Jorgen Randers Last Night

Influential futurist Jorgen Randers, author of 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (2012), spoke last night to a packed Lecture Center audience of approximately 400.

Audience members remarked on the sharp contrast between Randers' sunny disposition and the terrifying implications of his data.

For more on Randers, go to http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/randers_jorgen13.html.

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Jorgen Randers in New Film

Jorgen Randers, who visits UAlbany tonight, stars in a new documentary about the impending collapse of the Earth's ability to sustain human life, The Last Call.

View a trailer of the film:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzUKVqD-xKs

Visit the film's website:  http://www.lastcallthefilm.org/en/synopsis

Find out more about Randers' visit today to UAlbany:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/randers_jorgen13.html

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Will Humanity Survive? Maybe Not.

Jorgen Randers, who visits Albany today, raises questions about humankind's near-term prospects. His report was delivered to the influential global thinktank, The Club of Rome.

The following is a summary of the report, which appears on The Club of Rome's website:

New Report issues warning about humanity’s ability to survive without major change

(Rotterdam, the Netherlands): 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years, by Jorgen Randers, launched by the Club of Rome on May 7, raises the possibility that humankind might not survive on the planet if it continues on its path of over-consumption and short-termism.

In the Report author Jorgen Randers raises essential questions: How many people will the planet be able to support? Will the belief in endless growth crumble? Will runaway climate change take hold? Where will quality of life improve, and where will it decline? Using painstaking research, and drawing on contributions from more than 30 thinkers in the field, he concludes that....

Read more:  http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=4211

More about Rander's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/randers_jorgen13.html

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Jorgen Randers In the Times Union

Jorgen Randers, who visits today, Wednesday, Feb. 8th, is interviewed by Elizabeth Floyd Mair in the Times Union:

Global thinking, global warning

Norwegian environmental scientist sees a bleak future unfolding if nations do not change course

   Jorgen Randers has spent much of his adult life worrying about the future. Not his own, but that of the planet.The environmental scientist co-authored the classic "The Limits to Growth" in 1972, which examined humanity's overuse of the Earth's finite natural resources and discussed a variety of scenarios that could result over the next four decades.
   Fast-forward 40 years to 2012, when Randers issued a new book, "2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years." In it, Randers, displaying a curious mix of passion and resignation, takes a hard look at what he believes the future is likely to be.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Global-thinking-and-global-warning-4240722.php#ixzz2K8DsSRYM
More on Randers' visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/randers_jorgen13.html

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"Global Warming's Terrifying New Math"

The most talked-about piece on global warming this year was written by Bill McKibben, Glens Falls native and Vermont resident who participated in the Writers Institute's "Telling the Truth" symposium back in 1991.

From this week's Rolling Stone:

"If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe."

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Predicting the Weather in 2012

Physicist and media personality Michio Kaku, introduced as "one of the greatest minds of our time" in this January 3, 2012 CNN broadcast, gives his weather predictions for 2012.

Among them: An increasing likelihood of strange weather, including freak snowstorms, droughts and tornadoes, not to mention solar flares that knock out the Internet.

And here's an explanation of the reasons why global warming produces freak snowstorms that Kaku contributed to CNN last January.

Kaku visits the Writers Institute on Tuesday, February 21st in the Campus Center Ballroom to talk about his new book Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100.

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