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The Green New Deal Is Not a Choice
Here's my question for you. If your child were dying of a disease that only a costly drug could cure, would you not go to any lengths to get it? Of course, you would. And that's exactly what we face...
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"I'm a Capitalist," Says Warren...But Why?
My headline poses a question I struggle with. "Capitalism" refers to an economy driven by owners of private capital, typically with the aim of bringing the highest possible return to themselves, and I...
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The Shocking Tale of Two Generations
It's easy to feel fatalistic, accepting as "just the way things are" an America in which the top one-tenth of 1 percent controls as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, while roughly a fifth of...
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Who Can Afford a Green New Deal? We Can!
Despite ridicule by Republican leaders, calls for a Green New Deal resonate with 80 percent of Americans. Building on the vision laid out by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ed Markey, now Joe Biden and...
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Blood on Our Hands: How We Help Drive Immigration North
Each month tens of thousands of migrants cross our southern border. They're "seeking a better life"...right? Isn't that why families leave loved ones to trek vast distances facing untold dangers?...
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Climate Courage--Cities and States Matter, Too
More than one in five Americans--that's over 70 million of us--now live in a place committed to 100 percent carbon-neutral electricity--including 131 towns and cities, seven states and Puerto Rico....
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Most of Us Are Not Doing So Well: Numbers Crunching Working People
Though a recent poll suggests the majority of Americans disapprove of President Trump's "overall performance," they support his "handling of the economy" more than other issues surveyed. "The...
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We're Not "Polarized" Everywhere. In Maine, Democracy and Green Energy Win Big
How often I hear that in "polarized" America rural voters will reject a green agenda out of hand. For them, green means liberal, tree-hugging snobs, unconcerned about the struggles of real working...
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10 Tips on Disarming Despair
"Despair is humanity's worst enemy." Now, that's a declaration I make often, which might imply that I've conquered it. But, having spent recent weeks with eyes locked on climate-catastrophe reports,...
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Climate Justice Arising--Hidden Hope in Dark Times
On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Covid19 shouts out a profound lesson: America can tackle this pandemic as well as meet our vastly bigger climate threat only as we move together toward solutions....
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Democracy as Dignity
Celebrating the inauguration of a new president and an end to years of attacks on democracy is a perfect moment to probe together: What do we mean by democracy in the first place? Here's where I...
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It's Not Too Late to Reverse Course on the Climate Crisis
Life on our fast-heating planet faces an existential threat. This we know. We're now on track for the worst-case melting of polar glaciers and the resulting sea rise. During the last 15 years,...
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Freeing the Muzzled Majority--Beneath "Polarization," Surprising Unity
Laments over America's political polarization mount. "Actions of the president and his party are pulling us further apart," argued Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) responding to President Biden's address in...
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The Real Fraud: Republicans' Voter-Fraud Scare
This week, Senate Republicans in lockstep blocked key reforms of the For the People Act that would address gerrymandering and big money in politics, plus enhance ethics for federal office holders. The...
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Truth Be Told--Saving Our Endangered Democracy
How can a democracy committed to freedom of speech protect itself against damaging lies? That's a tough and urgent question with which our nation must now grapple. The Big Lie--still believed by...
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America's Killer Diet
My title is not hyperbole. I sure wish it were. In composing a new opening chapter for the 50th anniversary edition of Diet for a Small Planet, I dug into America's big dietary changes over the last...
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Hunger Is Over, If We Want It
The United Nations Food Systems Summit in New York City this September called on humanity "to end hunger and protect the planet." Sounds noble--even uplifting--until we acknowledge this sad truth:...
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Hey Congress! Pass Voting Rights...or Violate the Constitution
I feel like an exhausted well digger, shovel in hand, who was just handed a jack hammer. But in my case, it is a tool I didn't even know existed--a tool for saving our beleaguered democracy. A premise...
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Did Horror of January 6 Crush Your Optimism? Try "Possibilism" Instead
A new year is supposed to trigger the energy of new beginnings, requiring at least a bit of optimism. Right? But at the anniversary of January 6th--a day of national infamy--optimism and it companion,...
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Now's Our Chance--We Can Reverse Democracy's Decline
Seven out ten of Americans believe the U.S. democracy is "in crisis and at risk of failing." And in this moment is our chance not only to pull back from the brink but to leap forward--aware that...
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Is All This "Polarization" a Cause or a Symptom?
"We are a polarized nation!" Seems self-evident, right? But to me the refrain feels more like judgment than explanation--one implying that we the American people are the problem: We're just too...
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American 'Exceptionalism?' Yes, But Not in a Good Way
Americans' long-held view of ourselves as the world's "best everything" stands in the way of progress. So, here's my question: Can we absorb our true standing and be motivated--rather than...
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Breaking Free from Three Deadly Thought Traps
For decades I grappled with one puzzle. Why would we homo sapiens, supposedly the brightest species, be creating a world together that as individuals none of us would choose? I'll bet no one turns off...
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Free Market Mythology Is a Freedom-Killer
Americans love freedom...and who doesn't? To be happy, most of us need a sense of agency and abhor the thought of Big Brother looking over our shoulder. But for many Americans a defining notion of...
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Democracy's Peril and Promise: Let the Ukraine Crisis Awaken Action
The attack on Ukraine focuses the mind on a most critical question for humanity: In our fast-changing world, what is democracy's future? Autocracy in all its forms has proven to be fixed on the...
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The American Crisis of Trust—Let's Learn from Leading Democracies
So, Donald Trump is back on social media. What a perfect moment to grapple with our nation's crisis of trust. A 2022 Gallup poll found that less than 30 percent of us have "a great deal (or quite a...
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“Vegetarian”…Why Not “Planetarian”?
"Planetarian. What’s that?” I am eager to explain. In the late sixties, as I struggled to find my path, Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb had just exploded, admonishing humanity for overpopulating the...
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As Affirmative Action Dies, How Can Fairness Thrive?
Could the death of affirmative action stir us to face the many barriers to educational equity hiding in plain sight? Among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries we rank...
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Woke Is the New Red
Over half of Republicans agree that “fighting woke ideology in our schools and businesses” is more important than protecting Social Security and Medicare, finds a recent Wall Street Journal...
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How Free Market Mythology Denies Us Freedom
The headline of this column makes a big claim, but I’ll go even further. Free-market mythology denies us not only political and economic freedom, but psychological liberty as well. In his 1980...
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