Jeanette
A concise summary on why we need a new measure of progress to take the place of GDP.
Eric
Obviously, the only thing anyone cares about is Richard Sherman. Can an excited 25-year-old Seahawks player become a proxy for our national anxieties about race, violence, and sportsmanship? Why, yes he can.
I highly recommend reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ two forays into the subject, here and here.
How bad is coal? Bad. Really, really bad. This past week saw the following:
- At Indian Country Today, Winona LaDuke tackled the history and tough politics of Tribes and coal by contrasting the pro-coal Crow with the anti-coal Lummi.
- Air quality testing near coal terminals in Louisiana found dangerously high levels of pollution.
- A coal train derailed in Wisconsin, perhaps owing to exceptionally cold weather that made the tracks brittle.
- New research adds to the evidence that lots of pollution from China is crossing the Pacific to dirty the air in western North America.
Will the Olympic Peninsula’s forests get more wilderness protection?
Michael Pollan explains what’s wrong with the Paleo diet.
Jen Graves wrote what I thought was a beautiful essay about honeymoons.
Anna
Climate Progress pulls back the curtain on the poverty and legacy of pollution behind West Virginia’s massive drinking water-tainting chemical spill. It comes as no surprise that the coal industry is lurking in this heartbreaking saga.
Get this: Oxfam calculates that the 85 richest people have as much as wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the world’s population—3.5 billion people.
Income inequality does not go unnoticed. Pew and USA today just released a survey that shows Americans are deeply concerned about the widening wealth gap and feel that the system is rigged against regular people getting ahead. A surprising number (like 7 in 10) believe that the government should take steps to reduce income inequality.
What? Matt Yglesias leaving Slate and Ezra Klein leaving the Washington Post to start their own news organization? I’m on the edge of my seat.
And, I don’t always find Andy Borowitz all that funny, but he’s killed it on Putin and gays participating in the Olympics (the photo is just too much) and on climate change and the polar vortex.
