Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights)

Digital platforms have been well received by customers, but for workers, they often have a dark side. And they present a major challenge for governments who are grappling with how to regulate them. Part 2 of a 3-part series.

The evidence is everywhere: forests retreating, glaciers melting, sea levels rising. Droughts, floods, wildfires and storms have increased five-fold over the past 50 years. And we’re only just beginning to feel the strain of climate change. It's estimated that rising sea levels will threaten 30 million people in Bangladesh alone. Miami could disappear within a generation. Despite all of these dire events and projections, the attacks continue — on climate scientists. Part 1 of a 2-part series. This episode features Clive Hamilton.

Some physicists now claim that we may have reached the end of what physics can discover about the origins and structure of the universe. Neil Turok is definitely not one of them. The director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics believes that the universe "invites" us to figure it out, by giving us clues about its composition. And when we follow its clues, we discover that it's ultimately quite simple.

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. What will happen when robots and algorithms surpass what our brains can do? Part 1 of a 3-part series.

Acclaimed writer Heather O'Neill's father was a janitor, but listed his occupation as professor of philosophy, and he offered a series of unusual rules for life as she grew up in Montreal. In her Henry Kreisel Lecture at the Canadian Literature Centre in Edmonton, and in conversation, she talks about unexpected muses and mentors, being a 'problem' reader, and how some idiosyncratic lessons prepared her to cross the class divide.

In a UBC Wall Exchange talk from Vancouver, former South African politician and current U.K. corruption researcher Andrew Feinstein argues that the arms trade does not make us more secure. In fact, he contends that it fuels conflict, undermines economic progress and democracy, and — with its unintended consequences — endangers citizens everywhere.

Approximately 250 years ago, the windswept and unwelcoming capital of a Edinburgh became a beacon of intelligence for the entire world. Paul Kennedy walks up and down 'The Royal Mile', and through the planned streets and elegant squares of Edinburgh's 'New Town', in search of places once occupied or visited by the likes of Adam Smith, David Hume, James Boswell and Robert Burns.

There's a lot of buzz around the 2017 Sobey Art Award winner Ursula Johnson — a brilliant, dynamic, articulate and delightful Mi'kmaq artist from Eskasoni First Nation, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Her art is stunning and thought-provoking. She is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work includes sculpture, printmaking, performance and non-traditional basket weaving.

Wade Davis thinks we need to pay more attention to the values, the voices, and the concerns of Indigenous peoples. We have a lot to learn by listening more carefully. Wade Davis in a discussion with Paul Kennedy, with excerpts from a lecture at the Ontario Heritage Trust.

It’s been one year since Donald Trump’s inauguration. His official swearing-in compelled many Americans reflect on what America actually is now, politically, socially and culturally. Contributor David Zane Mairowitz is originally from America, and has been living in Europe for over fifty years. He returned to the U.S. in the spring of 2017 to travel through six southern states, where he recorded his encounters with everyday people at restaurants, churches -- and gun shows. His aim: to gain insight into an America he’s now struggling to comprehend.

Indigenous education advocate Roberta Jamieson believes Canada is at a make-or-break moment where it has a chance to recast its historically troubled relationship with First Nations for the next 150 years.

Artists are, in many ways, our cultural seers. At the core of great art is the grappling with profound issues and ideas facing society. Paul Kennedy talks to the the finalists of the prestigious 2017 Sobey Art Award — this country’s preeminent contemporary art award, which is judged by Canadian and international curators.

Canadians like to pretend that Indigenous peoples have some special place, that they shape our society in some significant way, but history -- as well as contemporary actions and attitudes -- might suggest otherwise. In a country where just about all of us are immigrants, Indigenous people are creating new structures and rediscovering old values. A discussion from the Stratford Festival featuring Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Jarrett Martineau and Alexandria Wilson.

Neil Sandell introduces us to the French archaeologist Jean Clottes, a man who's devoted his lifetime trying to decipher the rich, enigmatic world of cave art.

Political scientist Neera Chandhoke makes a heartfelt argument for a secular India. Against the growing tide of Hindu nationalism and India's history of inter-religious strife, she draws on Western and Indian thinkers to make the case for diversity.