Gladwell's World

Occasionally I like to tap into some innovative thinkers here in the WWW blog. A while back I featured some lectures by Jarod Diamond, and this week we're going to hear from Malcolm Gladwell. Author of The Tipping Point and Blink, Gladwell is a writer for the New Yorker and has some interesting insights about American (and often, more broadly, Western) society. In this first video, he appears with Mark Kingwell on at CBC radio broadcast to discuss social change.


Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Kingwell on QTV (CBC Radio)



In this second video, Gladwell talks about a man whose studies around the marketing of food lead to an eventual democratization of taste in American culture.


Malcolm Gladwell: What We Can Learn from Spaghetti Sauce

A Peak at Peak Water

Water...if you live in the Southwest United States its hard not to at least think about it (even if it's to absently push its import out of your mind). A couple months back, Wired did a story on the emerging concept of peak water. But the also covered it in the short lived series Wired Science. Interesting stuff...


Wired Science: Peak Water segment


Lack of natural resources has always been a prime mover of civil unrest within and between societies. In the west, the history of water rights is pock-marked with violence so to hear that "the wars of the future" might be over water isn't so surprising. Here are a couple of video from the (admittedly left-leaning series) Democracy Now that address that topic.

Democracy Now: Water Wars (Part 1)


Democracy Now: Water Wars (Part 2)


Slightly more centrist CNN also covered the issue earlier this year as a part of their "Planet in Peril" special. Check out the clip featuring an interview with Dr. Peter Gleick (President of the Pacific Institute).

CNN Planet in Peril: World Water Crisis


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Web Worth Watching: Climate Change

Welcome to a new blog series on KNME.org where we bring you some of the videos and sites that we're watching and visiting. It's true that the web is filled with a lot questionable video content. The goal of this series is to highlight videos that are thought provoking, insightful or just plain cool.

For the first installment, we're looking at climate change. I'm typing this in the Corrales Flying Star (giving a shout out both for the Mediterranean Nosh - try it with avocados - and for the free Wi-Fi) and watching a storm roll in from over the Sandias. There's been a lot of talk of the monsoons arriving early (or at least on time) this year. That inevitably leads to some discussion of our climate change. Most everyone knows Al Gore popularized the issues, but not many know he's been working on a sequel PowerPoint deck and presentation. He gave a conference in Cali a taste of it a couple months back. Give it a watch...





Of course Gore isn't the only one talking about climate change. New Mexico's Senator, Jeff Bingaman, gave a lecture at MIT on April 25 about this issue. It's definitely more of a wonkish presentation of the issue. You can watch that lecture here. (Note, you'll need Real Player...yes, it's still around...to see it.)

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