I was reading the introduction to the book Climate Liberalism about classical liberal approaches to environmental problems. A sentence in the opening paragraph said, “The last half century has seen substantial environmental progress as human lifespans have increased, poverty has declined, and Malthusian fears of resource depletion have been dispelled” with a footnote “For a compendium of human progress along these (and other) lines, see Marian L. Tupy and Gale[…] Keep reading →

Greenhouse gas and ocean plastic levels don’t rise on their own. The cause of our environmental problems is our behavior, which results from our culture. The world’s dominant culture pollutes, depletes, addicts, and imperially takes over other cultures. Yet each person wants clean air, land, water, and food. How did humans create a culture that manifests the opposite of many of their values? Why do most people defend that culture,[…] Keep reading →

This week I listened to: The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson: People have been suggesting I read this book for a while. It’s not exactly a novel. Robinson uses the book to teach about monetary theory and possible climate outcomes. I can see why people suggest it to me. He has thought through where humanity could go in more detail and more comprehensively than most people. I[…] Keep reading →

Many people opposed slavery. Even slaveholders acknowledged their feelings of guilt, but nearly everyone within our polluting, depleting, imperialist, addictive culture supports it even as we suffer from its growing damages. We blind ourselves to the downsides of polluting and depleting. Even residents of Cancer Alley fly and drive, funding their own cancer. Japan built a nuclear reactor forty miles from Hiroshima. We cover parks with plastic AstroTurf and still[…] Keep reading →

I write about how unsustainability led to imperialism, which led to colonialism and slavery. But wait. Why bring up all this awful history? Haven’t we learned from it? Have we learned from history? Aren’t we moving on from it? Look at all the things that can solve our environmental problems: carbon taxes, electric vehicles, carbon offsets, more efficient batteries, and so on. Can’t we solve each problem one at a[…] Keep reading →

Professor Alon Tal’s career has been a balance between academia and public interest advocacy. Between 2021–2022 he was a member of Knesset, Israel’s parliament, where he served as chair of the subcommittee for environmental and climate impact on health. He has an appointment as professor in the Department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. Tal has held faculty posts at Stanford, Ben Gurion, Hebrew, Michigan State, Otago and Harvard[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner: Another great book by another great writer about Lincoln. This one focuses on his views and actions on slavery, which evolved over his life, especially during the Civil War. Wikipedia wrote “The Fiery Trial won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize. The New York Times Book Review listed[…] Keep reading →