Jeremy Rifkin

As a futurist of extraordinary vision, Jeremy Rifkin doesn’t just illuminate the complexities of global trends - he helps mold them. His 17 books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society and the environment, have influenced the shifting ideologies of the 21st century. The President of the Foundation on Economic trends, Rifkin is an advisor to heads of state and government officials around the globe. He speaks frequently before government, business, labor and civic forums and has lectured at more than 200 universities in some 30 countries in the past 30 years.

Mr. Rifkin recently advised the government of France during its presidency of the European Union (July 1st to December 31st, 2008). Mr. Rifkin also served as an adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Jose Socrates of Portugal, and Prime Minister Janez Janša of Slovenia, during their respective European Council Presidencies, on issues related to the economy, climate change, and energy security. He currently advises the European Commission, the European Parliament, and several EU heads of state, including Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

Mr. Rifkin is the founder and Chairperson of the Third Industrial Revolution Global CEO Business Roundtable, which recently entered into an informal collaboration with the European Commission to help facilitate a long-term economic plan to usher in a Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure and economy across the 27 member-states of the EU.

In addition to his involvement in international concerns, Rifkin has been an influential authority on public policy within the United States. He has testified before numerous Congressional committees and has had a hand in dictating the terms for responsible government policies on environmental, scientific and technological issues.  The National Journal named Rifkin as one of 150 people in the U.S. that have the most influence in shaping federal government policy.

Rifkin is the author of a number of best-selling books including, The End of Work, The Biotech Century, The Age of Access, The Hydrogen Economy, and The European Dream. His latest book, The Empathic Civilization, was published in January 2010. Rifkin’s monthly column on global issues appears in many of the world's leading newspapers and magazines, from The Los Angeles Times to The Guardian, to Al-Ittihad in the U.A.E. He has been a frequent guest on television, including CNN’s Crossfire, Face the Nation, The Lehrer News Hour, 20/20, Larry King Live, Today, and Good Morning America.

Mr. Rifkin has been a fellow at the Wharton School's Executive Education Program since 1994, where he lectures to CEOs and senior corporate management from around the world on new trends in science and technology and their impacts on the global economy, society and the environment.

Speaking to many of the world's leading Fortune 500 companies, his fascinating presentations are interdisciplinary in nature, and cover a wide range of topics pertaining to the challenges and opportunities of globalization in the 21st century.

• A. Leading the Way to the Third Industrial Revolution

  While oil, coal, and natural gas will continue to provide a substantial portion of the world's and the European Union's energy well into the 21st century, there is a growing consensus that we are entering a twilight period where the full costs of our fossil fuel addiction is beginning to act as a drag on the world economy. Looking to the future, every government will need to explore new energy paths and establish new economic models with the goal of achieving as close to zero carbon emissions as possible.
  
  The Four Pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution:
  
  ·The First Pillar: Renewable Energy ·The Second Pillar: Buildings as Positive Power Plants ·The Third Pillar: Hydrogen Storage ·The Fourth Pillar: Smartgrids and Plug-in Vehicles
  

• J. Educating Youth for a Global Era

  Introducing service learning and experiential education into schools and colleges to prepare youth for working and living in a diverse, multicultural world.

• I. Deep Globalization

  Deepening and expanding the global economy by bringing the remaining 60% of the human race into the 21st century marketplace.

• H. Living in a Three Sector World

  Creating new partnerships between the global business community, civil society, and governments to create a sustainable approach to globalization

• G. The Hi-tech Revolutions of the 21st Century

  Harnessing the scientific and technological fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology, advanced IT, and cognitive science in ways that advance the process of globalization

• F. The Hydrogen Economy

  In his presentation on "The Hydrogen Economy," best-selling author Jeremy Rifkin takes us on an eye-opening journey into the next great commercial era in history. He envisions the dawn of a new economy powered by hydrogen that will fundamentally change the nature of our market, political and social institutions, just as coal and steam power did at the beginning of the industrial age.
  
  Hydrogen has the potential to end the world's reliance on imported oil and help diffuse the dangerous geopolitical game being played out between Muslim militants and Western nations. It will dramatically cut down on carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming. And because hydrogen is so plentiful and exists everywhere on earth, every human being could be "empowered," making it the first truly democratic energy regime in history.

• E. The European Dream

  The European Union is emerging as a new kind of super power. With 450 million inhabitants spanning twenty-five member states, the EU now rivals the United States in raw economic power.
  
  For more than two centuries the world has looked to the American Dream for inspiration and guidance. Now, a newly emerging European Dream is beginning to eclipse the American vision, becoming a new beacon of light in a troubled world. The European Dream represents a new chapter in world history. It is the first truly global vision befitting a globalizing economy. Mr. Rifkin will explore the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of the fledgling European Dream and its implications for the business community and society.

