Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights)

Global warming is "Fake News", a "Chinese Hoax". So says a richly funded Conservative movement that's become a world-wide campaign. In her book, "The Merchants of Doubt", Naomi Oreskes traces how this propaganda war started and how to fight it.

AI and robots seem to be everywhere, handling more and more work, freeing humans up -- to do what? Contributor Jill Eisen takes a wide-angle lens to the digital revolution happening in our working lives. Part 1 of 3.

We're racing down the highway to autonomous cars, whether it takes 10, 20 or 30 years. But what happens to our economy, the shape of our cities, and even our century-old car-centric culture once the vehicles arrive?

Universities are supposed to be dedicated to the exchange of ideas. But according to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, campuses now skew so far to the left that they’ve become “political monocultures” .

The evidence is everywhere: forests retreating, glaciers melting, sea levels rising. And we're only just beginning to feel the strain of climate change. Despite all of these dire events and projections, the attacks continue — on climate scientists.

Murder mysteries are conventionally thought of as staples of beach and cottage reading – not particularly taxing on the intellect. But that belies the depth and variety of crime writing today, as well as its ubiquity in both pop and literary culture.

If we could go to the moon, we could go anywhere, right? Stephen Humphrey and a stellar crew of authors, astronauts and Mars scholars confront the hazards, risks and challenges of getting humans to Mars, and then of surviving and living on the Red Planet

"To be in the present as a listener is a revolutionary act. We absolutely need it, to be grounded in that way." Soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp hears the world differently than most people.

His name was Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell. Who was the man who gave us 'big brother', 'thoughtcrime', 'doublethink', whose name looms so large in this era of mass surveillance?

The CBC Massey Lectures inspire a lot of provocative questions -- and thoughtful answers -- in each city on the tour. In this episode, you'll hear the best of those audience questions with a bonus: questions posed by our radio and online audiences.

The novel -- an art form that's centuries old -- still has the capacity to hold our attention from subway commute to library chair. But what is the future of literary writing in our hyperfast, overcaffeinated, 140-character, social-media-blasted world?

The day might well be approaching when humans set foot on Mars. We'll be driven by a desire to find life -- or what remains of it -- and to colonize the planet.

"Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed — no escape, 'Big Brother is watching you.'" George Orwell, 1984 Who was the man who gave us 'big brother', 'thoughtcrime', 'doublethink'?

Has the future ever looked like the past? Sailing in the 21st century, perhaps we are in uncharted waters. A discussion from the Stratford Festival, featuring historian Margaret MacMillan, former politician Bob Rae and journalist Karin Wells.

Can marriage be a source of inspiration, creativity, mutual influence, and intellectual support? From Abelard and Heloise, to Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, a picture emerges of married men and women who inspire one another in life and love.