Many years ago Bill Moyers made a documentary on the Secret Government in the US, a scathing critique of the Executive Branch of that carries out secretive operations contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. In the video interview below, Moyers presents an updated version of this same phenomenon, called “the Deep State.” It’s a fascinating interview with government insider Mike Lofrgren, who has also written this related article for the Bill Moyers program. Here is the original Bill Moyers documentary on the Secret Government:
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Business & Environmental Ethics
The other inconvenient truth
Johnathan Foley is director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. He recently received a Heinz Award, which is given annually to people who improve the human condition and environment through work in areas ranging from poverty alleviation to the arts and sciences. The award citation for Foley begins as follows: A scientist on the leading edge of understanding global ecosystems and the study of complex environmental systems, Jonathan Foley, Ph.D., has dedicated his career to examining and finding solutions for the challenge of feeding an ever-growing population while at the same time protecting our planet…
The future of the human species
Today’s headlines from the political left and right form a striking diptych that surely tells us something about the future of the human species. From Truthout comes this article, The March of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, providing the sombre and sober truth about the state of the environment on planet Earth. While most of us do our best to ignore them, the signs of catastrophic climate change are all around us. This article does a good job of detailing several of the most recent signs and driving home the point that we are probably long past the point of no return…
Does money make you mean? (TED lecture by Paul Piff)
Paul Piff is a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies how wealth, the perception of being wealthy, and even the type of car one drives all affect people’s moral behaviour. His findings are both fascinating and disturbing. In general, the wealthier people are, the less compassionate they tend to be and they more they feel entitled to their wealth. These finding hold even with one’s “wealth” is clearly undeserved, as in a rigged game of monopoly. There already exists a large body of evidence indicating that the more economic inequality there is…
Scientists begin to consider human extinction
Within the climate science community there is now virtually no debate that human-induced climate change is real and that it poses a serious challenge to the future of human civilization and the existence of many other plant and animal species on this planet. However, there is still plenty of debate among climate scientists over other questions, including the questions of just how grave and how immediate the threat of climate change really is. This recent article by Dahr Jamail is a summary of the some of the latest findings from those scientists who are most alarmed about the current situation.…
Climate change and capitalism
Scientists have been ringing the alarm bells about climate change for decades now, but the message, which is barely filtering through into the public consciousness, has yet to do anything to reverse the destructive path that human civilization is on. There are perhaps many reasons for this, but the crux of the matter is corporate capitalism and it’s control of the political process. Corporations are driven by the logic of maximizing profits at all costs, including costs to society and to the environment, and politicians are driven by the logic of catering to these corporations, on whom their political careers…
Zombie education
William Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Air Force who now writes for TomDispatch and other publications. In his latest piece for Truthout he explains the concept of “zombie education.” True education, Astore writes, is transformative and soul-enriching. “It opens alternative paths to living that don’t begin and end at the workplace. It measures personal fulfillment in ways that aren’t restricted to take-home pay… It’s about becoming a savvier citizen whose appreciation of, and dedication to, democracy is keener and more heartfelt.” Zombie education, on the other hand, is narrowly focused on individual profit or vocational training. “Students are…
Markets erode moral values (study)
In a recent study, researches from the University of Bamberg and University of Bonn suggest that they have found causal evidence of the corrupting effects of markets on moral values. The abstract reads as follows: The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties. In the experiment, subjects decide between either…
Global greenhouse gas emissions chart
Ecofys, a sustainability consultancy has put together a clear and well-arranged chart that maps worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by source and sector. It is based on data from credible sources such as the IEA, the EU Joint Research Centre, CDIAC, and the Global Carbon Project. One point worth noting is that while this chart analyzes the greenhouse gasses by source and sector, it does not show the varying contributions to climate change of these different gasses. For example, there is much less methane (CH4) being released into the atmosphere than carbon-dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is about 25 times more potent than CO2…
Why Poverty? (a documentary series)
Steps is a partnership of two non-profit organisation (one in Denmark, the other in South Africa) that commissions documentaries to raise awareness about important social issues. For it’s most recent project, called Why Poverty?, it commissioned eight documentaries and 30 short films on the topic of poverty. These are powerful and thought-provoking films that really help to shed light on the issue of poverty. One of the great documentaries in this series, Park Avenue: money, power, and the American dream, is a fascinating look into the lives of the people living at 740 Park Ave., the most exclusive address in New York City.…
The climate change debate in brief
