climate change
Retiring the American Empire

Retiring the American Empire

As people near retirement age, they enter the twilight years. Sometimes, they rebel against retirement. They want to keep working. They’re not interested in shuffling out of their office never to return. And if they’re in fact the owner of the workplace, conflicts...

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Songdo Fallout: Is Green Finance a Red Herring?

Songdo Fallout: Is Green Finance a Red Herring?

From the 29th floor of Songdo, South Korea's jagged "G-Tower," one can glimpse the endless construction sites and vacant parks of an emerging “global business utopia,” to use the city’s adopted slogan. The newly built city, home to the UN's nascent Green Climate Fund...

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Obama’s Biggest Compromise Yet?

Obama’s Biggest Compromise Yet?

Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech suggests the president is banking his legacy on “nation-building at home.” But with the United States waging an opaque and clandestine war in an ever-widening global battlefield, nation-building at home does not mean an end to nation-bombing abroad.

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Towards a Grand Climate Compromise

Towards a Grand Climate Compromise

If the only thing that Doha can do is to expose the futility of the old strategies and the urgent necessity of exploring of new negotiating positions that can lead to a breakthrough before it is too late, then this diplomatic charade masquerading as a serious climate negotiation will have fulfilled its function.

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Lessons of Sandy

Lessons of Sandy

After Hurricane Sandy deprived the Northeast of gas, power, food, and clean water, drivers in New York and New Jersey were forced to line up for rationed gas. Sandy demonstrated that a natural disaster could quickly, if temporarily, downgrade a rich country to third-world status.

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How to Stop Scaring Ourselves to Death

How to Stop Scaring Ourselves to Death

Can we grow up and out of scaring ourselves to death? Can we move into a long-term push toward the kind of energy future that will not bring real terror to millions around the world? Or will we just put on the costume of Superman and pretend we have saved Gotham City, yet again, while Frankenstorm 2.0 waits around the corner?

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Postcard from Kiribati

Postcard from Kiribati

The U.S. Coast Guard Hercules plane parked at Bonriki International Airport fires one by one its mighty engines, and the crowd immediately begins to cheer. There is not much to do on Tarawa Archipelago, and the U.S. military and coastguard planes landing here for refueling almost every day are the main source of entertainment for the local people, especially children. 

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