Patterns of the Future explains the current world using the theory of long-term development waves (Kondratiev waves). Markku Wilenius, Professor of Futures Studies, argues that we are now entering the sixth wave: the age of intelligent, integrated technologies, helping to restore the balance between humans, technology and nature by radically improved material and energy efficiency and a wiser use of human potential.The unfolding sixth wave will challenge our current values, institutions an...

A New York Times–bestselling account of the next great economic era, with a look into the individuals pioneering its implementation around the world.One of the most influential social thinkers of our time reveals how Internet technology and renewable energy are merging to create the new jobs of the twenty-first century and change the world.In The Third Industrial Revolution, Jeremy Rifkin takes us on a journey into a new economic era where h...

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...

In 2050 there will be 9.3 billion people alive - compared with 7 billion today - and the number will still be rising. The population aged over sixty-five will have more than doubled, to more than 16 per cent; China's GDP will be 80 per cent more than America's; and the number of cars on India's roads will have increased by 3,880 per cent. And, in 2050 it should be clear whether we are alone in the universe.What other megachanges can we expect - and what will their impact be?...

A major new analysis and action plan to deal with two linked challenges to human ingenuity and human survival - the crisis of climate change and the world economic crash.'Gilding says that our current economic model is driving the system over a cliff. We are already living beyond the planet's capacity to support us and a crisis is no longer avoidable' The Times'If you're planning to stick around for the 21st century, this m...

Clear, insightful, and nondogmatic, this book gives us a new appreciation for one of our most ubiquitous institutions.From the wild swings of the stock market to the online auctions of eBay to the unexpected twists of the world's post-Communist economies, markets have suddenly become quite visible. We now have occasion to ask, "What makes these institutions work? How important are they? How can we improve them?"Taking us on a lively tour of a world we once ...

What increasingly affects all of us, whether professional planners or individuals preparing for a better future, is not the tangibles of life—bottom-line numbers, for instance—but the intangibles: our hopes and fears, our beliefs and dreams. Only stories—scenarios—and our ability to visualize different kinds of futures adequately capture these intangibles.In The Art of the Long View, now with the addition of an all-new User's Guide, Peter Schwartz outlines the "scenaric" a...

Affluenza has not just changed the world, it has also changed the way we see the world. Short of money? Borrow some. Caught in the rain? Buy an umbrella. Thirsty? Buy a bottle of water and throw the bottle away. Our embrace of “convenience” and our acceptance of our inability to plan ahead is an entirely new way of thinking, and over the past seventy years we have built a new and different economic system to accommodate it.There is nothing inevitable about this current way of think...

Renowned playwright George Bernard Shaw once said "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." By this definition, some of today's entrepreneurs are decidedly unreasonable--and have even been dubbed crazy. Yet as John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan argue in The Power of Unreasonable People, our very future may hinge on their work.Through vivid ...

How to harness capitalism's dynamism to create an economy that promotes well-being and rewards creationThe recent economic crisis was a dramatic reminder that capitalism can both produce and destroy. It's a system that by its very nature encourages predators and creators, locusts and bees. But, as Geoff Mulgan argues in this compelling, imaginative, and important book, the economic crisis also presents a historic opportunity to choose a radically different future fo...

This study reveals how our monetary system reinforces scarcity, and how communities are already using new paradigms to foster sustainable prosperity.In the United States and across Europe, our economies are stuck in an agonizing cycle of repeated financial meltdowns. Yet solutions already exist, not only our recurring fiscal crises but our ongoing social and ecological debacles as well. These changes came about not through increased conventional taxation, enlightene...

Essential, visionary essays about our post-carbon futureClimate change, along with the depletion of oil, coal, and gas dictate that we will inevitably move away from our profound societal reliance on fossil fuels; but just how big a transformation will this be? While many policy-makers assume that renewable energy sources will provide an easy "plug-and-play" solution, author Richard Heinberg suggests instead that we are in for a wild ride; a "civilization reboot" o...