Science Friday: Energy and the Economy

Between environmental concerns and rising gasoline prices, energy use has never seemed more entwined with the economy. Guests discuss how oil prices are tied to economic growth, and give a roundup of the latest energy news.

http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/510221/95116550/npr_95116550.mp3

The Suspect Society Part 2

The Surveillance Society. The Age of Paranoid Politics. These terms, and many others, have been used to describe how the political ground has been shifting under us, particularly since 9/11. Terrorism and national security have become obsessive anxieties. A world-wide initiative has developed that combines a growing machinery of surveillance, assaults on civil liberties and increasing censorship. We are living in what IDEAS producer Mary O’Connell calls “the suspect society.”

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20080922_7574.mp3

The Long Descent

KMO welcomes author and Archdruid, John Michael Greer, to the program to discuss his new book The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age and explore the possibility that Peak Oil may play out more like a fall down the stairs than like a plunge from a third floor balcony. Do the worldviews of Peak Oil aficionados, Singularitarians, and Trekkies all spring from the book of Revelations, and are modern visions concerning progress and the human future really just ancient religious myths in secular drag?

http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/enclosure/2008-09-17T16_54_27-07_00.mp3

The Risk Society

Ulrich Beck & Bruno Latour  Ulrich Beck talks about the place of science in a risk society. You’ll also hear from another equally influential European thinker, Bruno Latour, the author of "We Have Never Been Modern." He will argue that our very future depends on overcoming a false dichotomy between nature and culture.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/thinkaboutscience_20071227_4292.mp3

Suspect Society

The Surveillance Society. The New Authoritarianism. The Age of Paranoid Politics. These terms, and many others, have been used to describe how the political ground has been shifting under us, particularly since 9/11. Terrorism and national security have become obsessive anxieties. Fear and suspicion have become the order of the day. We are living in what IDEAS producer Mary O’Connell calls “the suspect society.”

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20080915_6828.mp3