Nobelity - A Video Essay

Futures, 2014

A vibrant, interactive, and rapidly advancing global society needs an adequate, low cost, predictable and diverse supply of energy; a stable climate; and an international market for energy that mediates across countries, regions, and energy carriers. The science discoveries needed to achieve these energy and societal outcomes are analyzed.

MRS Bulletin, 2020

The South Atlantic Quarterly , 2021

Transforming knowledge systems for life on Earth: Visions of future systems and how to get there, 2020

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent.

South African Journal of Higher Education, 2017

South Africa faces the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality, as well as looming problems regarding water, energy and food. Science, technology and engineering are able to address some of these challenges but are often inaccessible and unfamiliar to the general public. Research and innovation in these fields needs to be increased, and undertaken in partnership with multidisciplinary stakeholders. This article uses the example of an engineering education initiative, the African Solar Drive, to illustrate how this may be achieved. It discusses recent developments in the philosophy of science that have emphasised responsibility in research and development, the similarities of these with action research methodologies and the relevance of these for the concerns South Africa faces at the moment. It presents a general methodology for science-society engagement and locates the African Solar Drive as a prelude to such engagement between higher education and the general public.

2004

The Future of Science and Technology " Science is what the universe says to itself when the universe gets old enough to speak. " Robert Artigiani I will begin the chapter by considering the dreams and fears associated with science and technology. Will advances in technology benefit humanity or will technological developments harm or even destroy humanity? In this chapter I will also continue the history of science begun in Chapter one, tracing the development of science up to contemporary times, and speculating on where science may be headed in the future. I will consider the various effects, past, present, and potentially into the future, of the scientific perspective on the human mind and human society. Finally, I will examine the general theme of the technological restructuring and infusing of nature and human society, highlighting as starting points, energy, resources, transportation, nanotechnology, and mega-technological projects. This chapter explores theoretical sc...

Birkhäuser, Vienna and Basel, 2017

by Ludger Hovestadt, Vera Buhlmann, Sebastian Michael Imagine a world where the power is always on, where there is not just enough energy, but an abundance of it. Such a world is no Utopia, it is a possible reality. Using indefinitely available sources of energy – especially photovoltaic solar, in combination with others – and networking this energy, much in the way that we have networked information, we can get beyond our current energy ‘crisis’ and resolve it. The world we then find ourselves in is not a world without problems – we will face new challenges on the way – but in terms of energy it is a world of plenty. Rooted in sound theory and based on technology that is available now, A Genius Planet offers an accessible but detailed and insightful perspective on how we can free ourselves from our dependency on natural resources and generate, trade, and use energy in ways that open up the genuine potential that we have at our disposal today. FROM THE FOREWORD: "This book has a simple and optimistic message: energy isn’t a resource, energy is clean, and energy isn’t scarce, in fact the opposite, it is abundant! Because now, with information technology, energy has become what we might call an ‘intellectual wealth’ that can be captured, stored, distributed – ‘cycled’, so to speak – by electronic coding. And as there are no limits in principle to how much ‘energy cycling’ is possible, energy itself loses the limitations we’re used to associate with it. It is not, at first, entirely obvious or perhaps intuitive to think of energy as an ‘intellectual wealth’ that can be ‘cycled’, and so the book explains in detail how and why this is so, and it makes a compelling case for embracing this extremely relevant reality: we have more than enough energy. For the foreseeable future, and beyond. We can relax. "

Imagining, forecasting and predicting the future is an inextricable and increasingly important part of the present. States, organizations and individuals almost continuously have to make decisions about future actions, financial investments or technological innovation, without much knowledge of what will exactly happen in the future. Science and technology play a crucial role in this collective attempt to make sense of the future. Technological developments such as nanotechnology, robotics or solar energy largely shape how we dream and think about the future, while economic forecasts, gene tests or climate change projections help us to make images of what may possibly occur in the future. This book provides one of the first interdisciplinary assessments of how scientific and technological imaginations matter in the formation of human, ecological and societal futures. Rooted in different disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, and science and technology studies, it explores how various actors such as scientists, companies or states imagine the future to be and act upon that imagination. Bringing together case studies from different regions around the globe, including the electrification of German car infrastructure, or genetically modified crops in India, Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society shows how science and technology create novel forms of imagination, thereby opening horizons toward alternative futures. By developing central aspects of the current debate on how scientific imagination and future-making interact, this timely volume provides a fresh look at the complex interrelationships between science, technology and society.

South Africa is at a threshold. In order to understand the ramifications of this simple fact, one needs to unpack the drivers at work. I intend to do this by joining dots – the stock in trade of the strategic planner and analyst – in an attempt to answer the key question we should all be asking: can we solve tomorrow's problems using yesterday's experiences and today's science? I believe we cannot do this, and that is the essence of my lecture here today. What do I mean by this? Surely, I hear you all ask, we have always solved tomorrow's problems using yesterday's experiences and today's science? Is science, engineering and technology not cumulative? To this I answer simply, yes; but then I immediately caveat that by saying we could do so in the past, simply because we had not yet crossed the threshold I mentioned in my opening sentence. So the real answer is yes, we could do that in the past; but no, we cannot continue to assume that we can do that in the future, with a high assurance of success.