For well-developed countries like the US, the future is IMO the production goods of very high quality, which justify higher costs and prices than the ones manufactured by cheap labor in less developed countries. Production of fewer but more efficient and long-lasting goods should theoretically lead to less consumption of natural ressources and energy as well.
The investments needed for this are in education and infrastructure; that's pretty much it. A highly educated workforce is most important. This is a pretty commonplace answer, but I think it's true.
Other systemic troubles such as the financial system and the imbalanced (mainly in the sense of false priorities) budget need to be fixed, or the economy will always be in some trouble regardless of anything else. I also think that unemployment will rise simply because fewer and fewer people can produce more and more goods, thanks to technical progress. In the long run, I think developed societes will have to find a way to accept and manage a lack of demand for human labor, e.g. by having people work fewer hours, and still ensure that they make enough money to be a happy consumer.
our infrastructure is old and failing. The cost of upgrading exceeds the cost of building it. On education, it appears to be a nightmare. As a teacher I have to stay on top of trends and they don't look good.
Schools are spending too much time on developing the whole child and making up for the lack of parental involvement instead of just educating. Test scores are falling rapidly and most teachers are beginning to question what the point is. Without a concerted effort to return to the basics, students will not be up to the task of supporting advanced manufacturing.
Don't waste your vote, vote Green or Independent in the next election.
They should. And while they're at it, they should take a cautionary lesson from Japan. Here, teaching knowledge instead of skill is the tradition -- not to mention the cause of widespread inability, barring attendance of "cram schools," which may as well replace traditional Japanese schools altogether.
(All Japanese study English for at least five years in school, yet less than 10% of those whose English studies are limited to those five years can hold their own in a casual conversation, or even introduce themselves without sounding like C3PO. This is because of the infuriating tendency of Japanese schools to teach material so that students pass the test...and then promptly forget everything. If a student's ultimate goal is passing a test, that's all he'll ever achieve.)
in Hanoi where I am. Parents want their kids to go to university and nobody wants to give them the bad news that their child isn't going to make it. However, their math skills blow away most American students simply because they spend so much time practicing.
I was the best student at French in my school and I could barely hold a conversation before I went to live in a French speaking country. If the students don't have a way to practice English daily then, yes it is just studying for the test. Here there is a 98% literacy rate on 1/50th of the US budget.
Go figure.
I don't think the study contains a lot of new revelations. Of course, oil reserves will at some point be depleted. But it will be a slow decline in oil supply and accordingly rising oil prices. This gives governments and industries some time to prepare and develope other sources of energy. Sure, there will be some, probably significant economic and geo-political impact, but I don't expect it to be entirely negative, as the study seems to suggest.
However, investing in other energy sources now would certainly be a good choice, as you'd rather produce the technology than buy it from elsewhere. Education is the basis of that as well, of course, as ignorant people are less likely to make the right choices, and even less likely to succeed.
If we can't do anything, why care about it?
Are you greeting your friends every day with the words: "You are going to die sooner or later!"?
"The first thing Fascists usually try to do is silencing the opposition."
If we don't do anything, yes. we already have the solution for energy, it's only a question of building enough windmills right now and research more advanced energy extraction at the same time. 20 percent of energy in my country is from sustainable green tech. right now. Why not just copy paste.
sweden has a goal of 49 percent green energy in 2030, this progress could be continued till approximate 100% in less than 60 years, at current rate.
But, accelerate it, raise taxes on companies that sells unnecessary products to pay for it the investment.
