Protected Planet ~ Goal of 50% of Earth by 2050

I'm particularly interested in seeing half of Earth be protected by 2050.  Towards this goal, Protected Planet shares the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) covering both terrestrial and marine protected areas and tracks progress... The IUCN has a half dozen so-called "Protected Area Management Categories" -- and those are important and worth adding to directly, but I hope we can especially push for enhancement of Category VI "Sustainable Use" with particular eye on private conservancies, land banks, forestry reserves, flood management zones, and potentially even the careful extractions of natural resources. Finally, I hope that we figure out how not to ravage the other half of Earth but rather we green it appropriately (e.g. our cities), share it with nature, and refrain from eco-devastation generally.

Fall 2016 @ MIT ~ Ventures, Places, Futures!

I'm co-teaching a very cool folio of MIT class offerings this Fall 2016 and hope you'll either consider joining us or spreading the word about particularly relevant offerings to great students and colleagues who you think might appreciate them! These cluster into three big categories: Transformational Ventures, Creative Places, and Emergent Futures. Details below & online...  

• Development Ventures ~ Thu 10a-12n E14-633 ~ 15.375/EC.731/MAS.665 ~ http://developmentventures.org ~ Towards the entrepreneurial deployment of emerging market innovations solving problems faced by at least a Billion people worldwide in developing countries and underserved communities. First class: Thu 9/8  
• Revolutionary Ventures ~ Thu 2-4p E15-341 ~ 9.455/15.128/20.454/MAS.883 ~ http://revolutionaryventures.org ~ Exploring personal entrepreneurial strategies and envisioning and building transformative ideas and organizations to initiate and/or accelerate bold engineering revolutions. Email reven@media.mit.edu ASAP if interested. First class: Thu 9/8  
• Future Commerce (H1) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s71/15.s73 ~ http://mitfuturecommerce.org ~ New Media meets Markets & Finance. First class: Tue 9/13 (Half Semester offering)  
• Future Health (H2) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s72/15.s74 ~ http://mitfuturehealth.org ~ New Media meets Medicine & Wellness. First class: Tue 11/1 (Second Half of semester)  
• Understanding MIT ~ Tue 4-6p 9-450A ~ 11.s941 ~ http://understandingmit.org ~ Special seminar on the challenges of designing and building research universities and crafting conditions for a supportive, vibrant, and entrepreneurial learning community. First class: Tue 9/13  
• Model Cities ~ Wed 2-5p E15-359 ~ MAS.552/4.557 ~ http://mitmodelcities.org ~ Simulating & Visualizing Entrepreneurial, Innovative, & Creative Urban Hotspots. First class: Wed 9/7  
• SciFab 2050 ~ Tue 7-9p E15-359 ~ MAS.s60 ~ http://scifab2050.org/ ~ An informal seminar using Science Fiction, extrapolation, simulation, and imagination to envision what our world might be like in 2050. Email jpbonsen@alum.mit.edu if interested. First session: Tue 9/13

Urban Growth ~ Mapping Population Dynamics...

The Guardian spotlights Cities in numbers: how patterns of urban growth change the world...

"Beneath the crude statistic that the world is heading towards 70% urbanisation by 2050 lie regional differences in demographic, economic and environmental change. LSE Cities’ Urban Age programme takes a deeper look at the data"

Ocean Ranching ~ OFT's Offshore Fishpens...

In his Scuttlefish piece How to Farm Fish Without Killing the Planet, author Owen James Burke spotlights fish farming...

"Aquaculture has been the world’s fastest-growing food sector for several decades, and some argue it is the only feasible answer to the predicament of trying to feed a growing global population that is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050."

Burke spotlights this Motherboard video about Steve Page of Ocean Farm Technologies and their free-range offshore fishpen enclosure method...

2050 ~ Envisioning Future Humanity & Planet...

Various visions imagining us in 2050...

Rosling @ CGIU ~ A Fact-Based Worldview!

Thanks to TYWKIWDBI for spotting Gapminder's Hans Rosling sharing stats and speaking at CGIU about Pre-Conceived Notions and a Fact-Based World View...

Seeing What’s Next ~ Asymco on Adoption Rates

Asymco's Horace Dediu puts adoption of smartphones in context in his Seeing What’s Next post where he plots few other technologies and the time they took to grow from 10% to 90% penetration within the US market... This nearly 200 year vista is lovely, especially his addition of (a) blue bars = tech growth pulses with start year and duration, and (b) green bars = life expectancy of Americans in years.

