As part of the research I do for my novels and short stories, and because I like to keep on top of trends, I maintain a list of books, research, websites, and other resources that help me think about the future. The list consists of books, articles, research papers, and websites about future tech, and science – including material about climate change.
Last updated: Nov 2023
If you have a suggestion to add to the list, please let me know. I’m always reading!
Books
Stuart Armstong, Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence
Jamie Bartlett, Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World
Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick, Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds
Nick Bostrum, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Peter Brannen, The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions
Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There
Ed Brooks & Pete Nicholas, Virtually Human
Grégoire Chamayou, Drone Theory
Edward Cornish, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future
Patrick Dixon, Futurewise: The Six Faces of Global Change
Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (Anchor Library of Science)
George Dyson, Darwin Among the Machines
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis” – Offers insights into actionable steps to combat climate change.
Kevin Fong, Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century
Martin Ford, “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future” – Looks at how robotics and AI will impact jobs and the economy.
George Friedman, The Next 100 Years
Jennifer Gidely, The Future: A Very Short Introduction
Jenniger Gidley, Postformal Education: A Philosophy for Complex Futures (Critical Studies of Education)
Jurgen Habermas, Future of Human Nature
Clive Hamilton, Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering
James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity and updated figures for the book here
Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature
N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics
Jeff Howe, Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future
Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency
Michio Kaku, Physics of the Future: The Inventions That Will Transform Our Lives
Michio Kaku, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind
Michio Kaku, Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos
Michio Kaku, Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension
Jonathon Keats, You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future
Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate
Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: A Frontline Report on Climate Change
Elizabeth Kolbert The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Intelligent Machines
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near
James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back and How We Can Still Save Humanity
James Lovelock, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning
Michael E. Mann, The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy
John Markoff, Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots
Paul Mason, PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future
Donella Meadows, The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By
H Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence
Mark Nelson, Pushing Our Limits
Dr Miguel A. Nicolelis, The Relativistic Brain: How it works and why it cannot be simulated by a Turing machine
Mark O’Connor, To Be a Machine
Steven Pinker, “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” – Provides a data-driven analysis of human progress and its future trajectory.
Clayton R. Rawlings, Pardon the Disruption: The Future You Never Saw Coming
Martin Rees, Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning
Joseph Romm, Climate Change (What Everyone Needs to Know)
John Searle, Minds, Brains, and Science
P W Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century
Murray Shanahan, The Technological Singularity (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series)
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work
Max Tegmark, “Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” – Explores the future of AI and its impact on the human condition.
Philip Tetlock, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
Alvin Toffler, Future Shock
Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave
Wendell Wallach, A Dangerous Master: How to Keep Technology from Slipping Beyond Our Control
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Second Edition: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
Norbert Wiener, The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
Alan Weisman, Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World
Alan Weisman, The World Without Us
Magazines, Journals, and Podcasts
Environmental Research Letters
Nature Climate Change (Nature Portfolio) – A dedicated journal for climate change research.
IEEE Spectrum – Special Reports on Future Technology – Covers the latest in engineering, computing, and technology innovations.
Organisations
Acceleration Studies Foundation
Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Association of Professional Futurists
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge
The Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia
Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
DeepMind (deepmind.com) – A leader in AI research and its application for positive impact.
The Foster Lab – multi-disciplinary studies of the climate of our past
University of Hawaii, Department of Political Science, Future Studies
Helix – HELIX is sixteen climate research organisations funded through the EU to work together to explore consequences and responses to the challenge of high-end global warming.
Human Brain Project Foresight Lab, King’s College, London
Imperial Tech Foresight, Imperial College London
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
International Panel on Climate Change
National Intelligence Council US Government mid and long term planning publishes global trends report, the one for 2030 is here
New Climate Economy: The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate
NOAA Climate.gov a source of timely and authoritative scientific data and information about climate.
Oxford Research Encyclopedias – climate science
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
US Environmental Protection Agency – snapshot of the old site – remarkably most of the valuable material taken down by the new US government.
World Future Studies Federation
Research
IPCC Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis
IPCC Projections of Future Changes in Climate
The Economists Intelligence Unit, ‘The Cost of Inaction: Recognising the Value at Risk from Climate Change’
Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous by J. Hansen, M. Sato, P. Hearty, R. Ruedy, M. Kelley, V. Masson-Delmotte, G. Russell, G. Tselioudis, J. Cao, E. Rignot, I. Velicogna, E. Kandiano, K. von Schuckmann, P. Kharecha, A. N. Legrande, M. Bauer, and K.-W. Lo
Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rises, Robert M DeConto and David Pollard, Nature
Accelerating Low-Carbon Development in the World’s Cities
Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level
The climate response to five trillion tons of carbon, , , and
Foresight Report On Future Medicine, Human Brain Project Foresight Lab, King’s College, London.
