Growth and Globalism

Couple of 'reference' ABC Radio National 'Big Ideas' shows recently:

John Ralston Saul is probably the finest mind in history/politics at the moment. Grab anything you can by him.

My favourite book is 'The Unconscious Civilisation', "knowledge has not made us conscious. Instead, we have sought refuge in a world of illusion where language is cut off from reality". I liked the bit about politicians riding the coat tails of corporations which have the real power.

Saul's recent work is nicely previewed on 'John Ralston Saul and The Collapse of Globalism'. Listen to it twice (or read the transcript).

Listening to Tim Jackson, Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Surrey is quite a mind expansion. If we want Growth and a Sustainable Future, get an idea of the scale of the task at 'Prosperity without growth?' I liked the bit about—in 50 years we not only have to stop carbon emissions, we need a society that actually takes carbon back out of the environment! I'm a little less extreme, but I like to look at it this way—if you're a public corporation, you have a duty to your shareholders to move your corporate activities into to the Green economy, or else.

While I'm at it, a couple of other notable Radio National shows:

Check out Saint Peter Garrett (or Commander Gram as he's known in UFO circles) caught out covering up Australia's oil spill. 'The spilling fields'. Sadly, this disaster dropped out of the news because it didn't spoil any beaches.

And if you don't believe the CIA was stirring up trouble and gaming Twitter after the recent Iranian elections, Oil, democracy and a CIA coup describes (among other things) how they actually paid people to fight in the streets in the 1950s.