What is the future of adolescence? Will it expand or shrink? Will it become a more profound rite of passage or less? If we go into an intentional future do we even want to give credence and validation to a developmental space between childhood and adulthood? Is there a more efficient passage way from childhood to adulthood than through an “adolescence”? Part of the answers will address the larger questions of what childhood and adulthood should be in the future.

Biomimicry is the design application of natural approaches to commercial puzzles. At Treehugger.com, you can learn more about how emulating nature creates breakthroughs that defy human imagination. Here are a few examples. They are just a few of the countless examples of how nature does what we’re trying to do, only with infinitely great effectiveness and efficiency. And most importantly, no plans, no blueprints, no manufacturing facilities or supplier chains.

The goal was to cut out the extremely loud claps that occurred when Japan’s bullet train emerged from tunnels. Engineers looked toward the kingfisher, which dives seamlessly into water. A nosecone designed after the bird’s beak solved the issue.

Pax Technologies took the calla lily’s shape as inspiration for a water mixer. The flower’s centripetal spirals assist with the ideal flow of liquid, which allows their design to mix more liquid with a fraction of the horse power usually required. Using nature’s perfected designs helps minimize energy requirements.

Mercedes-Benz looked towards the boxfish for their bionic car concept. Noting the aerodynamics and efficiency of the boxfish’s shape, the engineers decided to apply the characteristics of the fish to a car. The result is a very streamlined vehicle with a 65% lower drag coefficient than other compact cars out at the time (2005).

If you’ve ever tried to pick a mussel off a rock or pier piling, you’ve likely noticed that they sure know how to stick to something. Columbia Forest Products looked at the natural adhesive abilities of the blue mussel and came up with a way to use soy-based formaldehyde-free technology in the construction of hardwood plywood products.

While the exiting Shell CEO predicts 80% oil demand 30 years from now, actual innovators like Dow are teaming up with research universities to extract ethanol from algae farms that turn carbon dioxide into alternative fuels.

We need to keep propogating these stories in order to make innovation-resisters anachronistic. We need to stop wishing and hoping that the fossil energy gods will wake up to the possibilities of creating fuels that will ultimately drive demand higher than ever thought possible.

Government censorship continues in so many parts of the world; billions of people live in censor-oriented cultures. Never mind that censorship, through producing costly dramatics, never kept communism from imploding from people’s instrinsic and deep hunger for connection rather than isolation. When we stop trying to control people’s minds, people’s minds will naturally seek and express what is beautiful and true.

Sustainable fashion means you’ve been given the information of where the clothing comes from, who makes it and what it’s processed with to ensure the item is worthy of the eco-friendly message it’s sporting.

Green Living Online defines some of the more common fabric terms and their potential sustainability factors. We will and should see more fabric and all consumer products coming with the “stories” of their composition, origins, and socio-economic impacts. A planet of conscious consumers will shape conscious design, production, and distribution.

I’ve long quipped that the closest I ever got to seeing action in a uniform was Cub Scouts. We learned how to camp, but not why to camp. It was a rite of passage to an unknown that would escape even flashlights the size of car batteries.

What should we be preparing children for? If we assembled all the scout masters, stage directors, and sports coaches and asked them for what kind of future should we be preparing children, what would they come up with? We are in fact using the important real estate of “extra-curriculars” to prepare them for something, or nothing.

Maybe we should at least be intentional about it.

Robert Wright’s Evolution of God tracks the history of the divine from back in the day when “the Big Guy” sported multiple personas to modern monotheist times where He appears in no fewer versions, given the fact that there are 30,000 divine sects just within Christianity itself. God has gone through countless iterations, paralleling the evolution of human capacity for moral sensibilities and behaviors.

The whole business raises the question of the future of God as he appears in his “only one true form” in an endless evolution of religions and religious fusions that we can expect to see far into the future. Will people pray to the “God” of their team to ultimately beat the “God” of the other team (read: sports team, nation, religion)? Can we unambivalently declare that no future generation will allow our God to change? Will future generations faithfully protect the static integrity of God as He is dogmatized and theologized today?

If human beings continue on the moral trajectory of the past 3000 years and become a planet of moral beings, what could possibly be the God of that planet?

If the urban farming movement gets moving, it could implode the rural farming dynasty and collapse with it the embedded racism that has been endemic to American rural culture since the 1600’s.

Wouldn’t that be something?

Isn’t that reason enough to intersect agricultural innovation and social justice?

To all who strive to be unique, the universe loves you. To those who strive to be unique, the only ones who will love you are those who, also, strive to be unique. A future different from the past will thrive on those who strive on being unique.

Today I completed the copy for my 8th book, “The Stories that Connect Us” due to be released late July. It was a profound learning experience for me, giving me the perspective of how, in fact, we are our stories. When we get that, we invite each other into new possibility spaces and those who enter, will create a future different from the past.

When we get that, our connections will be rooted in our narratives. We will treat each other as sources of meaning, which is what narrative is, rather than tools for our own purposes. It is a perspective that will transform communities and put in our hands the freedom to love.