Smartphone Saturation? ~ Asymco's Trend Calc

Asymco's Horace Dediu asks When will smartphones saturate?

"With the exception of Africa and Middle East, note that the primary difference between regions is not the rate of growth in penetration but rather the delay in adoption. I marked this delay as 4 years between US/EU and Central & Eastern Europe. An additional one year delay to Asia Pacific region and 4 years more to Africa/Middle East adoption. [...] Although 2013 was often cited as the year when smartphones saturated (“everybody that wants one has one”), the total population of users will likely take another decade to reach maximum. The point of inflection in global growth could be expected in 2017. What most observers sensed was the point of inflection in growth in North America and Western Europe. Those regions are 11% of the world’s population."

Malthus Miffed ~ Cohen on Human Demography

NYTimes DotEarthling Andrew Revkin writes in his Tutorial on Humanity’s Path to and Beyond 7 Billion about "meshing human development and planetary limits" and spotlights Prof Joel Cohen's Malthus Miffed: Are People the Problem, the Solution, or Both?

Future of Humanity ~ Speculation & Forecasts

A few documentaries on Future of Humanity...

Transhuman ~ Docu on the Future of Humanity

Thanks to IEET for spotting Director Titus Nachbauer's documentary Transhuman which asks Do you want to live forever?

"It will become possible this century to upload your mind into a computer [thru] radical life extension and future technology that might change the human condition"

Don't Panic ~ BBC's The Truth About Population

Gapminder's Hans Rosling is to be featured Thursday 7 Nov 2013 in the BBC's Don’t Panic -- The Truth About Population...

"We face huge challenges in terms of food, resources and climate change but at the heart of Rosling’s statistical tour-de-force is the message that the world of tomorrow is a much better place than we might imagine. Professor Rosling reveals that the global challenge of rapid population growth, the so-called population explosion, has already been overcome. In just 50 years the average number of children born per woman has plummeted from 5 to just 2.5 and is still falling fast. This means that in a few generations’ time, world population growth will level off completely. And in what Rosling calls his ‘Great British Ignorance Survey’ he discovers that people’s perceptions of the world often seem decades out of date."

Here's mini-trailer/promo from BBC... And here's the main event!

Superstorm NYC ~ NatGeo iGrafic on Wet Future

NatGeo infographic spotlights lower Manhattan, NYC flooding from future Superstorm...

Earth 2050 ~ Shell Promo on Future of Energy...

Shell promo piece on Earth 2050 energy futures...

Plotting History ~ Longterm Human Trendlines...

Lisa Wade spotlights a History of American Energy Use... Arnulf Grüblera, Nebojša Nakićenovića, and David Victor plot the Dynamics of energy technologies and global change...

Thought For Food ~ Innovation Challenge 2013

Thought For Food launches their innovation challenge 2013 which...

"...calls on students from universities around the world to form teams and produce a robust project proposal -- consisting of a business plan and creative pitch -- that presents an unexpected and out-of-the-box solution to the global challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050."

2045 ~ Envisioning Development of Humanity...

Global Future 2045 initiative -- international social network for social innovation. Here's promo video for last year's congress and broader vision for future... And here's lead impressario Dmitry Itskov...

Troubled Waters ~ Future H2O Stress Worldmap

CSMonitor cover story Troubled Waters by William Wheeler asks Global water crisis: too little, too much, or lack of a plan?

"The global water crisis -- caused by drought, flood, and climate change -- is less about supply than it is about recognizing water's true value, using it efficiently, and planning for a different future, say experts. [...] Water is a part of everything we do: It feeds crops, powers cities, cools computer servers, and is key to the manufacturing of everything from clothes to cars. The billion more people expected on the planet by 2025 will increase water demand for all of those functions. And just to feed those people, water withdrawals for agriculture are expected to increase by about half. But it's not only about the additional mouths to feed; it's also the growth of new appetites. Much of the growth in demand will emerge from the swelling sprawl of bustling, slum-pocked metropolises across the developing world. For the first time in history, the share of the global population living in cities recently surpassed 50 percent -- on its way to 75 percent expected by 2050."

See here worldmap of today's and projected water stresses...

Megacities ~ Guardian Interactive Global Map

The Guardian spotlights growing Megacities via interactographic...

Urbanizing India ~ Economist Spots Trendscape

The Economist spotlights India's Urban Future...