Reading Time: 4 minutes The world is really and truly flattening the curve of climate change. Although we can’t stop global warming entirely, we still have a chance to mitigate its effects.
climate change
Posted inClimate Crisis
What Earth Day means to a climate scientist
Reading Time: 3 minutes On the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day, we asked a climate scientist what we need to do to save our world. Here’s what she said.
Posted inPsychology
Fighting the ‘apathy of impotence’
Reading Time: 3 minutes A friend recently suggested that apathy is a reasonable response to a world gone mad. He called this the “apathy of impotence.” The apathy of impotence grows from the feeling that there is nothing we can do to change a world afflicted by systematic and structural problems. Rather than beating your head against the wall, it […]
Posted inTech
‘Technology will save us’: A genius and a global warming skeptic
Reading Time: 4 minutes Freeman Dyson was one of the most brilliant and productive scientists in the world during his long life. A Nobel laureate for his work in physics, he made significant contributions in many other scientific fields. But one of his most famous “contributions” was his openly skeptical view on global warming. This is a common theme these […]
Posted inEnvironment
Oil imperialism and the struggle for human control over our futures
Reading Time: 4 minutes In March 2020, something unsettling transpired in the global economy. Okay, a few somethings. But while most of the world remembers the sweeping COVID-19 lockdowns, what happened between Saudi Arabia and Russia around oil production is not common knowledge. And yet, as Vladimir Putin has launched a military invasion of Ukraine, we cannot forget the […]
Posted inResearch
The leading edge of social justice is secular
Reading Time: 5 minutes As Israeli soldiers and settlers continue to brutalize, humiliate, and kill Palestinians with impunity, there is one major human rights organization in Israel documenting and protesting these crimes: B’Tselem. Given that B’Tselem is a humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting for justice, human rights, and the alleviation of suffering, you might think it is a religious […]
Posted inClimate Crisis
Who’s afraid of an environmental crisis?
Reading Time: 5 minutes When my grandfather died, his books and magazines were packed up and shipped halfway across the country. In that treasure-trove of old reading, I found science-fiction paperbacks, ancient Greek plays, early 20th-century poetry and philosophy, the occasional beaver magazine (which my father hastily took from my curious nine-year-old hands), and… MAD magazines from the 1970s. […]
Posted inEnvironment
‘Acts of God’ and the climate crisis: Who’s responsible?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Religious believers often invoke the name of the Almighty in their speech. Survivors of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes thank God for protecting them…and apparently absolve Him of blame for failing to protect those who perished. They may justify that in their own mind by believing they were more righteous than the […]
Posted inClimate Crisis
Damage control: Disasterology in the climate era
Reading Time: 5 minutes There is a sharp left turn on Louisiana Highway One that leads you down the last little stretch of road before Grand Isle, a barrier island along the coast of Louisiana. It was here, on what felt like the edge of the world, that I learned the ways in which the climate crisis bubbles up […]
Posted inClimate Crisis
The climate crisis: How did we get here?
Reading Time: 2 minutes The climate crisis is easily the greatest global challenge of the current century. President Biden rightly called it an “existential threat.” Even so, it remains a deeply misunderstood issue. Climate change refers to the shift in average weather conditions, specifically the warming of the Earth’s weather over time. Scientists have found that climate change is […]