Halbert in Hawaii

We are extremely pleased to announce that Dr. Deborah Halbert will be joining the Faculty of the UH Department of Political Science. The position itself, contributing to futures studies and public policy, is a tremendous boost to our program and the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. Having a scholar of Debbie's caliber elevates us even further. Her work on the politics of intellectual property law is first rate [see: Halbert CV], and is an area of prime importance for our collective ability to imagine and express alternative futures, and to create preferred futures.

The process to bring in a new futures faculty, though slow and difficult at times, has paid off in a fine result. We look forward to welcoming Debbie back to Hawaii this Fall and for great things to come.

Labels: academia, faculty, halbert

Like a setting Sun

Star-Bulletin politics reporter Richard Borreca laments the lack of vision and action among Hawaii's elected and non-elected leaders in a Sunday editorial.
Borreca's arguments are built on those made by our own Jim Dator, and are in-line with the noises the HRCFS has been making for some time.

Says Borreca:

For isolated economies, the first sign that you have flamed out might be that the planes stop flying to your airport on a regular basis.

There is a tipping point to governing. At one point you can grab something before it goes down the tubes. But there is a moment when it is going to slip away no matter how hard you try to pull back.

As James Schlesinger, the first energy secretary, put it: "We have only two modes -- complacency and panic."

and

Three years ago Dator wrote that the Hawaii's actual state plan was "built on the assumption of an expanding global supply of oil."

"A shrinking global supply of oil might be harmful for Hawaii's economy, reducing tourist arrivals, deflating real estate values and resulting in significant economic contraction," Dator and Honolulu engineer Manfred Zapka warned.

...

Dator reports that "things have gotten worse while the state has basically played the fiddle."

When one of the nation's leading futurists is so decidedly gloomy about our own options, the state's leaders might want to start making decisions for real and not for show.

For real though.

Justice Futures

During the 01980s and early 90s, the HRCFS headed the Hawaii Judiciary Futures Research Project. The newsletter chronicling the project, Justice Horizons--Nou Hou Kanawai, has been posted at Metafuture, the website of Futurist and UH Alum, Sohail Inayatullah. We are looking forward to Sohail's return to Oahu for a short visit later this month.