My work is about ensuring humanity and Earth life a thriving long-term future.

My research focuses on answering some very big questions:

What are the big threats to humanity, to Earth’s biosphere, and to a long-term flourishing future? What problems must humanity solve, and what catastrophes must we avoid, to achieve a future we want?

What are the big opportunities for humanity and our future? What is already possible now is far more than most people imagine. The wonders possible in the near future will be even more amazing… if we bother to create them.

What are viable solutions to humanity’s and Earth’s big threats and problems?

• What are workable ways forward?
• How can humanity prevent, avoid, minimize, or mitigate problems and catastrophes?
• What solutions are and are not likely to work long-term? In many cases the knowledge and technology humanity needs to address a big problem doesn’t exist yet. However, we can start to narrow the search now by ruling out options that clearly won’t work long-term. We can also point our research and technology development at solutions likely to produce better outcomes.

 

What long-term futures are worth working toward?

• A lot of futures that might seem favorable are likely to have disastrous failure modes.
• Solving immediate problems without a very-long-term plan is not likely to build a future we want. Previous civilizations problem-fixed themselves into collapse.
• Humanity needs wise solutions. Humans have a long history of causing long-term disasters by how we “solve” our short-term problems. Our recent technological advances have created undreamed-of wealth, but also created new threats such as ozone depletion, bioweapons, and nuclear armageddon.

 

As a species, humanity is near the beginning of our long adventure. We need to choose wisely.

Good news #1: There ARE solutions to many of humanity’s biggest problems

Some of these solutions already exist but are not yet well-known.

Some were created in my lifetime. Some were created in yours (even if you are very young).

Good news #2: More great solutions are being created and deployed all the time

I’ll detail a few in future posts.

The myth of big science means that most people think it takes advanced degrees, zillions of research dollars, and years to decades to make big innovations. Actually, I’ve done significant innovation in 3 fields so far, and outside from some highly technical areas, it’s not that hard!

Humanity has barely begun to explore what is possible for us now, never mind what we’ll be capable of in a few years, decades, or centuries.

Good news #3: Great people are working on this

When I started this work in 1974, no one I knew of was working on these questions with a truly long-term focus.

“Long-term sustainability” meant 300 years — when humans have had agriculture for 10,000 years, cities for even longer, and existed for over 250,000 years.

Today, a few people and institutions are beginning to think seriously about the long-term future. They’re figuring out how to solve the world’s big problems and make possible futures so good we haven’t even imagined them yet.

I’ll discuss some these pioneers in future posts.

 

Next (coming soon): Humanity needs a mission