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John Wood

Posted 2010-06-08 19:44 (#166)
Subject: Reith Lectures

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Posts: 79

Location: Cromarty

Has anyone else been listening to this year's Reith lectures on R4?

Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal has a great faith in the ability of 'science' to answer all our problems. I found plenty to disagree with, but he does take global warming seriously. But the thing that has really depressed me today after hearing his second one today was his point about 'the global village will have its village idiots'. He points out that increasing power and availability of technology inevitably gets into the hands of all sorts of people. And now we have the possibility of creating new life forms it means that there will be people out there creating real viruses, not just digital ones.

He also pointed out that the big energy companies simply don't (yet) get the message. Their spend on R&D is about 1% of their profits.

And world's population is growing faster than ever with the great majority of the world's population under 25. India is set to overtake China's within the next few years.

I generally try to be optimistic and positive but after hearing Prof Rees I don't share his optimism. It looks as though overwhelming disaster is only round the corner, whatever we do.

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