Why does the sun shine? A random result of coalescing gases igniting nuclear fusion? Or is it in order to give its light and warmth to Life? Why does the rain fall? Is it the senseless product of blind chemical processes of evaporation and condensation? Or is it to water life? Why do you seek […]
Featured Topic Essay
A Little Heartbreak
A world where small children experience a violation of their sovereignty is inevitably a world where the rainforests, whales, soil, and water suffer a similar violation.
Initiation into a Living Planet
Most people have passed through some kind of initiation in life. By that, I mean a crisis that defies what you knew and what you were. From the rubble of the ensuing collapse, a new self is born into a new world. Societies can also pass through an initiation. That is what climate change poses […]
Why I am Afraid of Global Cooling
In the run-up to the publication of my next book, I’ve been monitoring sources across the spectrum of opinion on climate change. The other day I happened upon this piece, which describes recent measurements of ice mass and ice extent gains in the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland, along with cool surface and tropospheric temperatures. My heart sank. […]
Olive Trees and the Cry of the Land
The olive trees are dying in the Salento region of Italy, the picturesque heel of the Italian peninsula. A new disease called Olive Quick Decline Syndrome (OQDS) is ravaging olive groves that date back to Roman times and before, some with 2000-year-old trees. Leaves wither as is scorched by fire, twigs and branches die back, […]
Opposition to GMOs is Neither Unscientific nor Immoral
Is the engineering of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) a dangerous technology posing grave risks to human and ecological health? Or are GMOs a potent new tool in the onward march of modern agricultural technology in its race to feed the world? In a recent opinion piece — Opposition to GMOs Isn’t Just Anti-Science, It’s Immoral— […]