The optimist's telescope : thinking ahead in a reckless age

Title:

Author:

Venkataraman, Bina, author.

Personal Author:

Venkataraman, Bina, author.

ISBN:

9780735219472

Physical Description:

xvi, 318 pages ; 24 cm

Contents:

Introduction: The trouble with the future -- Part 1. The individual and the family. Ghosts of the past and future ; Dashboard driving ; Beyond the here and now -- Part 2. Businesses and organizations. The quick fix ; A bird's eye view ; The glitter bomb -- Part 3. Communities and society. Hell or high water ; The games we play ; The living crowd -- Coda: Hope for a reckless age.

Abstract:

A former journalist and senior adviser in the Obama administration draws from her own experience, the stories she has reported from around the world, and research in biology, psychology, economics, archaeology, and beyond to identify the best ways to make decisions that benefit people over time.

Instant gratification is the norm today; it's easy to avoid thinking ahead. But the consequences of this immediacy are stark: Superbugs spawned by the overuse of antibiotics endanger our health. Companies that fail to invest stagnate and fall behind. Hurricanes and wildfires turn deadly for communities that could have taken more precaution. Venkataraman helped communities and businesses prepare for climate change, and she learned firsthand why people dońt think ahead-- and what can be done to change that. Her book is brimming with the ideas and insights all of us need in order to forge a better future. -- adapted from jacket

Subject Term:

Decision making -- Social aspects.

Forecasting.

Risk -- Sociological aspects.

Genre:

Self-help publications.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... North Avenue	Book	153.83 V461	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	153.83 V461	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

We live in a time of instant gratification, where we have forgotten to consider the long-term consequences of our actions. Whether it's decision about out health, our finances or our jobs, we lack the tools we need to choose what's best for the future. In The Optimist's Telescope, journalist and advisor in the Obama administration Bina Venkataraman draws on her own experience to highlight the surprising and successful practices that each of us can adopt to make smarter, more thoughtful choices that benefit us over time.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A former Obama administration senior climate policy adviser urges that we adjust our sights to take in a longer view."A good forecast, it turns out, is not the same as good foresight," writes Venkataraman (Science, Technology, and Society/MIT), who observes that modern humans do not often take the time to look at the ramifications of the decisions we make outside of their immediate effects. So it is that corporations look to the next quarter and not the next century and retirement catches so many people financially unprepared. And so it is, in a pointed lesson that the author offers early on, that we continue to build our homes and cities in hurricane- and flood-prone areas without adequately preparing for the eventuality, underinsured and underprotected. "The choices we make today shape tomorrow's so-called natural disasters," adding that it might drive the point home better if weather forecasters would include images of the effects of past disasters when they're predicting a storm. It's understandable that we have a bias for the present, or what the film director Wim Wenders calls the "monopoly of the visible," but our failure to examine the implications of our actions is having all kinds of effects. One is the near collapse of our fisheries, which is one of Venkataraman's case studies, and the persistent eruptions of the Ebola virus, which the author considers a prime example of what historian Barbara Tuchman called "marches of folly," on a par with the Trojan horse and the American misadventure in Vietnam: "Societies and leaders of each era knew better but acted as if ignorant." Habitat destruction, extinction, continuing climate change leading to an uninhabitable Earthsuch are the results of the short term. To counter our patterns of thinking and doing, the author closes with prescriptions including such things as finding "immediate rewards for future goals" and weaning ourselves from the desire for instant gratification in favor of "fighting for greater foresight in society."A timely reminder that time is not on our side without long-term thinking. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.