The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Members of the World Futures Studies Federation share not only the usual professional goals of advancing and developing their field, but also an extraordinary commitment to envisioning and creating a future world of increasing human freedom and well-being. Both aims, obviously, would be moved forward if futurists could establish more futures studies courses, departments, and research centers than...
This paper examines the role of generational change in the emergence and continuity of the WFSF, generational change as situated through macro-historical perspectives, generational value shifts and their implications for the WFSF, and asymmetries and potentialities revealed through youth futures literature. It argues that the development of the WFSF in the longer term will require a generational approach...
This essay gives an account of my voyage through space and time with the World Futures Studies Federation, and other futures groups, from 1966 to August 1993, although I remain a member of and active in the WFSF. The essay is written mainly from memory with only occasional reference to notes and records and so it may be wrong in some details. My journey was not made alone, but in the company of a...
The massive spread of mobile phones and their social acceptance is an important information-technological feature of the beginning of the 21st century. In addition to making calls, mobile phones are associated with various additional services and games, which are becoming part of everyday life. As the location of mobile phones can be precisely tracked in space, they can be used for investigating the...
Among the founders of the futures studies field, the Dutch sociologist Fred Polak is one of the least known. Although he is still mentioned by several renowned futurists, very little has been written about the evolution of Polak's ideas and as far as we have been able to trace back, no retrospective work has been published. Today, Polak is mostly known for his opus magnum ‘The Image of the Future’,...
Modern society depends on complex agro-ecological and trading systems to provide food for urban residents, yet there are few tools available to assess whether these systems are vulnerable to future disturbances. We propose a preliminary framework to assess the vulnerability of food systems to future shocks based on landscape ecology's ‘Panarchy Framework’. According to Panarchy, ecosystem vulnerability...
In February 2004, the Department of Defense released ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Written by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall of consulting firm Global Business Network, the study outlined a possible future with climatic conditions similar to those 8200 years ago and speculated on implications related to the subsequent availability of...
This paper examines the effect of the structural changes arising from the globalisation of production and innovation and from technological changes on the environment. Drawing on theories of international production from international business and innovation, we assess the impact of long-term technological change and changes in international production on the international division of labour and energy...
This paper examines green consumption in the context of an increasing focus on sustainable lifestyles. The authors argue that green buying must be seen in the context of wider debates surrounding the development of sustainable ways of living that incorporate other environmental actions in an holistic conceptualisation of sustainable lifestyles. This framework is operationalised in a study of environmental...
In this essay, we explore the view that the growth of knowledge is a complex evolutionary process. We pay particular attention to the division of knowing in a knowledge economy, to the restless nature of knowledge and to the principle of variation and selection that makes the growth of knowledge an evolutionary phenomenon. The foundations for this discussion are located in Adam Smith's suggestion...
Problems faced by military leaders will be used to evaluate techniques for dealing with the limits of knowledge. A survey of recent scientific developments will establish that knowledge is limited in principle, and historical examples for coping with limited knowledge in practice will then be analyzed. The convergence between the science of complexity and successful cases of social evolution indicates...
In this paper the underlying concern is the problem of knowledge. How do we understand the world, what is ‘scientific’ knowledge, and to what extent is this knowledge limited by the fact that the world in which we live is complex? The problems associated with the status of our knowledge of the world have been central to philosophy all along. Here I will focus on the way in which the acknowledgement...
A complex system is an entity, coherent in some recognisable way but whose elements, interactions, and dynamics generate structures and admit surprise and novelty that cannot be defined a priori. Complex systems are more than the sum of their parts, and a consequence of this is that any model of their structure is necessarily incomplete and partial. Models thus represent simplifications in which salient...
New firms in emerging industries are subject to complex dynamic processes which defy the attempts at prediction embodied in business conjectures. Discontinuous growth is common, but the issue of interruptions in the early growth of new firms has not been adequately addressed in the mainstream literature. We examine the prevalence of interruptions to growth in a cohort study of the growth trajectories...
Economies are systems in which the macroscopically observable quantities emerge from the effects of interactions amongst the individual constituents of the system. They exhibit key features of complex systems: short-term non-predictability, emergent properties and multiple possible histories.The conventional approach to the control of the economy at the aggregate level requires the ability to both...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.