Guest Thinkers
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“The passive-building standard is only now getting off the ground in the United States—despite years of data suggesting that America’s drafty building methods are wasteful.”
“Tariq Ramadan says [the Ground Zero Islamic Center] should be built elsewhere. He debates Mustafa Bayoumi, an associate professor at Brooklyn College.”
“Historians say it is time to radically rewrite America’s slavery story to include its buried history in New England. More than we like to think, the North was built on slavery.”
“The philosophy that became known as ‘Tolstoyism’ was essentially a form of Christian anarchism based on the doctrine of non-resistance.”
“The process of death can damage organs, rendering them useless for others. Ethicists now debate whether transplant surgery should begin before the heart stops.”
From restarting the economy to dealing with climate change, society’s biggest questions turn on how they are defined by advocates and the news media and acted upon by the public […]
“Is this my new reality?” is the question by the CFO at the CNBC townhall program earlier this week that should have gotten all the attention. Because it is at […]
The bicycle has come a long way since the kernel of its invention in 1817. One of the most interesting innovations in cycling over the past few years has been […]
Nearly fifty years into mankind’s space exploration, we have littered the heavens with our garbage. There is an incredible amount of debris that that is literally stuck in Earth’s gravitational […]
Is there a truly “revolutionary” element in the current surge of anger in American politics? What is the place of madness and irrationality in revolution? If we want to speak […]
“Stop economic growth in its tracks, start living locally, at a slower pace, and share more—that was the remarkable demand yesterday at the beginning of the Sustainable Planet Forum.”
The beat goes on: “Andvinyly, a UK-based outfit, has this offer: after you die, you can have some of your cremated ashes pressed into a vinyl record.”
“We think of terraforming as something we’ll do in the future to other planets, but we have thousands of years of experience changing the shape of our own planet in profound ways.”
“Various efforts are underway to find a cheap, efficient and scalable way to recycle the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide back into the hydrocarbons that fuel civilization.”
Yesterday I wrote that just about the only substantive thing the Republicans promise to do differently from Democrats in their recently released “Pledge to America” is to extend the Bush […]
More than 3 billion pizzas are sold in the US each year, with the majority coming from takeout and delivery. Unfortunately, most pizza boxes are made from standard cardboard. Add […]
The official version for the delay in a key conference – likely to decide the future leadership of North Korea – of the ruling Workers Party, is that widespread and […]
Here at the end of busy week, we have some news that Eruptions readers have been following on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. Piton de la Fournaise, the active […]
This week, the global cities of Bogota, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Milan celebrate “Social Media Week,” with events and seminars focused on the use of digital media for building […]
“It is really just a few decades since human rights became the world’s preferred vocabulary for talking about justice.” Slate reviews a new book on the history of human rights claims.
The modern view of the American soldier at war is invariably shaped by television. Beginning with the Vietnam War, the first war brought literally into the living rooms of private […]
Tomorrow, the Republicans plan to roll out their “Pledge to America” outlining what they plan to do if they regain control of Congress. The platform is an updated version of […]
Some news! Get it while it is hot! Neanderthals and volcanoes: A recent study by Naomi Cleghorn and others that appeared in Current Anthropology lays the blame for the extinction […]
The results of Labour’s leadership election will be known officially at 4.30pm on Saturday 25th September, as delegates to the party conference assemble in Manchester, Northern England. The contest has been […]
In 1889, three-hundred Parisian workers completed assembling 18,000 pieces of iron that comprise the Eiffel Tower. The structure, intended to only stand 20 years, was initially received with great criticism, […]
The open access Journal of Science Communicationhas published several outstanding commentaries authored by a diversity of European, UK, and U.S. scholars assessing growth and trends in the academic discipline of […]
“A newly-leaked study—which advises the German military—paints a bleak picture of the post-peak oil world, including a complete market collapse and various forms of social unrest.”
What is intellectual property? What is privacy? These questions play out daily now, and those in a position to answer them occasionally shift their views, but the questions surrounding the […]
Two political action committees backed by former Bush political advisers Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie—American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS—have raised a combined $32 million so far this year. They raised […]
When it comes to marriage, most economists would expect that in societies with high income inequality, polygyny (one man with multiple wives) should exist. But while prosperous nations often have high income inequality, they rarely allow polygyny.