New Tools for Undertanding A Turbulent world

This video is a lecture by Thomas Homer Dixon presented at the University of Waterloo as part of that university's  big ideas series.   His recent research has focused on threats to global security in the 21st century and how societies adapt to complex economic, ecological, and technological change.  The video is long but well worth watching - particularly if you are a climate change activist or worried about climate change.   Thomas Homer Dixon points out that we are urgently in need of new tools to cope with an increasingly unpredictable events including climate change.  He feels that  some of those tools are going to emerge from this field of "complexity theory." 

And here's a link to the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation mentioned by Dr. Homer Dixon during his talk.  From their home page:

The Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation is a research hub that promotes the rigorous transdisciplinary study of innovation within—and the resilient and beneficial transformation of—the complex adaptive systems essential to human well-being.

http://wici.ca/

Peak Oil?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

Coincidentally, I bought Carbon Shift: How the Twin Crises of Oil Depletion and Climate Change Will Define the Future (edited by Thomas Homer-Dixon) today.  The authors of the various essays agree that humanity's future is going to be drastically unlike our experience during the Age of Oil.  Thomas Homer-Dixon winds up the book by stating that " a carbon shift - either voluntary or involuntary - is now unavoidable."  And, if the whistleblower at the IEA is correct, the involuntary carbon shift is much closer than previously thought.  Perhaps we, as a country, and humanity as a whole,  should ration carbon fuels and use what we still have left to build a way of life that isn't so dependent upon hydrocarbons? Sweden is planning exactly that..... why can't the rest of the world?