'There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable." An unfortunate comment from 1932, no doubt from someone without expertise in the topic? In fact, the speaker was Albert Einstein.
Failed predictions like this should remind us of the limits of our knowledge. The world's complexities overwhelm the cognitive abilities of any one person. The future is inherently both uncomputable and unknowable.
Just the last five years have seen a once-in-a-century financial crisis; Japan's nuclear power disaster; deadly storms, droughts and wildfires in the United States and Australia; popular revolution in the Arab world; the shale oil and gas breakthrough; the emergence of 3D printing; and the spread of wireless connections between nine-tenths of humanity. That is why, in place of the common notion of "sustainability", we need a new concept. Sustainability is too static a word for our dynamic age - it misses the ability both to respond to crises and to seize opportunities. It looks back to a world in which humanity lived in balance with nature - a world that never existed.
Sometimes sustainability is taken to mean that economies should not grow, or that we should not use resources today but leave them for our descendants. But a truly sustainable economy and society are not fossils, frozen in time like Brezhnev's USSR from 1964 to 1982. They are creative and adaptable.
Some utopians in developed countries seek zero growth economies. In today's hyper-connected world, this demands that, like Japan during its 200-year Sakoku seclusion, they wall themselves off from fast-expanding and transforming societies in Latin America, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and east Asia.
The concept of sustainability is often applied narrowly, to the environment only or, even more specifically, to tackling human-caused climate change. Environmental sustainability, however, cannot be divorced from the fight against poverty, from efforts to ensure social justice and reasonable levels of equality, from open and inclusive political systems, from exploring scientific and cultural frontiers.
At least a billion of the world's people need not static sustainability, but transformation. Without modern energy, they walk to work over long distances, spend hours every day carrying water from kilometres away, cook with wood or dung in smoky homes, and have to stop work when the sun goes down.
"No plan survives contact with the enemy," as the great Prussian general, Helmuth von Moltke, observed. That is why a new concept is gaining popularity: "resilience", the capacity to survive shocks. Japan cleaned up the Fukushima reactor site and instituted a sweeping energy conservation programme. China injected massive financial stimulus to revive demand during the global economic meltdown.
If we speak of climate change, resilience is in direct contrast to the detailed but fragile plans of those who pin all their hopes on renewable energy, on nuclear power, on UN treaties, on reducing population or some other magic bullet.
Resilience, though, is often falsely equated with adaptation - that is, seeking to reduce the impact of a changing climate, for example with sea defences and drought-resistant crops. Adaptation is vital, but resilience definitely does not involve - as some deniers of the climate threat might wish - sweeping the problem under the carpet, then cleaning up later.
Resilience also has to acknowledge the ability to create and exploit positive situations - scientific discoveries, booming economies, progressive social movements. Command-and-control mandates and directives are very much second-best to nourishing open, intellectually curious societies. The aim is not to balance economic and environmental imperatives, but to make them the same thing.
As von Moltke put it, "Strategy is a system of expedients". To survive and flourish in the unpredictable future, we need a system, but we also need expedients.
Robin Mills is head of consulting at Manaar Energy, and author of The Myth of the Oil Crisis and Capturing Carbon
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
Results
2.15pm: Handicap Dh80,000 1,950m
Winner: Hello, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ali Rashid Al Raihi (trainer).
2.45pm: Handicap Dh90,000 1,800m
Winner: Right Flank, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
3.15pm: Handicap Dh115,000 1,000m
Winner: Leading Spirit, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar.
3.45pm: Jebel Ali Mile Group 3 Dh575,000 1,600m
Winner: Chiefdom, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer.
4.15pm: Handicap Dh105,000 1,400m
Winner: Ode To Autumn, Patrick Cosgrave, Satish Seemar.
4.45pm: Shadwell Farm Conditions Dh125,000 1,200m
Winner: Last Surprise, James Doyle, Simon Crisford.
5.15pm: Handicap Dh85,000 1,200m
Winner: Daltrey, Sandro Paiva, Ali Rashid Al Raihi.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
What's in the deal?
Agreement aims to boost trade by £25.5bn a year in the long run, compared with a total of £42.6bn in 2024
India will slash levies on medical devices, machinery, cosmetics, soft drinks and lamb.
India will also cut automotive tariffs to 10% under a quota from over 100% currently.
Indian employees in the UK will receive three years exemption from social security payments
India expects 99% of exports to benefit from zero duty, raising opportunities for textiles, marine products, footwear and jewellery
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
MATCH INFO
RB Leipzig 2 (Klostermann 24', Schick 68')
Hertha Berlin 2 (Grujic 9', Piatek 82' pen)
Man of the match Matheus Cunha (Hertha Berlin
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