A report called 2009 State of the Future, the 13th annual Millennium Project report card on the future, has collected intelligence from more than 2,500 leading scholars, futurists, among other experts, and offers a framework for understanding global change and identifying strategies to improve decision-making for a better future. Noticeably, the report compares mankind to a teenager.
“Much of humanity is in an adolescent stage, characterized by a self-centered, short term focus. To solve the enormous issues on economy, climate change and more, humanity needs to mature and address global scale decisions,” comments Jerome C. Glenn, the lead author of the report. The Millennium Project is an international think tank that provides early alert and analysis of long-range issues, opportunities, challenges and strategies for policy making, advanced training and public education. It is a hub of renown futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities.
The 2009 State of the Future report is structured around 15 global challenges, including energy demands, sustainable development and water. “In these uncertain times, we need an intellectually solid set of ideas,” says Glenn. “The global economy needs a serious upgrade. Future prospects for climate change are more serious than most recognize. It is imperative we act responsibly – now.”
The report sees in economic stimulus packages as some of the alternatives to deal with shrinking resources and impeding climate catastrophes. These should be used to help shifts from freshwater agriculture to saltwater agriculture, producing meat in laboratories without animals and gasoline to electric cars, it says.
The report can be found, both print version and CD, at http://www.millennium-project.org.
We have a long way to go before we reach Type I on the Kardashev scale.
It states in this article that humanity is at an adolescent level? I think it’s more in the early toddler stage.