The latest selection provides an excellent starting point: Now for the Long Term: The Report of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations (U of Oxford, Oxford Martin School, Oct 2013, 85p.; BOM 11/13). This impressive, broad-ranging, and amply documented report identifies key "megatrend" drivers of change, areas where action is imperative (boosting youth employment through "youth guarantee programs," reducing inequality, tackling climate change, risk prevention for better health, targeting corruption, more transparency on taxes, etc.), elements to overcome impediments to action, problems of growing complexity and public trust, the need for "creative coalitions," more innovative institutions, revaluing the future, "more global conversations," and an agreed global ethic.

A somewhat similar overview is provided by former Vice President Al Gore in The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change (Random House, Feb 2013, 558p; BOM 4/13), describing a "future now emerging that will be extremely different from anything we have known." The six "revolutionary" drivers are a deeply interconnected global economy, a planet-wide communications grid, a new balance of political/economic/military power, unsustainable growth in population and resource consumption, emergence of a new set of powerful technologies (biological, biochemical, genetic, materials), and human civilization colliding with the natural world and causing grave harm (notably due to climate change). Gore's prescriptions include stabilizing human population growth, following principles of sustainability, a full and accurate measurement of value and externalities, re-evaluating reliance on the GDP measure of progress, fully recognizing the value of public goods, and restoring our ability to communicate "clearly and candidly" with one another in a broadly accessible forum.

Another framework for appreciating global problems and possibilities is offered by the Millennium Project (Jerome C. Glenn, Director), which assesses 15 Global Challenges in its annual State of the Future reports, begun in 1997. See the long review of 2010SOF (July 2010, 88p; BOM 9/10) and a shorter review of 2011 SOF. The Global Challenges deal with familiar topics such as sustainable development and climate change, clean water, energy, population growth, promoting democracy, new and re-emerging diseases, and the status of women. Less familiar but important topics include transnational organized crime, new security strategies, improving decision-making capacity, more global long-term perspectives, ethical market economies, ethics in global decisions, and promoting collective intelligence about accelerating science and technology and other matters. The MP, with 49 "Nodes" around the world, now offers ongoing updates of the individual Challenges (https://themp.org/#). The 2013-2014 edition of State of the Future will be available in Jan 2014 (www.millennium-project.org).

A considerable amount of fresh thinking around the broad topic of "security" is provided in The Quest for Security: Protection Without Protectionism and the Challenge of Global Governance, edited by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Mary Kaldor (Columbia U Press, April 2013, 412p; BOM 8/13), with essays on economic security without ruinous nation-state protectionism, Scandinavian equality, the need for global security cooperation, restructuring global security with "human security" as the organizing framework, trends in global criminal industries, sharing the burden of adjusting to climate change, designing the post-Kyoto climate regime, how cities have taken the lead in facing global governance challenges, urban security challenges, cities and climate governance, a five-point agenda for improving global governance structures, expanding the G20, global financial governance, and the "vast" waste of resources in military spending.

22 Ideas to Fix the World: Conversations with the World's Foremost Thinkers (New York U Press, Aug 2013, 466p; BOM 9/13), edited by Piotr Dutkiewicz and Richard Sakwa, is a joint publication of the Social Science Research Council, Russia's World Public Forum, and NYU Press. The title is striking but overstated; still, many of the interviews deserve consideration. Topics include Muhammad Yunas on rethinking the nature of humanity so we can design a new system that allows people to take care of themselves, Will Kymlicka on how society can benefit from rights granted to minority groups, Joseph Stiglitz on the defective standard paradigm of economics (notably as regards sustainability and inequality), Ha-Joon Chang on the failure of free-market economics, Jose Antonio Ocampo on the need for a different international monetary system, Paul Watson on "Planet Ocean" and the dying of the seas, Mike Davis on the need to become a planet of gardeners, Immanuel Wallerstein on the hegemonic decline of the US in recent decades, Zygmunt Bauman on our new world of "liquid modernity" where change is the only constant, Bob Deacon on the ILO's quest for international standards for workers and a global social protection floor, Peter Katzenstein on the diffusion of power that makes governance more challenging, Ivan Krastev on the paradox of much more interconnection in our globalizing world--yet more fragmentation, Manuel F. Montes on the need for more stringent regulation of the financial sector, Kemal Dervis on the underappreciated European model of social democracy, and more.

In Futurevision: Scenarios for the World in 2040 (Scribe, Nov 2012, 330p; BOM 6/13), futurists Richard Watson and Oliver Freeman seek "to prevent people from getting the future seriously wrong" and to emphasize that the world offers more promise than ever, but also more threats to our existence. The scenarios serve to introduce the subsequent Worldviews described here under the headings of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (Watson/Freeman's "world of temperance" where less is more and people are happier), TECHNO-OPTIMISM (Watson/Freeman's "world of intelligence" where science and technology restore order to the natural world and life is generally good under free-market capitalism), and GREEN PESSIMISM (Watson/Freeman's narcissistic "world of greed" and rudderless "world of fear" scenarios where things go downhill).

