How Not to Change the World In the fall of 1948, Harry Truman barnstormed the country by train, repeatedly bashing a “do-nothing Congress,” and so snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in that year’s presidential campaign.  This year, neither presidential candidate focused on blasting a do-nothing Congress or, in Obama’s case, “Republican obstructionism,” demanding [...]

Noam Chomsky on U.S.-Fueled Dangers, from Climate Change to Nuclear Weapons In the week when President Obama and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney debated issues of foreign policy and the economy, we turn to world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and MIT professor, Noam Chomsky. In a recent speech, Chomsky examined topics largely ignored or glossed over [...]

Less than three days after Sandy made landfall on the East Coast of the United States, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute blamed New Yorkers’ resistance to big-box stores for the misery they were about to endure. Writing on Forbes.com, he explained that the city’s refusal to embrace Walmart will likely make the recovery [...]

For almost 20 years, I’ve been spending time on a craggy stretch of British Columbia’s shoreline called the Sunshine Coast. This summer, I had an experience that reminded me why I love this place, and why I chose to have a child in this sparsely populated part of the world. It was 5 a.m. and my [...]

Why have the US presidential candidates been avoiding discussing climate change in the run up to the elections? After Hurricane Sandy’s destruction, politicians say it is time to take steps to deal with increasingly extreme weather conditions. But why are they still unwilling to discuss climate change? The massive storm which began as Hurricane Sandy has [...]

The subway is more than mass transit – it’s the city’s very roots. The idea of the metro swamped by cold, salt water is unbearable New York is the city I love best, and I’m trying to imagine it from a distance tonight. The lurid, flash-lit instagram images of floating cars in Alphabet City or water [...]

“If There Was Ever a Wake-up Call, This Is It” Much of the East Coast is shut down today as residents prepare for Hurricane Sandy, a massive storm that could impact up to 50 million people from the Carolinas to Boston. The storm has already killed 66 people in the Caribbean, where it battered Haiti and [...]

Sandy, the hurricane that appears set to pummel the East Coast, promises a historic potential for damage and a terrifying look at what may be in store for us—ever more frequent assaults of not-so-natural origin. Watching Sandy on her careening path toward the Eastern Seaboard scares me more than it would have 15 months ago. [...]

Los pronósticos de abundancia chocan con las realidades del planeta El invierno pasado los entusiastas de los combustibles fósiles comenzaron a proclamar el alba de una nueva “Edad de Oro” del petróleo que haría repartir la economía de EE.UU., generaría millones de nuevos empleos y liberaría a ese país de su dependencia del petróleo importado. Ed [...]

The next great battle of the Occupy movement may not take place in city parks and plazas, where the security and surveillance state is blocking protesters from setting up urban encampments. Instead it could arise in the nation’s heartland, where some ranchers, farmers and enraged citizens, often after seeing their land seized by eminent domain [...]