Stock Check Infographic of the Day

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Barry Lehrman

From the BBC comes the global resources stock check infographic and the question:

If we fail to correct current consumption trends, then when will our most valuable natural resources run out?

Methodology is here [pdf].
Date created: June 2012
Creative Direction: Duncan Swain and David McCandless
Design: Piero Zagami
Research: Miriam Quick

Not quite a Hubbert’s Peak diagram for everything, but Zagami managed to make a cleaner version of the good.is infographic (below) that I’ve previously shared. Think I’ll start using this version in my lectures.

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Intro to future scenarios & the post-carbon wilderness

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Barry Lehrman

I’ve been reading lots of books in the emerging genre of future environmental/societal/economic scenarios. These books are both calls for action and roadmaps into the uncharted wilderness of tomorrow. It’s much to early to predict which path our society will follow, but I can safely make the case that there won’t be just one scenario in play, but that hyper-locality will create a mosaic of best to worst cases (in fact we already live in such a world). So here is an introduction to the best and the worst of what the future may hold for humanity.

Scenario planning isn’t that new, governments and business have been using this process for decades. The UN seems to excel at generating scenarios, with the IPCC and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment laying out the foundations for most of the compelling environmental, population, economic, and energy futures.

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