Feature Articles
It’s the GDP-obsessed growth model, many reformers argue, that’s leading us to perdition. They decry the irresponsibility of a relatively few taking more than their share, who are profligate with the earth’s dwindling resources. Certainly this “we’ve hit the limits” framing rings true, for, inarguably, human societies have exceeded the limits of destruction, depletion, and disruption our...
Approximately three billion persons around the world eat daily meals cooked with fuel consisting of wood, twigs, agricultural waste, animal dung, and charcoal. They cook in diverse ways with diverse foods in diverse pots across many cultures, often on three-stone fires. A three-stone fire refers to three stones placed on the ground, supporting a pot under which a fire is lighted. Cooking with...
Noteworthy
A new documentary, directed by former journalist Pamela Sherrod Anderson, highlights the unusual case of Arthur Dixon Elementary School on the South Side of Chicago. “Usually, when you hear stories...
In August of last year, the Whanganui River gained its citizenship. Under New Zealand law, the third-longest river in the country will be recognized as a person “in the same way a company is, which...
When nine-year old Martha Payne began a food blog last year, chronicling the paucity of her school lunches, she was not prepared to become a social media star. Payne’s blog, entitled “NeverSeconds,”...
She lived in a small Ugandan village and had lost five of her nine children over the past decade. The spirit, it seemed, the very will to live, had fled her. A neighbor asked if she would be willing to...
Caterpillars might not be haute cuisine for many Americans, but a new organization in Africa is promoting them as a simple, nutritious solution to the continent’s high rate of malnutrition. Shea...
In just over a month, a small team from San Francisco was able to reconstruct five readable documents from 10,000 scraps of paper. The U.S. Department of Defense paid out $50,000 and gained, in turn, a...
Japan powered down its last nuclear reactor earlier this year to make the world’s third-largest economy nuclear free for the first time in almost half a century. The closure of the Tomari plant in...
Eric Schwarz had an idea: to harness the experience and knowledge of trained professionals and bring it to the classroom. After graduating from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, he launched his...
With President Obama and his Republican challengers gearing up to spend millions on their election campaigns, is there any way to defeat organized money? The answer, according to voters in Maine, is...
After Mozambique’s decade-long war for independence (1964–1974) and the civil war that ended in 1992, a network of landmines remained buried in all ten of the country’s provinces. Anti-vehicle mines...
In 2000 an Afghan family paid a trafficker to take them over the border into Pakistan and then on to Denmark or Sweden. But when the trafficker arrived, there was only one spot in the van. The family...
Since the development of antiretroviral drugs in the 1990s, the battle against AIDS has largely been fought over the question of how to distribute the drugs fairly. The drugs save lives, with recent...
When a natural disaster strikes in the West, farmers can turn to their insurance companies for aid. In the developing world, where the dangers are often more acute, and risk of failure grim, there is...
When Denmark announced it was implementing the world’s first fat tax on fast food, the question became, Will other countries adopt the same measure and will it strike a blow against obesity? The fat...
Rebecca Onie describes her mission as “bringing Google to life” for low-income people in need of services. Her Boston-based organization Health Leads recruits thousands of college students to assist...
Perspectives
On a cool day last December, the eminent Swedish scientist Johan Rockström stood in front of a large audience at the European Parliament in Brussels and pleaded his case. “This is what we could call ‘the scientist’s nightmare,’” Rockström said...
In 2010 David Letterman asked Hollywood actress Salma Hayek if she routinely eats bugs. “Look,” she responded. “I'm salivating! They’re delicious!”
Insect eating, officially called entomophagy, is an age-old custom found...
A four-year-old arrives at school and starts crying when she realizes her lunch is packed in a generic plastic bag, not the usual Disney Princess lunchbox she so loves. A friend tells her she won’t be able to sit at the princess lunch table—...
Improved cookstoves ought to be one of the easy wins in global health. Inefficient, old-fashioned cookstoves do real damage to human health and family incomes. Traditional cookstoves are generally open fires in the middle of three stones, which...
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REVIEWING
Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution
Marjorie Kelly, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012
In the beginning, God created...
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Exploring solutions presented in our special July/August issue on Appalachia
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Bowdoin College's Phil Camill offers a fresh perspective to the issues surrounding environmental change.
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Resilient maybe, but ecologically sustainable?
Encouraging the Search for Tipping Point Strategies
Degrowth
Discounting energy available at a known future time
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