The Founding Congress of the World Future Council (WFC) was celebrated at the Hamburg Town Hall in mid-May 2007, together with the spectacular opening of its permanent co-ordinating secretariat in the city’s dynamic “warehouse-city” area.

Fifty prominent founding members and councilors of the WFC became “guardians of future generations,” elaborating solutions for our planet’s problems, both ecological and social, from fair trade and anti-corruption campaigns to peace education. They include human rights activist Bianca Jagger, environmental activist Vandana Shiva, anti-poverty activist Youssou N’Dour, and Prince El Hassan Bin Talal, the president of the Club of Rome.

The first global study identifying populations at greatest risk from rising sea levels and more intense weather such as floods, cyclones and hurricanes was published April 14 in the journal Environment and Urbanization. The leading researchers were Gordon McGranahan of the UK International Institute for Environment and Development, and Deborah Balk and Bridget Anderson of Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

The text points and slideshow in this article are based on the study and an email interview with Deborah Balk.

TEI isn’t in the business of marketing technology, but we recently had correspondence with Darwin Nunley, the Texas inventor of a low-pollution internal combustion engine. Mr. Nunley offered TEI a description of his invention, the Nunley engine, and we’re happy to publish it as an example of the sort of ingenuity we’re going to need to reduce our carbon footprint and get us beyond fossil fuels.

Picture a side view of a steam locomotive common in the early 1900s. They have two cylinders on each side of the locomotive. Each cylinder has a piston which moves from front to rear and back again by steam pressure, produced by burning coal in a boiler. The power from that comparatively small, four cylinder engine moves the locomotive, the coal car, perhaps 20 freight cars and the always present caboose. People see the black smoke, heat and steam spewing from the smokestack. What they don’t see is the potential of the one piston steam cylinder.

Mr. Nunley’s invention consists of taking the one piston steam cylinder, then recreating it as a very low-polluting, low-cost engine for our time.

Though many questions remain about the extent and pace of global warming—its affects on sea level rise, polar ice melt, severe storms, droughts, floods, diseases and economic losses—the important debate has now shifted to economic policy. Specifically, putting a price on carbon emissions, to signal world markets that the long free ride is really over.

What is the most feasible, effective, fair and efficient way to price carbon, in order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions before they reach levels where the damages go beyond the ability of humans to adapt? Where the natural systems underlying the economy of nations could collapse? Or where abrupt and catastrophic climate changes occur?