This course will be in two parts. The first will consider David Attenborough's statement; "We have a finite environment - the planet. Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist." Can economic growth and environmental health be reconciled? The second part will look at some of the financial institutions such as hedge funds, private equity companies and sovereign wealth funds which wield considerable power in today's highly financialised global economy. They may sound boring but that's the way they like it. When things go wrong, it is not unusual for their fingers to have been in the pie somewhere. No previous knowledge of economics required.