Tuesday 18 June 2013

Review of Jeremy Rifkin's book Third Industrial Revolution

 The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World 
This book is the first to present a solution to the question 'How do we get from here to there?' I heartily recommend this book. It is easy to read, reads more like an adventure story, which it is. Jeremy Rifkin's (JR) ideas have been endorsed by the EU and are already happening in cities like Rome and Utrecht. He has seen how the internet is providing a new way to connect not just information, but also energy production, and commerce, and the far reaching implications of this for breaking through the traditional centralising structures that have dominated much of our social relationships. So in education, health, and governance, the internet is providing lateral peer to peer connections that democratise top-down structures. This also applies to our relationship to nature which has been seen as there to be exploited. JR shows how we need to see our interdependence and work with nature, to connect with respect and love for all creatures, in order to find a sustainable way of life.

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