Aired 01/16/11

PARAG KHANNA is a Senior Research Fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. In 2008, he was named one of Esquire's "75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century," a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, and one of fifteen people on WIRED magazine's "Smart List." Khanna holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is author of the international best-seller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order and his newest, How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance.

http://www.paragkhanna.com/

 

 

Aired 01/09/11

ANTONIO DAMASIO, M.D. Ph.D is the David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director, Brain and Creativity Institute, at the University of Southern California. Damasio,the recipient of numerous honors worldwide and author of bestselling books, was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1999.

In his newest book, Self Comes to Mind, Antonio Damasio presents compelling new scientific evidence that consciousness-what we think of as a mind with a self-is a biological process created by a living organism. Damasio takes an evolutionary perspective and links the millions of single cells in the human body and brain with single celled organisms. Organisms use whatever tools they have to regulate and manage their biological systems, in order to maintain the balance or homeostasis essential to survive. As consciousness evolves to what he terms the autobiographical self in humans, life management aims not only for survival, but for well-being.

Damasio suggests that the brain's development of a human self opens the way for the appearance of culture -- a radical break in the course of evolution that offers a new level of life regulation - what he calls sociocultural homeostasis.

How are we doing? Is society -- as an organism -- managing itself to achieve balance? It doesn't look good to me right now - in terms of equity, energy, consumption, climate change, etc.

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/bci/

 

Aired 12/26/10

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers` rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her books include Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, and her newest, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis. Shiva has been awarded several awards for her efforts including the Right Livelihood Award and the United Nations Environment Program [UNEP] Global 500 Award in 1993, and most recently the 2010 City of Sydney Peace Prize.

http://www.vandanashiva.org/

 

Aired 12/05/10

ROBERT SCHEER, editor-in-chief of Truthdig, was Vietnam correspondent and an editor of Ramparts magazine from 1964-69. He worked with the Los Angeles Times for nearly 30 years, as a national correspondent from 1976-1993 and as a weekly syndicated columnist until 2005. In 2005 he co-founded Truthdig. Scheer is heard weekly on Left, Right and Center on NPR's KCRW. A clinical professor of communications at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, he is a contributing editor for The Nation as well as a Nation Fellow. Scheer has written nine books, including With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War; The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq; The Pornography of Power and his newest, THE GREAT AMERICAN STICKUP.

http://www.truthdig.com/

 

Aired 11/28/10

JEREMY RIFKIN is the bestselling author of The End of Work, The Biotech Century, The Hydrogen Economy and The European Dream. A fellow at the Wharton School's Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania, he is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. His newest book is THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION.

http://www.foet.org/