Blog

Is literacy in danger because of technology? Will students stop reading and writing all together because they spend lots of time on the computer? I have talked to some parents who legitimately worry about their children slipping away from...
POSTED Friday, December 18, 2009

We left the UN with a sense of wonder at the realization that we had been part of something truly special. We left with the idea that maybe we could do something to start changing the world. But we...
POSTED Thursday, October 8, 2009

We, all of us, have the responsibility to buy the extra time, which will maybe ensure our survival as a civilization. And I have been wondering what we can do about it. The human species with its genius and...
POSTED Thursday, October 1, 2009

At the World Science Festival in June, Mary McDonnell said, with visible emotion, “I no longer suffer from the illusion that we have a lot of time. On a spiritual and political plane, I’d like to be of better...
POSTED Thursday, September 24, 2009

If you know about the TED conference, it won’t surprise you that I’ve been a big fan for a long time. For more than 20 years, the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference has sparked our imaginations with “ideas worth sharing” by...
POSTED Tuesday, February 3, 2009

What happens when one size fits all becomes one size fits none? If you’re trying on a pair of stretch pants, it’s an awkward sartorial moment. When you’re talking about the education of our children, however, it’s a disaster...
POSTED Monday, October 20, 2008

In his marvelous book “Better,” Atul Gawande tells the tale of obstetric forceps. Invented in the 17th century to help stuck babies get unstuck during labor, they promised to be a valuable addition to the medical toolkit — so...
POSTED Monday, October 6, 2008

The young folks entering kindergarten these past few weeks are a fascinating group. Born at the dawn of the twenty-first century, they will retire — if they retire at all — in 2073. Many could live into the twenty-second...
POSTED Wednesday, October 1, 2008

If you want to save the world, you have only so much money, time and attention. So the question is - what effort should you throw yourself into that provides the biggest bang for the buck? The Copenhagen Consensus...
POSTED Monday, September 29, 2008

One of the most important ways to work for a better future is to improve communications between and among people. With all the instant media available today, we could foresee a future in which we can reach out to...
POSTED Monday, September 15, 2008

On the first day of February 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson had a phone conversation with Senator Eugene McCarthy in which he hoped to tone down McCarthy’s criticism of America’s escalating military involvement in Vietnam. Johnson, clearly frustrated by...
POSTED Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Well, hello there! Smile. Good timing. Yes, I have had lots of thoughts out here, most fantastical with occasional but incomplete reality testing. There is a great deal of buzz these days over things combining, converging and emerging, and...
POSTED Monday, September 1, 2008

The grand myth of environmentalism is that it’s all about saving the Earth. It’s not. The Earth will be just fine. Environmentalism is all about saving ourselves. That may seem a bit counter-intuitive; after all, the Earth is certainly...
POSTED Monday, August 18, 2008

Science has always mattered to those of us old enough to realize how much society has achieved in a relatively short amount of time. The question becomes: are we creating a culture to ensure that the hearts and minds...
POSTED Monday, August 4, 2008

I wrote the following as part of an oped directed at the media industry. My profound belief is that we need to give people sense of vision and possibility. They no longer can imagine what a better future might...
POSTED Monday, July 28, 2008

Recently, MIT announced the launch of an interdisciplinary, faculty-led study of the future of solar energy. The study will focus on four key solar technologies: photovoltaics, solar heating and cooling, solar thermal power, and production of fuels from the...
POSTED Monday, July 28, 2008

On a recent trip to hunt up something for dinner, I popped into a food store that recently opened in my neighborhood. It's one of those new mega markets, about the size of an airplane hangar, that's designed to...
POSTED Monday, July 28, 2008

The current system of education in the U.S. and most of the industrialized countries revolves around a factory mentality that was designed to serve the industrial era. Just as the assembly line worked for producing goods, it was thought...
POSTED Monday, July 28, 2008