This book states the harsh truth: that despite best intentions, our current environmental practices are doing more harm than good, and that the solution lies in creating supply chains of the future that design, produce, consume, and reuse materials in a manner that is balanced economically and environmentally.One billion beverage containers are used on a daily basis in the United States, with at least 600 million of them ending up in landfills. Even the 400 million...

Shows why plastics, in aggregate, have become a toxin to humans, wildlife, and the planet, and proposes novel solutions that involve neither traditional recycling nor giving up plastic."Plastics!" In the 50 years since Dustin Hoffman's character in The Graduate was instructed that this was the career field of the future, we have not been able to escape this ubiquitous but poorly understood material. Author Jack Buffington argues that the plastics crisis is...

This volume models a 21st century supply chain: one that uses technology that leads to the power of the individual, not larger organizations. Author Jack Buffington explains how in the near future, each of us will be a “prosumer” in a peer-based economy of micro-level manufacturing with little waste and infinite customization.There are two primary schools of thought in regard to the world economy of the future; from one side is a belief that economic growth can continue in perpetui...

A guide for our future that Booklist praises as "a practical and compelling deep dive into high-level solutions to address climate change, its impact on the economy, and our very survival.”Defines the challenges facing climate goals and offers achievable solutions to meet these goals by 2050-without sacrificing economic growth.Climate change and other environmental dangers are considered an existenti...

When the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global economic "shutdown" in March 2020, our supply chains began to fail, and out-of-stocks and delivery delays became the new norm. Contrary to public perception, the pandemic strain did not break the current system of supply chains; it merely exposed weaknesses and fault lines that were decades in the making, and which were already acutely felt in deindustrialized cities and depopulated rural towns throughout the United States.Reinventing ...

An original vision for using technology to transform supply chains into value chains in order to revitalize American communitiesWhen the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global economic “shutdown” in March 2020, our supply chains began to fail, and out-of-stocks and delivery delays became the new norm. Contrary to public perception, the pandemic strain did not break the current system of supply chains; it merely exposed weaknesses and fault lines that were decades in the...

The New York Times bestselling “manifesto for the future that is grounded in practical solutions addressing the world’s most pressing concerns: overpopulation, food, water, energy, education, health care and freedom” (The Wall Street Journal).Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—and fast.In Abundance

A New York Times Bestseller. A “fascinating” (Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times) look at how digital technology is transforming our work and our lives.In recent years, Google’s autonomous cars have logged thousands of miles on American highways and IBM’s Watson trounced the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than ...

The New York Times–bestselling author describes how current trends will create an era when anything and everything is available for almost nothing.In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, New York Times–bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin uncovers a paradox at the heart of capitalism that has propelled it to greatness but is now taking it to its death—the inherent entrepreneurial dynamism of competitive markets that drives productivity up and marginal costs...

Flash Foresight offers seven radical principles you need to transform your business today. From internationally renowned technology forecaster Daniel Burrus—a leading consultant to Google, Proctor & Gamble, IBM, and many other Fortune 500 firms—with John David Mann, co-author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Go-Giver, comes this systematic, easy-to-implement method for identifying new business opportunities and solving difficult problems in the twenty-f...

Everything you ever need to know about making it as a scientist.Despite your graduate education, brainpower, and technical prowess, your career in scientific research is far from assured. Permanent positions are scarce, science survival is rarely part of formal graduate training, and a good mentor is hard to find.In A Ph.D. Is Not Enough!, physicist Peter J. Feibelman lays out a rational path to a fulfilling long-term research career. He offers sou...

Praise for David Houle"Houle breaks down big ideas into easily digestible, entertaining small bites…Crack this book open whenever globalization's gotten you down."—Slate.com."The Shift Age lifts us out of the rapids of techno-change and helps us see the course of the river we've been rafting on."-Howard Bloom, author of the GOD PROBLEM and GLOBAL BRAIN"[The Shift Age] is must read for anyone who is interested in where humanity is headed in coming generations. This b...