Pandemonium is a book by Andrew Nikiforuk, a Canadian journalist....

This book should be read by anyone who read Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat". It details all the things that happen as a result of globalism that are 'off balance sheet' and which come back to bite us when we are not looking.

The sub-heading on the Australian paper-back is: "How Globalization And Trade Are Putting The World At Risk". (different to the original edition, and more apt).

When are we going to realize that the more we all participate in the rush to get richer, consume more, do more, the more we miss the subtext of what we are doing. Nikiforuk gets us back on track. Think about this: Every time a ship comes into port it blasts out its ballast tanks, refills them etc. The water that it takes on board as ballast is filled with micro-organisms and many not so micro. Taken half way round the world and instantiated into another ecosystem, away from the view of the customs and livestock inspectors these micro-organisms have already wreaked havoc on the busiest harbours - gutting local fish stocks and massively changing the environment.

A litany of problems emerge in this book. It takes into account factory farming of chickens and the reducing bio-diversity of the species as meat yields become the critical ingredient of farming. And as a result H5N1 emerges and finds a way to jump species. It details the history of experimentation into weaponising anthrax and other deadly pathogens and who is responsible.

And what you get at the end of it is a realization that should not be a surprise: It is impossible to fight the powers of greed and yet we must find a way. Markets work perfectly when there are perfect rules and people obey them perfectly. We live in a society where greed has been good a long time, and I suspect that for many people one of the o's got dropped along the way...