A Brief History of Everything, Shambhala, Boulder, Colorado, & Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1996, pp 339 + xvii For several decades evidence has been mounting that the worldview upon which the industrial system – and hence the entire modern world – is built, is defective. In earlier times critics of progress could be silenced or ignored.…
Greenhouse Fictions: The Sea and Summer, London, Faber, 1988 The president of the Queensland Chamber of Mines once referred to media interest in the greenhouse effect as ‘hokum.’ According to him, it’s all part of an elaborate scare campaign designed to boost Australia’s conservation lobby. That would be news to Melbourne writer George Turner who…
Time to Get Real: A Critique of Global Trends 2030 – Alternative Worlds* Introduction In his invitation to comment on this new NIC report Michael Marien suggests respondents evaluate its main features: four ‘megatrends’, six ‘game-changers’, eight ‘black swans’ (or ‘wild cards’) and four ‘alternative world’ scenarios. He also asks if anything else is missing…
Evolution’s Edge: the Coming Collapse and Transformation of our World, New Society Pubs., BC, Canada, 2008. 308pp + xii Evolution’s Edge is a brave and inspiring book that deserves wide attention because it endeavours to tell the truth about a central fact of our time – a fact that has been widely repressed despite the…
Prosperity Without Growth – Economics for a Finite Planet, London, Earthscan, 2011 Many of those who attempt to track global change can readily feel overwhelmed by the sheer and ever-increasing amount of information that’s available through multiple channels. So I’ve adopted a simple rule of thumb to help me decide what to cover. If I…
The University in Transformation: Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University S. Inayatullah & J. Gidley (eds.) Bergin & Garvey, Westport, Conn., 2000, US$65.00 It is a sign of the times that a vast part of the debate about the futures of universities is about one central issue – that of funding. So…
Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 384 pp., 2014 Over the last few years many – perhaps most – people have become accustomed to receiving a challenging daily diet of unwelcome news. We hear about the futility of recent wars, the spread of infectious disease, climate-related disasters, the seemingly…
Education for the 21st century Headley Beare and Richard Slaughter, Routledge, UK, 1993. Educators who are in touch with students must be disturbed frequently by the fears, gloom and pessimism expressed by many young people about the future. They must ask themselves what can be done through schools and the curriculum to reconstruct these…
The Foresight Principle: Cultural Recovery in the 21st Century. Richard A. Slaughter (Director, Futures Study Centre, Melbourne). Foreword by Hazel Henderson. Praeger Studies on the 21st Century. Westport CT: Praeger, June 1995. 232pp $62.95; $22.95pb. Our habitual mode of perception (focusing on “me and my group,” here and now), more than any external threat, is…
The Foresight Principle: Cultural Recovery in the 21st Century. Richard A. Slaughter. London: Adamantine Press Limited, 1995 The meet has been a long one; the best swimmers were stacked forward; the score is tied; the last race is called; the Mullets have to score in order for our team to win. If the future were a…