Vol. 1, No. 4 | December
15, 2014 | AAI Foresight
Inside Foresight SIGNALS
> Peak Youth: Preparing Now for an Aging Planet
> Fish Forecasting: New Methods for Monitoring Marine
Life
> Book Note: The Rise and Fall of Intelligence
> Signals from the Foresight Community
Peak Youth: Preparing Now for an Aging Planet
The majority of countries around the world are graying, due
to the so-called demographic dividend: Improved educational attainment and
economic empowerment are lowering birthrates, and individuals are living
longer, healthier lives.
As a result, we may soon reach “peak youth,” wherein the
number and proportion of young people in the world are as high as they will
ever be. Without investment in their futures, these young people could be
burdens to society rather than assets, warns a new report from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
There are currently 1.8 billion humans ages 10 to 24, but
those numbers are expected to drop as more countries benefit from the
demographic dividend. Only six countries, five of which are in sub-Saharan
Africa, are “youthening” rather than aging, but even these countries are
expected to reverse the trend by 2020.
For societies to benefit from the demographic dividend,
young people need opportunities to thrive; this means not just creating jobs
for them, but also improving education and health, especially for girls, the
report urges.
The time to make these investments in youth is now, UNFPA
report editor Richard Kollodge told
IRIN News: “Eventually a very young population will become a very old
population, and you have to plan for that too. Unless steps are taken right
now, then the opportunity for a demographic dividend will be squandered.”
Sources: IRIN
News; State of World Population 2014
(UNFPA).
Signals: aging, birthrates,
development, education, health, population, youth
Fish Forecasting: New Methods for Monitoring Marine Life
The cold waters off Peru and Chile are richly productive,
yielding between 5% and 10% of the world’s fish. Researchers are now learning
more about why this ecosystem, known as the Humboldt Current, is so productive,
aiming to predict the impacts of environmental disturbances on these waters’
productivity.
Life in the Humboldt Current is nourished by the constant
upwelling of more nutrient-rich waters from the deep, according to researchers
from the Institute of Research for
Development (IRD) in France. Using high-resolution sensors, they have
modeled the circulation of oxygen content in these churning waters, monitoring
how variations in the intensity of seasonal, low-oxygen currents from the
equator affect the Humboldt’s ecosystem.
With additional modeling work, these studies will help
improve forecasts of the health of important fish resources, particularly
anchovy stocks.
Bioluminescence—the flashes of light generated by tiny
marine organisms such as dinoflagellates—offers another unique tool for
monitoring fish stocks, believes Dr.
Charlotte Marcinko of Britain’s National Oceanography Centre. When fish
move through the seas, the churning water disturbs the dinoflagellates and
triggers the chemical reactions producing the telltale glow.
Modeling changes in the seasonal abundance of the
bioluminescent organisms may better inform researchers monitoring the size and
movements of fish populations.
Signals: ecosystems,
fish, models, oceans, resources
Book Note: The Rise and Fall of Intelligence
Defense Department historian Michael Warner’s
timely book The Rise and Fall of Intelligence: An International Security
History (Georgetown University Press, 2014) offers an academic but
accessible overview of a topic naturally veiled in secrecy and cloaked in
misconceptions. The author eschews sensationalism, unlike the still-trending
reactions to reactions to the so-called #TortureReport recently released by the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence (Executive Summary: PDF).
In fact, the details and findings of the SSCI report ought
not to be a surprise, as the CIA inspector general’s own review of the “enhanced
interrogation program,” which occurred at about the same time that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke, was stomach-turning
(and policy-questioning) in its own right: “Not a few American officials
believed the legal rationale for those techniques could not be defended,”
Warner writes.
Historically, what Warner refers to as the rise of
intelligence is the long-term professionalizing of the endeavors of states … to
advance or protect their own interests—vital for preventing wars or winning
them efficiently. …
Now, the Information Revolution has generated vastly more
intelligence and more entities anxious to use or abuse it, while overwhelming
analysts. “The digital revolution compounded the [analysis] problem many times
over,” Warner writes. Today, we are seeing the fall of intelligence and perhaps
the end of secrets.
Signals: governance, information, intelligence, security, torture,
war, world affairs
Signals from the Foresight Community
Association of Professional Futurists: Nominations for Most
Significant Futures Work for 2015 are open until January 31, 2015. The awards
recognize the work of foresight professionals and others engaged in advancing
our understanding of the future. The work may be text (e.g., books, dissertations,
reports) or digital (Web sites, games, videos, software), produced between 2010
and the end of 2014. Winners will be announced at the APF Annual Reception in
San Francisco on Saturday, July 25, 2015. Details:
APF (Signal via Andy Hines)
International Society for Information Studies:
Call for papers— "The Global
Brain and the Future Information Society," part of the IS4IS 2015 Summit Vienna
to be held at the Vienna University of Technology, June 3-7, 2015. Featuring keynote
speaker Francis Heylighen, director
of the Global Brain Institute, the track aims to cover the
multifaceted impacts of information technology on society. One-page abstracts
with links and references should be submitted by February 15, 2015, through the
conference
submission page. Details: IS4IS 2015 Summit Vienna
(Signal via Francis
Heylighen)
Club of Amsterdam: The
Future Now Show is a monthly video series exploring current affairs and the
visions they inspire, and sparking discussions for strategies to shape the
future. Recent webisodes have covered changing universities, political
transition in the Middle East and North Africa, 3-D printing and medicine,
climate change and food, and more. Tune
in: The
Future Now Show (Signal via Felix
Bopp)
Gordon Report: Despite an encouraging figure of 5.8% unemployment in the United States, all is
not well for either job seekers or employers, according to the December 2014
issue of Imperial Consulting Corporation’s
monthly
newsletter. The official unemployment figure does not include individuals
working part time but hoping for full-time jobs with benefits, nor those who
have become too discouraged to continue seeking work. Meanwhile, employers are
struggling to find workers with the high-level skills they need. This is a
problem that employers may need to address more aggressively themselves by
investing in training. Learn more or
subscribe: Gordon
Report (Signal via Edward
Gordon)
Send us your signals!
News about your work or other leads, tips, and ideas are welcome. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting
editor.
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our consulting editor, at CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com
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