by senior futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. “Any useful idea about the future should appear to be ridiculous” – futurist Jim Dator Eighteen years ago, in 1996, I was writing a book called The Next 20 Years of Your Life (published by Stoddart Publishing in 1997), in which I projected how a variety of the major […] Read more

by futurist Kit Arrow What would a world without antibiotics be like? Unfortunately, we know all too well from history. Here’s what our future could look like without them: Marjorie was working at her favorite pastime, woodworking, planing a piece of wood for a cabinet she was making, when the wood plane slipped, and she […] Read more

by senior futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. In 1998, former news anchor Tom Brokaw wrote a book called The Greatest Generation. In that book he said, “‘it is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.’ He argued that these men and women fought not for fame and recognition, but because it was the […] Read more

by senior futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. Does a robot have rights? Not now it doesn’t, and it’s tempting to say a robot will never have rights because it is property. However, you could have made a similar argument about certain classes of human beings at various times through history, from women in western society until […] Read more

by futurist Kit Arrow, B.Sc. In my last blog I wrote about longevity and how there were a number of possibilities as to how we could make the body last longer. I touched on the brain, but only briefly, because there was enough on brain longevity for another post. The brain is probably the least […] Read more

by futurist Kit Arrow Jeanne Calment of France was born in 1875, and died in 1997, at the age of 122, the oldest verifiable age for a human being. She was alive for the Boer war, the establishment of the Nobel Prize, the founding of the National Geographic society, both World Wars, the emergence of […] Read more

by futurists Richard Worzel & Kit Arrow This is the third of a three-part blog post on climate change and what it means to us. The first part dealt with the evidence that climate change is really happening – although with the bizarre weather we’ve been experiencing, anyone who still doubts it clearly has problems […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. This is the second of three parts in an overview of the future of climate change. The first part can be found here. In this section, I’m going to focus on three things relating to climate change: A working definition of risk; the nature and magnitude of the risks we […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. This is the first part of a three part discussion about climate change. The second part, which deals with the risk management aspects of climate change, can be found here. One topic that inevitably draws comments from readers of Futuresearch blog posts is any discussion of climate change. A recent comment […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. As a futurist, I read the news differently than most people. By the time something is on the front page of the mainstream media (MSM), it’s usually of very little interest to me. As well, almost none of the coverage of entertainment or athletic celebrities is of any importance when […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. And so the Wing-Nut wing of the Republican Party is once again threatening the financial, economic, and fiscal stability of the American republic, first by threatening to block passage of a Continuing Resolution on funding the government beyond September 30th, but more importantly by threatening to block raising the debt […] Read more

by Kit Arrow With this post, I’m introducing my new associate, Kit Arrow. Kit has been doing research for me off and on since 2005, and has now come on board full-time as a futurist. He did his undergraduate work in molecular biology, and has done graduate work in genetics. He brings a different background […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. This is the conclusion of a series, which started with two earlier blogs, which you can read here and here. Fifth Principle: A leader must exercise foresight. We’ve established that a leader must lead towards something, must help her followers to improve, and must promise and achieve victory. But to do these […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. This is a continuation of an earlier blog, which you can read here. Third Principle: A leader places the organization’s goals above her own, and pushes her followers to improve. Why do you lead? Is it to accomplish a specific goal? Or is it to feed your ego? If the […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. Systematic study of the future consists of many things, and one of those is leadership. The practice of leadership is enables us to organize people and help them act and accomplish meaningful things for their future. Because it’s a pivotal issue that relates to how my clients succeed in preparing […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. Food is that stuff that comes wrapped in plastic from the store, right? Obviously not, but it’s easy to forget that in the blur of daily routine. In fact, food is immensely complex – and the future of food is even more so. Just about every aspect of human endeavor that […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. A new year is a time when everyone thinks and wonders about the future, and I’m no different, except for me it’s also my job. With that in mind, let me identify some of the trends and new developments that are likely to emerge, or intensify, during 2013. Some of […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. The utility industries thrive on stability, yet they may well face a number of surprises in 2013 and beyond, both pleasant and unpleasant. And although some of these will be “unknown unknowns”, others may be unfamiliar, but can be identified using futurist techniques. In particular, the concept of Wild Cards […] Read more

by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A. Why is risk something we want to avoid? I suspect that any attempt to answer this question will deal with the downside or cost of risk, and that’s where any assessment of risk should start. Indeed, my definition of risk is just that: Risk is the cost of being wrong. […] Read more