A new survey, published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Research Letters, a publication of the Institute of Physics (IOP), has definitively confirmed the scientific consensus in climate science literature: 97 percent of peer-reviewed papers agree that global warming is happening and human activities are responsible. The survey, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, examined some 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers and found a 97% consensus that humans are causing global warming. The work expanded upon an earlier survey of the literature by Naomi Oreskes, published in 2004, as well as an informal review conducted by James Powell, published on DeSmogBlog in 2012. Lead author of…
HOME (documentary)
HOME is a documentary that highlights how human activities are altering planet earth. It’s a direct, and at times emotional, appeal to viewers to wake up and pay attention to what is going on around them. It is filled with stunning and disturbing footage from around the globe. But it’s not all doom and globe. The film ends with uplifting scenes and information on some of the positive changes that are taking place all around the world today and ways in which individuals can act, as citizens and consumers, to avert catastrophe. Video embedding has been disabled by request, but…
Concrete canvas shelters (creative responses)
From the category “creative responses to environmental challenges“: Concrete Canvas Shelters. These are inflatable concrete buildings, hardened shelters that require only water and air for construction. According to the manufacturer, they can be constructed by 2 people without any training in under an hour and are ready to use in 24 hours, making them a viable alternative to conventional emergency shelters. Contrary to the conventional light tents that only last for a limited amount of time and which use massive amounts of plastic and other synthetic fibre, these concrete shelters can last for decades, provide reliable shelter from even the heaviest storms,…
Wealth inequaltiy worldwide
Following the recent wealth inequality in America video that has gone viral on youtube, /The Rules, an organization and movement to “bring power back to people, and change the rules that create inequality and poverty around the world,” has put together a very similar video that uses the same statistical graphics to describe wealth inequality on a global scale. The displayed statistics are all taken from credible sources (e.g. the UNDP Human Development Reports, OECD, World Bank etc.) In an accompanying article, Jason Hickel, one of the people behind /The Rules and a lecturer at the London School of Economics,…
Born Rich (documentary)
As the rich get richer, their children live lives of abundance. One wealthy American family decided to make this point perfectly clear by naming their son “Lavish.” Considering his behavior, though, perhaps the parents should have named him “Obnoxious” instead: he openly boasts about his wealth on his instagram account (eloquently named “itslavishbitch“), he uses gold-plated staples, and shows off flying around the world with his family’s private jet. Lavish is just one of a growing number of insanely wealthy teenagers who are, contrary to their rather secretive plutocrat parents, not shy to show off their assets. These kids grow…
How Class Works (animated lecture by Richard Wolff)
The description for this short lecture reads as follows: Richard Wolff is an economist who has studied class issues for more than 40 years. In this animation and audio presentation, Wolff explains what class is all about and applies that understanding to the foreclosure crisis of 2007–2011. He argues that class concerns the “way our society splits up the output [and] leaves those who get the profits in the position of deciding and figuring out what to do with them… We all live with the results of what a really tiny minority in our society decides to do with the…
Windmill made from washing machine (creative responses)
Using a standard washing machine motor (Fisher and Paykel direct drive), some blades cut from a 200mm PVC pipe, a cheap and easy-to-use charge controller (555 chip), and some other random bits of wiring and fiberglass, Timot put together a DIY windmill power generator that produces enough electricity to charge and/or operate a phone, laptop or other devices. Considering that washing machines rarely last longer than 5 years, and assuming that most families in the developed world possess a washing machine, the conversion of old washing machines to mini windmills could add up to a lot of energy savings. Let’s…
Wealth inequality in America
The following short video recently went viral and received more than 5.5 million views on YouTube. Using accurate and easy to comprehend graphs, it showcases the full scope of U.S. income inequality. The video is mostly based on a paper written and published by Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely, titled “Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time.” It also references other data provided by a number of mainstream and progressive websites such as CNN, Motherjones and ThinkProgress. The video is receiving interesting responses from conservative and neo-liberals, who either challenge the accuracy of the video or attempt…
Michael Moss on the extraordinary science of addictive junk food
In this editorial for the New York Times Magazine, Michael Moss discusses the “Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”. He begins the article, which derives from his current book “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,” by describing a fateful afternoon when the CEOs from all the major corporations in the junk food industry gathered to be warned about their significant role in the American obesity epidemic. The article also features interviews with former and current junk food industry insiders, PR professionals and other experts who helped or continue to help create, market and sell the most addictive,…
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The religion of capitalist economics
In earlier posts we mentioned the Oxfam report entitled “The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all,” which outlined how the annual income of richest 100 people is enough to end global poverty four times over (i.e. while the annual net income of the world’s richest 100 billionaires is about $240 billion, the estimated cost of raising everyone worldwide above the $1.25 a day poverty line is about $66 billion). Recently Oxfam released another report, “Working for the Few: Political capture and economic inequality,” which maps the the general distribution of wealth on a global level.…
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