The injustice of climate change

The injustice of climate change

Roseann Bongiovanni and John Walkey write: We do not all suffer the same climate injustices. Frontline communities — those shouldering the burdens of environmental, public health and quality of life impacts, for the benefits of our larger region — often go unnoticed. In Greater Boston, the communities along Chelsea Creek, which winds 2.6 miles through Chelsea and East Boston, is just one example. In massive tanks and open lots along the banks of Chelsea Creek are the storage depots for…

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Studying the hidden effects of artificial light

Studying the hidden effects of artificial light

Rebecca Boyle writes: Light is the basis for all life, but it is more than just a source of energy. It is also a source of information, telling organisms when to sleep, hunt, hide, migrate, metabolize, and reproduce. Since the advent of incandescent light bulbs, humans have been interfering with those messages. And the interference is worsening with the spread of LEDs, which consume less electricity and so are often brighter and stay on longer and later than their predecessors….

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New study suggests subterranean continents in Earth’s mantle untouched for more than 4 billion years

New study suggests subterranean continents in Earth’s mantle untouched for more than 4 billion years

GeoSpace reports: Ancient, distinct, continent-sized regions of rocks, isolated since before the collision that created the Moon 4.5 billion years ago, exist hundreds of miles below the Earth’s crust, offering a window into the building blocks of our planet, according to new research. The new study in the AGU Journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems used models to trace the location and origin of volcanic rock samples found throughout the world back to two solid continents in the deep mantle. The new…

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If world leaders choose to fail us, my generation will never forgive them

If world leaders choose to fail us, my generation will never forgive them

At the UN Climate Action summit in New York on Monday, Greta Thunberg said: This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in…

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There’s evidence that climate activism could be swaying public opinion in the U.S.

There’s evidence that climate activism could be swaying public opinion in the U.S.

By Nathaniel Geiger, Indiana University Climate activists walked out of classrooms and workplaces in more than 150 countries on Friday, Sept. 20 to demand stronger action on climate change. Mass mobilizations like this have become increasingly common in recent years. I’m a scholar of environmental communication who examines how people become engaged with solving dilemmas such as climate change, and how activism motivates others to take action. A new study I worked on suggests that large rallies, such as this…

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Trump against the United States

Trump against the United States

David Leonhardt writes: Sometimes it’s worth stepping back to look at the full picture. He has pressured a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 American presidential election. He urged a foreign country to intervene in the 2016 presidential election. He divulged classified information to foreign officials. He publicly undermined American intelligence agents while standing next to a hostile foreign autocrat. He hired a national security adviser who he knew had secretly worked as a foreign lobbyist. He encourages foreign…

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The strategic case for impeaching Trump

The strategic case for impeaching Trump

Daniel W. Drezner writes: It is safe to assume that Trump will continue to abuse the powers of the presidency as long as he is in office. The Ukraine example shows that he is not above using presidential authority for partisan gain. Furthermore, when he is not doing those things, he is pursuing other policies that harm the U.S. economy and the national interest. Would impeachment stop any of that? No, not directly. What it would do, however, is distract…

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House Democrats need to learn some key lessons from Watergate

House Democrats need to learn some key lessons from Watergate

Jonathan C. Rose, special assistant to President Nixon from 1971 to 1973, writes: At its inception in February 1973, the Senate Watergate Committee had only a June 1972 burglary and the well-publicized “dirty tricks” to investigate. However, soon after the committee’s creation, evidence began to emerge of a White House–orchestrated cover-up of the Watergate burglary. As evidence implicating the White House mounted, the administration displayed no inclination toward negotiation or accommodation with the Senate Watergate Committee. On March 15, 1973,…

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The White House is much more afraid of impeachment than it’s letting on

The White House is much more afraid of impeachment than it’s letting on

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s lawyers insist they don’t need to form an impeachment defense team. Yet here’s what they have: At least 30 White House and Justice Department attorneys who have worked on related issues. Several personal lawyers for the president dealing with the subject. A lurking presence at Capitol Hill impeachment-focused hearings. Aggressive legal briefs and countersuits foiling efforts to gather fuel for potential proceedings. Near-daily media appearances discussing the topic. This technically nonexistent yet omnipresent force has been…

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FBI arrests Army soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb major American news network

FBI arrests Army soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb major American news network

ABC News reports: The FBI has arrested a U.S. soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb a major American news network, planned to travel to Ukraine to fight with violent far-right group Azov Battalion and allegedly distributed information online on how to build bombs. He also allegedly suggested targeting Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. According to charging documents in the case, Jarrett William Smith, who transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas, in July, joined the U.S. military only after first expressing…

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Climate protesters and world leaders, on the same planet but in different worlds

Climate protesters and world leaders, on the same planet but in different worlds

Somini Sengupta writes: This is the world we live in: Punishing heat waves, catastrophic floods, huge fires and climate conditions so uncertain that children took to the streets en masse in global protests to demand action. But this is also the world we live in: A pantheon of world leaders who have deep ties to the industries that are the biggest sources of planet-warming emissions, are hostile to protests, or use climate science denial to score political points. That stark…

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Trump didn’t bribe Ukraine — it’s worse than that

Trump didn’t bribe Ukraine — it’s worse than that

Renato Mariotti writes: What Trump is alleged to have done is not a garden variety crime; it’s worse. It involved misusing $250 million in aid appropriated by Congress for his benefit—the kind of gross misconduct that easily clears the bar of high crimes and misdemeanors set by the Constitution when impeaching a president. Which means the best way to hold Trump accountable for that misconduct isn’t a criminal trial; it’s for Congress to impeach him. Pursuing criminal cases that won’t…

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Leader of Arab Palestinian Joint List: We are ending Netanyahu’s grip on Israel

Leader of Arab Palestinian Joint List: We are ending Netanyahu’s grip on Israel

Ayman Odeh writes: The Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel have chosen to reject Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his politics of fear and hate, the inequality and division he advanced for the past decade. Last summer, Mr. Netanyahu declared that Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up a fifth of the population, were to be second-class citizens, officially. “Israel is not a state of all its citizens,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote on Instagram after passing the Nation-State law. “According to the…

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Russian trolls love targeting U.S. veterans

Russian trolls love targeting U.S. veterans

The New Republic reports: The post popped up in select Instagram feeds shortly before the election in 2016. Its photo depicted an anonymous black-clad woman on an airport tarmac, crying over a metal casket covered in an American flag. “Killary Clinton will never understand what it feels like to lose the person you love for the sake of your country,” the caption began. “Honoring the high cost paid by so many families to protect our freedom. Buy a T-shirt—help a…

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