High speed trains must, and will become an essential component of the U.S. transportation system during the next 20 years. This seems to be obvious, but is something that the (lack of) leadership in Washington D.C. has yet to seriously consider. A combination of lack of vision, deeply entrenched vested interests, a troubled Amtrak system and a ‘not invented here’ mindset has combined to allow the U.S. to be woefully behind the curve when it comes to both rail transport and an intelligent, integrated national transportation system.

Flying has become an extremely unpleasant and unreliable travel experience. In addition …

This is the second year for Evolution Shift to present you with a general forecast and somewhat more specific predictions for 2008.  The forecast for 2007 is here for those wanting to check out the accuracy of what was predicted for last year.  In addition I made some transitional 2007/2008 predictions last week, tying up the year end. 

We are now leaving the Information Age and entering the Shift Age.  The transition between these two ages began in 2006, gathered speed last year and will be even more fully felt in 2008 and 2009 when it will generally be …

The price of oil topped $100 on January 2 and again on January 3.  During these past two days I have received emails and phone calls from regular readers, complimenting me on my correct prediction. As I wrote here more than two months ago, the price of oil would not only cross the $100 price barrier, but would trade in the $80-125 range for the next year.  

A year ago, on the syndicated program “First Business”, when oil was trading in the $50-55 range, I predicted that oil would go over $80 during 2007, which, at the time was …

 Last week Google announced that the company, and its philanthropic subsidiary, Google.org, would explore research and develop renewable energy.  The goal is to ultimately produce one gigawatt of renewable energy and do so more cheaply that coal-generated electricity, which of course creates vast amounts of CO2.  I was thrilled to read the news reports of this announcement.

As someone who thinks about the future, converting global society to alternative and renewable types of energy and away from fossil fuels is perhaps the top challenge humanity …