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The world in 2020: China, the U.S., the global South, and the planet

This was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. As the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, we find ourselves at one of those relatively rare moments in history when major power shifts become visible to all. If the first decade of the century witnessed profound changes, the world […]

Economics as pathology, part two

The other day I complained about an article by Brookings economist Ted Gayer. So did Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Ryan Avent, and Ezra Klein. As I am a nobody writing on an obscure website, I was roundly ignored by all parties, but Gayer has responded to the others. His response only reinforces the impression that […]

Chemical Soup for the Soul

Editor’s Note: Anna finished this post (and a few more) before she went on maternity leave. She gave birth to a healthy girl, Audrey, on December 13. My husband Gus and I have been lucky. I’m 36—and therefore considered an “elderly primigravida” on my charts at my doctor’s office (that’s “pregnant old-timer and first-timer” in […]

Lessons on the food system from the ammonia-hamburger fiasco

In case you missed it last week, The New York Times ran an excellent article on a South Dakota company called Beef Products Inc., which makes a hamburger filler product that ends up in 70 percent of burgers in the United States. To make a long story short: Beef Products buys the cheapest, least desirable […]

New Year Resolutions

Lose 10 pounds? Get a new job? It’s that time of year again and carbon could make your New Year's resolutions much more successful - - and profitable.

Pollan on ‘The Daily Show’

[vodpod id=Video.16083146&w=425&h=350&fv=] As health care, finance, and climate bills lurch through Congress, buffeted and compromised by the very industries they seek to rein in, the question of whether our political system is actually capable of real reform arises. Could it be that corporate lobbies are so powerful that current dysfunctions are entrenched? Are we doomed […]

Can GMO seeds be ‘sustainable’?

The New York Times has another piece encouraging a flare-up in the cage match between organic farmers and those in favor of genetic engineering as the solution to future food needs. This one is centered on the “unlikely” but happy marriage of a plant geneticist and an organic farmer: Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak have […]

Milk may be cheap but dairy workers shouldn’t be

Barry Estabrook has a piece up on the Atlantic reminding us that agriculture practiced on any scale anywhere in this country relies heavily on migrant — usually undocumented — laborers to perform the hardest, riskiest jobs. And sometimes they die. [A]t about 4:00 in the afternoon of December 22, José Obeth Santiz Cruz, a 20-year-old […]

Climate science is older and better established than you think [VIDEO]

“Climategate” or “Swifthack” or whatever you call the hubbub about the stolen climate science emails seems to have faded from public discussion, as I expected it would. Every time a new one of these frenzies gets started, climate activists panic, climate skeptics crow that they’ve finally won, and then the whole thing fizzles. Wash, rinse, […]

James Hansen vs. cap-and-trade

NASA climate scientist James Hansen has a new book out about climate policy, with excerpts in this month’s issue of The Nation. And in my view, he’s got a pretty good policy idea: tax carbon, and use the revenue to give out rebates in equal, per capita shares to every U.S. citizen. It’s a twofer […]