THOMAS HOMER-DIXON correctly predicted a lot of the crises we face. But, as we leave 2020 behind and give birth to 2021, i talk with him about his new book, COMMANDING HOPE: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril. Sample “To keep our hope from being vague and naive, it must have a clear vision of a positive future. Then, to keep it from being false, we must avoid wishful thinking about the likelihood of that future.” Learn more at commandinghope.com

DISRUPTIVE: CANCER VACCINE & HYDROGEL DRUG DELIVERY      

Dave Mooney explains how his team’s cancer vaccine can train one’s immune system to target specific cancer cells, and describes the use of novel hydrogels in drug delivery and tissue regeneration.

Chris Gemmiti, discusses translation of these hydrogels
from bench-to-bedside. 

 

Latest episode
of my podcast series with
Harvard’s Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering

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Free Forum Progressive Voices Network on TuneIn
Saturday 2/20 7pmPT/10pmET

TERRY TAMMINEN
CRACKING THE CARBON CODE:
Sustainable Profits in a New Economy

 

SAT 2/27
(1) CORNEL WEST, Living Out Loud

(2) LOUIS SCHWARTZBERG
Wings of Life-endangered pollinators

 

 

Featured Podcasts:
Steven Hill, Europe’s Promise
Van Jones, Rebuild the Dream
George Packer, The Unwinding 
Terrence McNally, A World That Just Might Work and The Power of Story

 

Aired 05/09/10

Could the consequences of the Gulf oil spill end up as catastrophic as Chernobyl?

Just because we have the power, the technological know how, and the financial incentive to tap into a huge and powerful stream of crude oil a mile under the ocean, and pull that oil up through that ocean to the surface - does that in any way mean we should do it? 
How is it that we humans do such things? How is it that this society at this moment is willing to act with such hubris and such arrogance and ultimately so little wisdom.

Here we are engaged in a nearly ten year war in Afghanistan, a nearly eight year war in Iraq, a collapse of our financial systems here and abroad, in which the life's work of millions of families has been wiped out, and where money that could have been used to deal with enormous problems we face around the globe has basically gone to conspicuous consumption of a small rapacious elite and otherwise disappeared.

Thomas Homer Dixon has written a couple of books one entitled THE INGENUITY GAP in which he asks whether we have the ingenuity to solve the problems created by our ingenuity. In that book he basically was hopeful that we do. In his next book THE UPSIDE OF DOWN, he had become a bit more cautious, and predicted that even if we do, we were unlikely to turn things around until we crashed. Are we now witnessing and participating in that crash?

In AMANDA LITTLE'S new book, POWER TRIP, she travels thousands of miles looking at the past and future of energy and she ends up optimistic. I'm going to ask her to share what she's learned and why she feels that way.

http://www.amandalittle.com/

 

Aired 03/24/09

In 2006, THOMAS HOMER DIXON, author of Canada's #1 bestseller, THE UPSIDE OF DOWN, wrote, "September 11th and Katrina won't be the last time we walk out of our cities."

Whether from economic collapse, terrorism, climate change, pandemic, energy scarcity, or the widening gap between rich and poor, he believes breakdown is inevitable. And if we won't change our ways till we crash, it's up to us to make sure breakdown doesn't spiral into total collapse.

Check out the book title. Today "down" is everywhere we look. Okay, there's the "Catastrophe." I'll talk with HOMER DIXON in search of the "Creativity, and The Renewal..."

http://www.homerdixon.com