Foresight report on Future Neuroscience, Human Brain Project Foresight Lab, King’s College, London
Future Computing and Robotics: A Report from the HBP Foresight Lab, King’s College, London
Antarctica and climate change, British Antarctic Survey
Climate Change Unit Information Sheets
Climate Change Unit list of research and publications
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s report on Future Products of Biotechnology, and its shortcomings with respect to cellular agriculture
Introduction to the D-Wave Quantum Hardware
How We’re Predicting AI—or Failing To, Stuart Armstrong Future of Humanity Institute Kaj Sotala Machine Intelligence Research Institute
US National Climate Assessment Report
Future climate forcing potentially without precedent in the last 420 million years
Global Challenges Foundation Annual Report on Global Catastrophic Risks
World Health Organisation, Climate Change and Health
Impact of Climate Conditions on Occupational Health and Related Economic Losses
The Royal Society on the future of machine learning
Modeling the Macroeconomic Effects of a Universal Basic Income
High-End Climate Change Impacts in Europe
Less than 2 degrees C warming by 2100 unlikely, Nature
Committed warming inferred from observations, Nature
Parasite biodiversity faces extinction and redistribution in a changing climate
Climate Accountability Institute, Carbon Majors Database
An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress
Royal Society Publishing collection on climate science
Should coastal planners have concern over where land ice is melting?
Nicola Pugno is an Italian Professor who works at the Laboratory of Bio-Inspired & Graphene Nanomechanics – here’s his web page.
Climate updates: progress since the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC, The Royal Society
Climate Change Conspiracy Theories
A good life for all within planetary boundaries
Droughts, heat waves and floods: How to tell when climate change is to blame
Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
Declines in methane uptake in forest soils
Climate change: the human and economic outlook for Europeans
“Global Warming of 1.5 ºC” by IPCC – An IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways.
“The Next Generation of Climate Models” – Reports on advancements in climate modeling and predictions.
Articles
Earth’s climate entering new ‘permanent reality’ as CO2 hits new high
The world in 2065: what do social scientists think the future holds?
57 tube stations at high risk of flooding, says London Underground report
The Strange Deadly Effects Mars Would Have on Your Body
MIT 10 Breakthrough Technologies, 2017
How climate change will transform business and the environment
What would the world look like if all the ice melted? – National Geographic
This is how your world could end
How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human Caused
Are Habitable Exoplanets Possible?
Domino-effect of climate events could push Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state
Tools
ND-GAIN Country Index is a project of the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN), summarizes a country’s vulnerability to climate change and other global challenges in combination with its readiness to improve resilience.
Flood Maps – allows you to see the impact of sea level rise around the world using Google Maps
Surging Seas Mapping Choices is an interactive global online map that allows anyone to search for a global location and visually compare the local potential consequences of different emissions and warming scenarios
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming
How to respond to people who say global warming is a hoax
Sheshat Global History Databank brings together the most current and comprehensive body of knowledge about human history in one place. The Databank systematically collects what is currently known about the social and political organization of human societies and how civilizations have evolved over time.
The NASA Sea Level Change Data Analysis Tool (DAT)
Real Climate Climate model projections compared to observations
The Climate Reanalyzer – This interactive visualization is a suite of weather and climate datasets as well as tools with which to manipulate and display them visually.
Virtual Earth System Laboratory
A disruptive table of technologies, Imperial College London
Climate Action Tracker (climateactiontracker.org) – Provides analysis of government climate action and measures it against the Paris Agreement.
Useful Websites
The Cli-fi Report – Dan Bloom’s research tool for academics and media professionals to use in gathering information and reporting on the rise of the emerging cli-fi term worldwide
James Hansen’s website at Columbia University
Alan Winfield’s Web Log – Mostly, but not exclusively, about robots
US Environmental Protection Agency Climate Change Science
NASA Global Climate Change site
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
US National Climate Change Assessment Report
IBM Research – The Invisible Made Visible
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium
Future of Life Institute (futureoflife.org) – Focuses on existential risks and long-term future perspectives, particularly in AI.
Singularity Hub (singularityhub.com) – News and insights about technology, including AI, robotics, and biotechnology.
Carbon Brief (carbonbrief.org) – Specializes in clear, data-driven articles and graphics to explain complex climate science and policy.
OpenAI (openai.com) – Provides the latest developments and research in artificial intelligence.
TechCrunch (techcrunch.com) – Future of Technology Section – Offers news and analysis on emerging technologies.
Lists and other resources
Big list of climate science resources – excellent list put together by a science librarian
BBC Timeline of the Far Future
BBC Timeline of the Near Future
Imperial College London, Timeline of Emerging Science and Technology