• D. The End of Work

  We are entering a new phase in history – one characterized by the steady and inevitable decline of jobs. Many jobs are never coming back. Blue collar workers, secretaries, receptionists, clerical workers, sales clerks, bank tellers, telephone operators, librarians, wholesalers, and middle managers are just a few of the many occupations destined for virtual extinction. We need to to prepare ourselves and our institutions for a world that is phasing out mass employment in the production and marketing of goods and services. Redefining the role of the individual in a near workerless society is likely to be the most pressing issue in the decades to come.
  
  We need to move beyond the delusion of retraining for nonexistent jobs and begin to ponder the unthinkable – to prepare ourselves and our institutions for a world that is phasing out mass employment in the production and marketing of goods and services. Redefining the role of the individual in a near workerless society is likely to be the most pressing issue in the decades to come.

• C. The Biotech Century

  After more than forty years of running on parallel tracks, the information and life sciences are beginning to fuse into a single powerful technological and economic force that is laying the foundation for the Biotech Century. The computer is increasingly being used to decipher, manage and organize the vast genetic information that is the raw resource of the new global economy. Already, transnational corporations are creating giant life-science complexes from which to fashion a bio-industrial world.
  
  Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next few decades than in the previous 1,000 years. Food and fiber will likely be grown indoors in giant bacteria baths, partially eliminating the farmer and the soil for the first time in history. Animal and human cloning could be commonplace, with "replication" increasingly replacing "reproduction." Millions of people could obtain a detailed genetic readout of themselves, allowing them to gaze into their own biological future and predict and plan their lives in ways never before possible. Parents may choose to have their children conceived in test-tubes and gestated in artificial wombs outside the human body. The biotech revolution will force each of us to put a mirror to our most deeply held values, making us ponder the ultimate question of the purpose and meaning of existence.

• B. The Age of Access

  A fundamental change is occurring in the nature of commerce, although, as yet, it has gone largely undetected and unexamined by the media. The new information in telecommunications technologies, e-commerce and globalization are making possible a new economic era as different from market capitalism as the latter is dissimilar from mercantilism. In the new century, markets are slowly giving way to network ways of conducting business, with profound implications for the future of society. By the mid decades of the 21st century, markets, the hallmark of conventional capitalism, will have largely disappeared, replaced by a new kind of economic system based on network relationships, 24/7 contractual arrangements, and access rights.

• ...'Riveting', 'inspired', ' mesmerizing' all come to mind...That's what your presentation was like for me.
  Clean Cities Program National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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  December 2009

  The Emphatic Civilization

  No matter how much we put our minds to the task of meeting the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world, the human race seems to continually come up short, unable to muster the collective mental resources to truly "think globally and act locally." In his most ambitious book to date, bestselling social critic Jeremy Rifkin shows that this disconnect between our vision for the world and our ability to realize that vision lies in the current state of human consciousness. The very way our brains are structured disposes us to a way of feeling, thinking, and acting in the world that is no longer entirely relevant to the new environments we have created for ourselves.  The human-made environment is rapidly morphing into a global space, yet our existing modes of consciousness are structured for earlier eras of history, which are just as quickly fading away. Humanity, Rifkin argues, finds itself on the cusp of its greatest experiment to date: refashioning human consciousness so that human beings can mutually live and flourish in the new globalizing society.

  
  
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  August 2004

  The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream

  Rifkin asks the tough question - "why are the Americans paying so little attention to the monumental changes in Europe?" and explains the sociological phenomenons that currently contribute to the change in cultural relevance.  He claims Europeans are more liberated from their past going into the 21st Century and argues how the continent is very slowly becoming the dominant force in the West.

  
  
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  November 2002

  The End of Work

  With Global Unemployment at its highest level since the Depression, Rifkin illustrates how productivity advances through technology will ultimately destroy the world economy.

  
  
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  January 2002

  The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the World-Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth

  The road to global security," writes Jeremy Rifkin, "lies in lessening our dependence on Middle East oil and making sure that all people on Earth have access to the energy they need to sustain life. Weaning the world off oil and turning it toward hydrogen is a promissory note for a safer world." Rifkin's international bestseller The Hydrogen Economy presents the clearest, most comprehensive case for moving ourselves away from the destructive and waning years of the oil era toward a new kind of energy regime. Hydrogen-one of the most abundant substances in the universe-holds the key, Rifkin argues, to a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable world.

  
  
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  March 2001

  The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where all of Life is a Paid-For Experience

  Using examples from business and government experiments with just-in-time access to goods and services and resource sharing, Rifkin defines a new society of renters who are too busy breaking the shackles of material possessions to mourn the passing of public property. Are we encouraging alienation or participation? Can we trust corporations with stewardship of our social lives? True to form, the author asks more questions than he answers--a sign of an open mind. If property is theft, leased access is extortion, and The Age of Access warns us of the complex changes coming in our relationships with our homes, our communities, and our world.

  
  
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  April 1999

  The Biotech Century

  Jeremy Rifkin explores the dangers of the biotechnological sciences of the late 90s in the wake of successful mammal cloning and genetic engineering advancements.