Techno-Optimists

The alternative to sustainable, low-carbon societies that aim to reduce poverty and inequality is essentially "business as usual" powered by the panoply of new technologies, with "trickle-down" benefits to all implicitly assumed. This is expressed subtly, or not so subtly.

Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds from America's National Intelligence Council (NIC, Dec 2012, 137p; www.dni.gov/nic/globaltrends; BOM 2/13) acknowledges that the world of 2030 "will be radically transformed" and presents a framework of four megatrends, six "game-changers," potential "black swans" or wild cards, and four "alternative worlds" scenarios that bear little resemblance to any of the sustainable development visions presented above. The tip-off to the NIC's bias is their selection of "Individual Empowerment" as the most important megatrend, which will "accelerate substantially during the next 15-20 years owing to poverty reduction and a huge growth of the global middle class, greater educational attainment, and better health care." The potential for greater individual initiative due to widespread use of new communications and manufacturing technologies is thus seen as "key to solving the mounting global challenges over the next 15-20 years." Perhaps so, but this upbeat assumption should be categorized as a scenario and not a megatrend. Conversely, the NIC's "Gini Out-of-the-Bottle" scenario of greater inequality as measured by the Gini Coefficient should be seen as a megatrend, not a possible scenario. For further critiques of the NIC report, see the 13 essays in The NIC's Global Trends 2030 Report: A Collective Critique, World Future Review Special Issue, 5:4, Winter 2013 (published by World Future Society/Sage Publications).

The bias of The Economist, a widely-respected weekly magazine with outstanding global coverage, is not as subtle. Megachange: The World in 2050 (London: The Economist and Profile Books, 2012, 304p; BOM 6/13), edited by Executive Editor Daniel Franklin, provides 20 chapters on the "great trends that are transforming the world": population growth to "over 9 billion" by 2050, "stunning" advances in health care, more opportunities for women in most countries, collective intelligence as commonplace by 2050, continued dominance of the English language as many other languages die off, atheism and agnosticism expected to decline (!), global emissions unlikely to fall for decades (the best we can hope for is a plateauing in the 2030s, followed perhaps by a modest decline), problems of failing states and jihadist terrorism will remain, the problematic spread of the rule of law, the rising social burden of an aging society, the prospering of today's "upstart economies," scenarios of globalization, a "far narrower" gap between rich and poor countries, disruptive innovation, the accelerating growth of information (information overload is a very real problem, but "tools to help us handle it are improving") and mobile technology bringing the excluded closer to the mainstream and making markets more efficient. Editor Franklin concludes that "there is every chance that the world in 2050 will be richer, healthier, more connected, more sustainable, more productive, more innovative, better educated, (and) with less inequality...and with more opportunity for billions of people." A concluding essay by Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist (2010), states that "planetary pessimism is usually wrong; the field of futurology is littered with cataclysmic prognostications that failed." He does not compare with the many optimistic prognostications that failed in the mythical "field of futurology," a simplistic construct used as a straw man by one-eyed optimists.

"Sustainability" is not mentioned by The Economist, other than the passing reference, cited above. The overview of scores of trends is quite good, and many problems are discussed, albeit too briefly in most instances (e.g., infoglut). The general expectation is that R&D and rising levels of education "will offset barriers to growth such as unemployment, corruption, environmental degradation, and social tensions arising from income inequalities."

In contrast to this sophisticated defense of free-market capitalism and globalization driven by high technology, Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think (Free Press, Feb 2012, 386p; www.AbundanceTheBook.com; BOM 8/12), by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler, presents the uninhibited techno-enthusiasm of Silicon Valley's Singularity University, founded by Diamandis and prodigious inventor and putative "futurist" Ray Kurzweil. Eight exponentially growing fields are at the core of SU's curriculum: biotechnology and bioinformatics, computational systems, networks and sensors, artificial intelligence, robotics, digital manufacturing, medicine, and nanomaterials and nanotechnology. "Each of these has the potential to affect billions of people, solve grand challenges, and reinvent industries." The back-cover blurb by Kurzweil announces that "This brilliant must-read book provides the key to the coming era of abundance replacing eons of scarcity; (it) is a powerful antidote to today's malaise and pessimism." The authors go on to forecast that "within a generation, we will be able to provide goods and services, once reserved for the wealthy few, to any and all who need them. Or desire them. Abundance for all is actually within our grasp."