Saving the Polar Ice Caps

Okay I admit that on the first take this idea might sound a little crazy. I reminded myself however of that saying that ‘all great ideas must at first sound crazy to the existing paradigm…’ or some such thing. You might know who said it (please send me an email if you do). So I am throwing this idea out as one that might need you to stop your knee from giving a habitual ‘jerk’ thus preventing you from immediately proclaiming to all and sundry ‘Ridiculous!’.

‘Let’s cover the polar caps in a massive white reflective blanket!’

Yes you read right. The good oil on the bad outcome is that the polar caps are melting, that as they do so less heat will be reflected and more will be absorbed into the now (exposed) darker areas of the artic land mass, thus accelerating the problem.

So let’s cover the polar ice caps (the Arctic in particular). Lord knows for the sake of ‘art’ the entire white cliffs of Dover were covered in a material shroud. Lord knows that the average advertising panel n a giant Billboard promoting perfume, cars, weightloss and fast food is big enough to cover a netball court and we thrown thousands of those into the tip every year. So why can’t we just cover the most exposed areas in a solar blanket to reflect sunlight, keep the ground cover white and hopefully delay or avert the melting?

Yes, yes I know it’s a big ask requiring lots of effort and more consideration of potential adverse impacts. But surely those potential impacts would be less adverse than the ones coming when the caps melt?

Australia’s 2013 Election – LNP in a Landslide

Sep 6, 2013

Or is it? …Over the past six years, the mainstream media polls have consistently shown the Liberal Party /National Party Coalition as well ahead of the Australian Labor Party. Those polls turned out to be wrong last time around when Tony Abbott failed to get enough of the vote to defeat Julia Gillard. Or should…

Read More >

Looks like some Soaps kill off more than Germs!

Aug 19, 2013

In my view ALL futures thinking about ‘big issues’ starts with futures thinking about personal issues. The idea that we take for granted the way our lives operate has for millennia been shown to be a high risk assumption. From the food we eat, to where we live, to products we use (and how we…

Read More >

For a Futurist, Focus is a Key Issue

Aug 16, 2013

What you look at, how you look at it and where you find your information are critical elements for developing far more effective strategy.  Futures work is about removing the organisational blinkers to increase awareness of risks and emerging opportunities often through Environmental Scanning (ES).  ES comes in all sorts of guises and the key…

Read More >

Innovation has to start somewhere, but where?

Aug 5, 2013

How do you innovate? Where do you innovate? Why do you innovate? How do I start innovating? These and a truckload of other similar questions are often tied to the idea that innovation is the silver bullet or panacea to mediocrity in organisations. And maybe it is. There’s a whole raft of ways in which…

Read More >

Preparing for the Upswing & a Change in Direction

Jul 20, 2013

From an organisational perspective it is pretty common for senior managers to spend significant energy considering when to upgrade plant and equipment, be it machinery, vehicles or IT infrastructure. The upgrades can occur on the run (in response to a surge in demand for instance), as a result of necessity (say as a result of…

Read More >

Why your Race for Talent should be a ‘Slow’ one

Jul 7, 2013

If you’ve seen me speak before you already know I take a provocative stance when it comes to areas like personnel development, training and recruitment. Clients also know that once we’ve opened the door to thinking differently, they’re guided through some significant ‘of course’ moments in terms of how they approach developing their people and…

Read More >

Has The Age Editor called for the wrong resignation

Jun 23, 2013

I flag from the outset that I haven’t been a regular readers of newspapers for almost a decade, only slightly less than my giving up on mainstream TV News shows. As such you should take this with a grain of salt, coming as it does from someone who reads maybe a paper a week and…

Read More >

Renewable Energy Technology faces same challenges as new carbon tech – fact or fallacy claims

Jun 16, 2013

In the search for fuels and energy sources that act as a replacement to Oil, there’s much hype and claims that need to be tested. In much the same as claims about carbon capture technology being built onto existing coal fired power stations seem to lack both viability and credibility (in my view), the same…

Read More >

A Counter to Doomsayers of Manufacturing in Australia

Jun 3, 2013

Every day people in positions of ‘opinion authority’ make choices about what ‘opinions’ they will offer on a whole array of subjects. And it would be fair to say that over the past five years or so, many of those ‘opinion authorities’ have been significantly negative on Australia’s manufacturing sector. There’s no doubt that the…

Read More >

Emerging Consumers: Fact or Fiction?

May 29, 2013

As a futurist spending much of my time assessing emerging developments and their implications across an array of industry sectors, I am frequently asked for a view on ‘consumer trends’. Common questions are ‘what will consumers want in the future?’ ‘Does our product (service) have a place?’ ‘What is driving consumer behaviour?’ ‘How can we…

Read More >