FutureScapes is a recent collaboration of Forum for the Future, a leading UK sustainability charity, and Sony. Their late 2011 report is available as a free download, but is work in progress, with public and organisations invited to join in its future evolution.
This work is not a prediction, but it is an interesting set of speculations, and they are built from four Climate Futures scenarios, helped by experts from academia and think tanks, as well as Forum and Sony.
One of the advocates of voluntary simplicity
Most people I talk to, even the alert ones, are in denial or despair about the future. I’ve been terrified, but I’m starting to feel hopeful. Many of the threats could be blessings: all it needs is a rapid, radical, miraculous shift of attitude by most people…
The future I’m on about is the medium term: the 2020s and decades beyond. Try to read this without denial or despair. The challenges include: peak oil, climate change, crop failures, debt crises, economic contraction and lots more. The potential blessing is a move to a more local, more sociable, less materialistic way of life.
Here are two more inspiring ‘Giving Back’ ideas plus some joined-up thinking for Christmas:
1.) lendwithcare.org and micro-finance
Think things are tough here? Try living in Bosnia! You may think of it as a small war-torn country somewhere in a far-off place called the Balkans, but in fact by air it is only two half hours away. You also might think that some of the benefits of being in central Europe close to Germany might have trickled down to Bosnia in the last ten years. Far from it! The unemployment level there is 40%, and in one of those crazy contradictions of normality the state levies an effective 70% jobs tax on employers. ITV News Presenter Alastair Stewart writes on his blog last week of the shock of his recent vist there and finding communities “where they’ve virtually got nothing”.
Alastair Stewart was travelling to Bosnia with Care International in order to promote micro-finance project run by this charity called lendwithcare.org. Small loans make big differences, and on the lendwithcare.org website you can find out how:
Micro-finance projects (say £800 to help a Srebrenica small-holder buy animals and plant crops) amalgamate our loans, and are carefully administered by the charity. In the vast majority of cases the loans are paid back in full and on time. As Alastair Stewart writes, “That’s pretty moving economics”.
2.) Less Stuff, More Happiness
‘Less is More’ – could it be true for older men? Could having less things to worry about and needlessly occupy us as we get older, be a recipe for developing some wisdom and contentment?
Here is a recent inspiring talk by a younger man arguing the universal and personal benefits of having less stuff (leading to less personal debt/ less C02 / less stress).
So how about putting these two bright ideas together this Christmas and see if they make us feel happier:
Personally, I am feeling hopeful – the feedback from people on the lendwithcare.org website suggests THEY are genuinely feeling happier!
How to navigate the web for good health information and advice?
Whether it is searching for information on a serious illness, healthy lifestyle advice, or simply to find out more about a specific symptom, the web is a wonderful source of reliable and trustworthy information. It is also a place where fools, sirens and charlatans peddle fictitious medical cures and dangerous health advice. This can make the shipwreck experience of an illness much worse, cost us a lot of wasted time and money, and can even seriously damage our health!
My strong advice is always to use a health Gateway Site* as our first port of call. A good Gateway Site will often have all the answers to our questions in one place. Rather than putting the symptom or illness name into our Google search, always go to a health Gateway first.
(* Gateway Sites (or Internet Gateways) are freely available web-sites that provide links to online resources which have been selected and evaluated by specialists and are designed to provide information in a form which we can all understand.)
However, be warned, not all Gateways are the same! Some are NOT trustworthy. Others are badly designed and impenetrable. In order to have confidence the information is accessable, reliable and trustworthy, the best health Gateways are kitemarked:
Health on the Net Foundation provides this HON Code Certification. Always look for this sign on any health Gateway home page!
Which are the best health Gateway sites?
In the UK the National Health Service provides an enormous amount of very good quality amount online information sources. However, the oceans of NHS information are so vast it is not always easy to find what one is looking for. Here are some helpful pointers:
NHS Choices : information on over 800 conditions including many serious illnesses.
NHS Direct : health advice dealing mainly with everyday symptoms.
NHS Live Well : for healthy lifestyle information and advice (very high quality and research based).
If we want to find all the above in one place, my recommended first choice is Patient.co.uk . This site does everything a really good health Gateway site should; the advice is trustworthy and reliable, and it is easy to find and understand the information being provided.
Another high quality ‘Gateway Sites’ is the US Government’s Healthfinder , which provides access to health information from a range of reliable sources and has links to other online databases. For a complete list of all the health information databases which are available worldwide, including non-English sites, go to OMNI ; the ‘Organising Medical Networked Information’ research project based at the University of Nottingham lists them all! Sadly this research project has recently lost its funding so it will not now be being updated, but the existing online information should remain helpful for some time.
You need look no further – Happy Searching!
(image created by jscreationzs)
