Articles by Alan Durning
Alan Durning directs Sightline Institute, a Seattle research and communication center working to promote sustainable solutions for the Pacific Northwest.
All Articles
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Sixty or Fifty?
60 or 50? So much depends on those numbers. The news went barely noticed a few weeks back: almost every school district in the state of Washington that put a levy or bond measure on the February ballot won voter approval. Despite the worst recession in decades, citizens stood behind their public schools and agreed […]
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Climate and Race
A boycott in Montgomery, Alabama; a march on Washington; “I Have a Dream;” a bridge in Selma; a Nobel Prize; a balcony in Memphis—the flaming arc of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life is now inscribed in American mythology. But in December 1955, when King was an unknown 26-year-old Baptist minister first thrust into leadership, the […]
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Cantwell’s cap-and-trade bill: almost genius
Sen. Maria Cantwel (D-Wash.)To borrow Dave Eggers’ book title, the novel approach to cap and trade proposed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Genius, because it is an innovative plan to create a best-case version of cap and trade. And heartbreaking, because by design and by omission it undermines […]
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365 days of junk mail
In December 2007, in “Junk Mail Box,” I lauded ad-mail slayer Catalog Choice and argued for US and Canadian Do Not Mail registries. Soon thereafter, I began using Catalog Choice assiduously at home. I also refreshed my subscription to the Direct Mail Association’s Mail Preference Service. I wrote to ValPak to plead for a reprieve […]
