Pope Francis’ message on the environment is actually a radical call for humans to accept a more modest material lifestyle, and for a major redistribution of the world’s wealth and power. That’s great stuff for a sermon, but not so helpful as a practical guide for achievable change.
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Philosopher Slavoj Žižek argues that our current brand of global capitalism is quickly outgrowing democracy. This leads to a bevy of social and geopolitical concerns all related to the public commons.
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Something is killing off farms of shellfish. Gwynn Guilford compiles an overwhelming summary of research from scientists that points to the changing climate and increased carbon emissions as the cause.
Foraging for your own food sounds like a nice idea. But without years of study, it could be quite dangerous if you’re just setting out with a romanticized view of “living off the land.”
Why do people buy “organic”? It’s all about idealism.
“The environmentally friendly funeral industry is booming,” says The Atlantic, as Americans seek out ways to go green even after they’re dead.
The Sun is made almost entirely out of hydrogen and helium; the Earth has hardly any of either. How’d that happen? “The single most powerful element of youth is our […]
An analysis of 343 peer-reviewed studies on the nutritional content of organic versus non-organic food concludes that organic produce does indeed contain more nutrients.
On a recent flight over the Netherlands, I found the landscape stare back at me
Coal is essential for creating steel, cement, and agricultural fertilizer, i.e. the pillars of modern society.
I love the future. (I just want to state my bias upfront.) It’s very easy to think about global conflict, ecological destruction, rising population, and economic inequality and believe the […]
Thought you were doing right by buying organic produce, eating fat-free chocolate, and trying vegan mayonnaise? Think again, capitalist dog!
Nothing in nature works quite like money. Or seems as complex as an economy. I’d welcome counterexamples, but something seems fishy. 1. Here’s the usual big picture: Competitive markets allocate […]
NEW YORK – Karl Marx famously wrote that history repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Yet when we look around nowadays, we can’t help […]
It’s certainly cheaper than sending a person: NASA will be sending microbes into space. Researchers at UC Davis are leading the initiative. The big idea presented here is that the […]
“Should economists be advocates or engineers?” asks Noah Smith. Tradeoffs reveal how reliably they perform as either. Smith worries that his trade’s “engineering” aspects are being sacrificed for “political advocacy” […]
Doing any networking this week? If you aren’t, you probably feel you should. For a generation we’ve been hearing that rich social lives will find us jobs, get our chores […]
The 2011 Tōhoku, Japan, earthquake and tsunami killed thousands of people and damaged more than one million buildings, including the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant. The initial crisis of rebuilding […]
Good science allows only shakeable faiths. Its toughest test comes when new evidence meets old certainties. By that test some economics seems more art (or math masked religion) than science. […]
Bees aren’t the most obvious choice when picking collaborators, but they’ve been cooperative in helping Canadian artist Aganetha Dyck create sculptures decorated with honeycomb. Her work is inspired by the […]
There’s a woven web of ecology that ties humans deeply to the rest of the living things on this planet.
Flowers, the reproductive organs of angiosperms, were a novel structure that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
While a History course, for and of the ages, this “class” is ultimately the Cosmology of modern day Science. It encompasses the entirety of academia in one sweeping story of physics, astronomy, geology, biology, ecology, sociology, technology and beyond.
And what are the odds that it’s out there? “Since stars appear to be suns, and suns, according to the common opinion, are bodies that serve to enlighten, warm, and sustain […]
Ecological footprint measurements, as currently constructed and presented, are so misleading as to preclude their use in any serious science or policy context.
Bill Nye argues that we need a generation of scientifically literate students in order to be successful in the 21st century.
Maybe it’s truer and more useful to marvel at how we very nearly destroyed ourselves after discovering an unstable new energy source, then figured our way out of it.
Dutch designer Dave Hakkens admits he doesn’t know how it would work, but his idea of Phonebloks — easily-replaced parts that fit together “like Legos” to create a customized phone — has gained considerable attention.
The upright tail is probably the clearest way cats show their affection for us.
There is no machine known that is more efficient than a human on a bicycle.