product title: Explore The Big Picture

Format types

MyLab with eText = Access to the blended learning platform, merging digital content with complementary homework, tutorials, and assessments. Includes the accompanying eText.

MyLab is an innovative online learning platform to support you in your educational journey. It offers a range of interactive and personalized resources tailored to various subjects, helping you to better understand and retain course material. 

Key benefits of MyLab include immediate feedback on assignments and quizzes, allowing you to learn from your mistakes in real-time. Additionally, the platform provides a wealth of practice exercises, tutorials, and multimedia resources that cater to different learning styles.

Are you interested in the state of our world? In the future of humanity? Have you ever wondered how the major developments of our time fit together? Are you, in fact, interested in exploring the big picture? The world we live in is undergoing enormous change, and it can feel overwhelming to grasp what it all means, to you, to your family, to your education or job, and to humanity as a whole.

Explore The Big Picture takes a deep dive into some of the most significant matters we’re facing today, including climate change, the impact of technology, the development of the world economy, pressing societal challenges, and life beyond Earth.

Doing away with complexity, each topic is explored in such a way that it relates to the other themes. Celebrating our achievements and drawing attention to our challenges, Explore The Big Picture cuts through the clutter, leaving readers with a clear vision of what’s at stake and what’s to gain. Explore The Big Picture is an open invitation to look beyond the horizon and challenge your thoughts and beliefs, allowing you to take meaningful action that leads to positive change.

Explore The Big Picture is interesting for all students who follow a course in which critical thinking, SDGs, scenario planning, sustainability, humanity, technology and/or innovation are central themes. The book is especially suited for students in economic or technical courses.

Table of contents

H1 Technology
1.1 Riding the wave of raw computer power
1.2 Artificial Intelligence
1.3 Biotechnology
1.4 Metamaterials, printing technology and the Internet of Things
1.5 Reality, robots, and cyborgs
1.6 Final thoughts
  
H2 Humanity colliding with Earth’s boundaries
2.1 Shifting towards the Anthropocene Epoch
2.2 Earth's nine key processes and systems
2.3 Final thoughts
  
H3 Our social foundation
3.1 Water, food, and displacement
3.2 Energy and mobility
3.3 Health
3.4 Education
3.5 Income and work
3.6 The human factor
3.7 Final thoughts
  
H4 Economy, politics and power
4.1 Capitalism and democracy
4.2 Power
4.3 Control
4.4 Resilience
4.5 Final thoughts
  
H5 Beyond earth
5.1 Our place in the universe
5.2 Challenges to go forward to the moon, Mars, and beyond
5.3 Opening up the space economy
5.4 Humanity’s big leap
5.5 A deep dive into the unknown
5.6 Final thoughts