of work been in such flux. Organizations now question how to make the best use of their people resource and educational institutions seek to predict what skills will be required for the next generation. Individuals increasingly think in terms of work not balanced with other priorities, but integrated into their lives. I see that the future of work is influenced by four unstoppable trends each of which will have significant impact. Taken collectively they suggest the…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-work-2020/
Unlike most of the resources we consume such as oil, rice and steel, there is no alternative for water – it is the only natural resource with no substitute. Today over 6 billion people share the same volume of water that 1.6 billion did a hundred years ago. Although two thirds of the earth’s surface is water, only 3% per cent of this is fresh water and, if you deduct the majority share that is locked up in the polar ice-caps and other glaciers, we only actually have access to around 0.5%.
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-water-2020/
Global waste production is predicted by some to double over the next twenty years. Much of this will be due to increased urbanisation and greater waste generation per capita as emerging economies grow.While some regions are aiming at creating zero waste ecosystems, others are yet to truly recognise the scale of the challenge we face.
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-waste-2020/
We live in a world at the point of significant change: Around half of us recognise that we need to travel less, just at the same time as the other half want to travel more. There is little doubt that, without a major technology shift, those in the developed world who are used to high levels of personal mobility cannot all continue to behave in the same way as they have done in the past. While in the fast-growing emerging economies, with burgeoning middle classes, many see the desire for individual car ownership as a credible and realistic aim. We are at a tipping point…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-transport-2020/
In terms of impacts on other issues, migration is perhaps the archetypal cross-cutting issue, and as such, it arguably impacts on all of the other topics for this initiative. Thus: in the energy world, the extraction of raw materials for energy often provides a stimulus for inward migration, but equally can lead to the displacement of populations in affected areas (e.g. through the building of dams, or conversion of agricultural land for the production of biofuels); food insecurity is a classic cause of distress migration; both too much water (floods) and too little (droughts) can be associated with quite large migrations and displacements; the influence of climate change makes these particularly difficult to…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/future-of-migration-2020/
Between now and 2020 we are likely to see somewhere between 2 to 3 global pandemics. Several years ago the pandemic of Avian flu began in Asia; today the world faces the Swine flu that can be traced back to central and south America. And tomorrow? In general these pandemics arise in areas that do not have the top tier of preventative or public health infrastructure and, from there, spread to the advanced Western countries. And our ability to achieve global bio-surveillance for disease is limited because of unequal infrastructure, inadequate local investments and only limited global cooperation. So issue number one is bio-surveillance and adequacy of public health infrastructure.
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/health-copy-2/
Socially, identity has become a complex and central phenomenon, and with it diversity itself has become one of the single most important issues for human development. To accommodate diversity, we have to come to terms with multiple and changing identities. What we define and describe as our constituent parts, say in Europe or in Asia, become an integral part of ourselves. It is not just that these parts coexist in communities, but their ideas, art, literature, food and lifestyles now play a central part in shaping both the communities and the individual. In best cases, the difference is evaporating; and we must adjust to this…
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/identity2020/
The global energy system sits at the nexus of some of the deepest dilemmas of our times: prosperity versus poverty; globalization versus security; and growth versus the environment. Current energy trends are patently unsustainable — socially, environmentally, economically. That said, there is still plenty of oil and gas to be found and produced, most of it is in increasingly difficult places – whether that’s difficult geology, difficult environmental conditions or difficult politics.
Permalink: https://www.futureagenda.org/perspectives/energy2020/
