Back to fossil fuels-with AI?

An edited opinion piece by John ElkingtonAccording to the International Energy Agency (IEA), AI-related energy demand is set to almost double between 2022 and 2026. Bad enough, but Generation is more pessimistic still. “There are … forecasts that are much more drastic,” it concludes. “It is easy to imagine a world in which ever moreContinue reading “Back to fossil fuels-with AI?”

TRANSFORMATIVE SKILLS GUIDE

I have written recently that we need a transformative system -wide change process across our education and learning programmes and institutions to tackle the wicked global issues we face. This recently published Skills Guide puts some astonishingly accessible and credible ways to achieve this transformation. It deals with inner skills such as “thinking ,relating, collaboratingContinue reading “TRANSFORMATIVE SKILLS GUIDE”

TRANSFORMING OUR UNIVERSITIES TO MEET THE ISSUES OF THE 21 CENTURY?

How can we overcome our blindness to what is now right before our eyes: heat, storms, fires, floods, desecrated lands, extinctions, and social injustices and what these portend for their lives. Young people are now recognising that there needs to be more urgency and  social focus in our educational systems and crucially we need toContinue reading “TRANSFORMING OUR UNIVERSITIES TO MEET THE ISSUES OF THE 21 CENTURY?”

What does progress look like on a planet at its limit?

Putting endless growth above our wellbeing and the environment is no longer tenable-from a Guardian Culture article by Kate Raworth Here’s a question for our times: how should we imagine the shape of progress? In the twentieth century the answer may have seemed to be very clear. It was growth, measured in terms of nationalContinue reading “What does progress look like on a planet at its limit?”

What do faculty owe future generations?

By Sharon Stein, originally published by Resilience.org January 30, 2024 I’m a millennial faculty member. The millennial generation – also known as Generation Y – came of age with 9/11, followed by the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then the 2007/8 financial crisis. While we were growing up, promises of perpetual progress and prosperityContinue reading “What do faculty owe future generations?”

Consilience

 In Search of the Unity of Knowledge by E. O. Wilson I have recently returned to reading the biologist and polymath’s 1998 book in search of some answers to why there is an absence of political leadership capable of addressing our current ecological and environmental crises. I have adapted and summarised some of the earlyContinue reading “Consilience”

We Need a Revolution in Universities to Help Humanity Solve Global Problems

 Guest Blog by Dr Nicholas Maxwell, Science and Technology Studies, UCL The world is in a state of crisis.  Global problems that threaten our future include: the climate crisis; the destruction of natural habitats, catastrophic loss of wildlife, and mass extinction of species; lethal modern war; the spread of modern armaments; the menace of nuclearContinue reading “We Need a Revolution in Universities to Help Humanity Solve Global Problems”

PROJECT BASED LEARNING

A recent book from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) highlights how universities are not providing the majority of their students with the critical thinking skills required by employers. In their study analysing data from the US, UK, Italy, Mexico, Finland and China, 45 per cent of students were found to be proficient in criticalContinue reading “PROJECT BASED LEARNING”

New Ways of Seeing the World: Big History and Great Transition

Opening essay for a GTI Forum David Christian May 2023 As the first astronauts peered down on Earth from space, they saw the planet anew. They all had the same epiphany, as the sight of one small, fragile world, embedded in a huge universe briefly replaced the multiple, ever-changing impressions of everyday life. To buildContinue reading “New Ways of Seeing the World: Big History and Great Transition”

REGENERATIVE CULTURES:LEARNING AND UNLEARNING

In an earlier blog I suggested that we are beginning to see evidence of avoiding using the word “sustainability.”  “Sustainability is steadily falling into disrepute, mainly because of its reformist piecemeal applications, which exclude wholesale systems change.” In its place terms such as “regenerative paradigms” have come into play. In its broadest sense this encompassesContinue reading “REGENERATIVE CULTURES:LEARNING AND UNLEARNING”