Category: Environment

Treehouses Block Keystone Pipeline

Some environmentalists are living in treehouses in a last-ditch stand against building a section of the Keystone pipeline though Texas. The protest drew some attention after the arrest of actor Daryl Hannah, but has mostly been ignored by the U.S.…

Romney’s New Global-Warming ‘Joke’

Exclusive: At the Republican National Convention and on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney has come up with a new laugh line, mocking President Obama’s policies to slow global warming. In doing so, Romney distorts a quote from an Obama speech…

The Twin Existential Threats

The twin existential threats of nuclear weapons and global warming may work together to end life on Earth because climate dislocations will make desperate national confrontations more likely. But the world’s politicians are doing little about either, writes Robert Dodge.

The Vanity of Perfectionism

Exclusive: As President Obama faces a tough reelection fight, some on the Left vow to sit it out or vote for a third party, saying support for Obama would dirty them. But there is another moral imperative, to mitigate the harm a U.S.…

The Silence on Global Warming

Exclusive: Harrowing predictions of climate scientists are coming true, as glaciers melt, forests burn, heat waves proliferate and freakish weather strikes in unexpected places. But the propagandists of global-warming denial have succeeded in silencing most politicians and the mainstream press, writes…

Footlong Hot Dogs of the Apocalypse

Since World War II, America’s wealth has sheltered the population from harsh realities that other fellow humans face. But that protection is breaking down, from the greed of the super-rich and the stubborn insistence of many Americans to stay focused on their footlong…

All for One

Much of the propaganda that inundates the world’s population is designed to justify animosities and conflicts, whether religious, racial or political. But there is a larger truth that also must be understood that we are all in this together, as…

Another Road Not Taken

Facing political pressure from Republicans, the Obama administration has delayed installing a solar-energy system at the White House, perhaps aware of the fate of Jimmy Carter and his solar panels three decades ago, say documentarians Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller.

Trading the Environment for Coal

The American Right has grabbed a sizable voting bloc of working- and middle-class men by pitting jobs from coal against the environment. In the short term, this dichotomy seems to make sense since it’s important to pay the bills but…

Contemplating the Abyss

The urgent question facing the planet is whether today’s late-capitalist era, possessed of unbridled greed at the top, can be turned to meet the needs of the world’s people or will hurtle onward to a global abyss, disrupting age-old patterns…