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I think the vast majority of people in North America are familiar with the story of Harry Potter. For the older generation, there was Star Trek and Star Wars. The reason the "trekkies" became such a cultural force was that the stories resonated with people. But it wasn't just the stories themselves, it was the stories of where humanity would go, do, and become. The "trekkies" wanted that "future" to be the world they would live in. These were not just stories, they were myths.

Neil Degrasse-Tyson brought up the point that America no longer dreams. Remember the "House of the Future" articles in Popular Science magazine? When was the last time you saw one of those. But those were important because they told people a story, a story of how we would live.

So I want people to imagine a future, a beautiful future where people live in comfort, ease, and freedom, but where oil is $200/barrel, and natural gas is priced similarly and climate change is real. IMAGINE being in that world.

It's morning. How does the alarm clock wake you up? Does it blast an annoying noise at you? Does it gradually open the curtains and slowly increase the brightness of a light shining on you? What's your bed like? Do you wear a night shirt of PJs or whatever? You crawl out of bed. How do you check on your plans for the day, the weather forecast, and so on? Do you use your 3D tablet? Do you look at a "holo-column" (a tall column that projects info in 3D)? Do you simply look at all the information being displayed to you on "the wall" (wall-sized display panel, possibly transparent when you want it to be, possibly 3D)?

It's breakfast time. Do you head to the roof of your ECOndo to the lush berry gardens up there (part of the building's heating and cooling system)? Do you instead head to the living wall in your kitchen and pick the berries from it? Or do you check the display integrated into your fridge and pull out last night's left-overs?

Finished breakfast, you get dressed for work. What do you wear? Do you grab a briefcase, a laptop case, a backpack, or a projection smart phone and a pair of AR glasses?

You head off to work. How are you going to get there? Do you have one of those little smart self-driving hoppers [think a Smart Car that drives itself] or will you be taking the municipally provided smart pods (seats 6 comfortably)[Think car-pool version of the hopper], or do you get into one of those old fashioned things like a bus, or do you telecommute? Let's assume that even if you normally telecommute, you need to go into the office today.

Before you leave, take a look at the place where you live. What does it look like? Is it a 150-storey eCondo, adorned with solar panels and wind turbines or is it a 150-storey ECOndo whose walls are adorned with fruit-bearing plants, and a real water fall (part of the heating and cooling system), or is it a tiny little energy efficient home in a suburb of tiny little energy efficient homes sprawling across the landscape [and all made of ticky-tak and all looking just the same]?

If you're taking public transit, how do you pay for it? Do you toss in some coins, or slide a card through a reader, or touch your thumb and then your smart-ring (think smart card and RFID in a ring on your finger) to the reader? If you're taking your hopper, how do you fuel it, and how do you pay for that fuel? And while we're on the subject of money, what's the currency? Is it the dollar, the euro, or the Watt/hour? [In 1998, the 2000 Watt Society determined that everyone world-wide on average needs about 17500 kilowatt-hours a year to live comfortably. Given advances in energy efficiency, we're assuming that we've cut that down to 16000kW/hr but the reality will likely be better.)

Since you're not driving, what are you doing during your commute? Are you watching the stock market on your AR glasses, or reading the sports scores on your tablet, or catching up on the latest celebrity gossip on your smart phone?

What do you do for a living? When you get there, where is it, and what is it like? You have a business meeting with some colleagues in Japan. Are they in the room or are they attending by 3D tele-presence "holo-columns", or did they send robo-presence substitutes?

Lunch time rolls around. Where do you get lunch? Did you bring it with you? Do you go to the sushi cart at the front of your building? Do you go to the cafeteria? Do you go to that nice little cafe just down the street that is always so busy but has such a wonderful ambience (sense of place)? What does lunch look like? What does it taste like?

I'll let you take it from there. Go through the rest of your day. Supper at home or supper out? Evening entertainment? Go through a typical day as if you were someone living 50 years from now.

Now think about all of that for a long moment. Hold on to that vision of the future, a nice future, a beautiful future, a future that is as different from today as today is different from the world 100 years ago (beginning of WWI). That story, "A day in the life of someone 50 years in the future" is the story we need to be telling ourselves today.

Just because it's the end of cheap energy, doesn't mean the future needs to look bleak. Our children can have a much better life than ours, if WE all can dream big and bright enough. But to do that, we need a good dose of reality mixed with heavy optimism [this coming from a self-described cynic]. In the long run, the future is never more of the same. Some things will be the same as they've been the same for a long time, but much will be different. But if we can dream it today, we can make it into reality tomorrow.