Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from a speech Senator Sanders (I-VT) gave in December 2010 on the senate floor to protest President Obama’s proposed tax cut compromise. As everybody knows, the United States has a record-breaking national debt exceeding $14 trillion at the same time as the middle class is collapsing and poverty …

In BriefBusinesses have tended to leave the question of how the monetary system works to the government, central banks, and the banking system. Yet in doing so they miss the opportunity to solve key monetary and financial problems that cause real heartburn in times of economic downturn—leading to layoffs, bankruptcies, and cascading economic …

In BriefOver the last 40 years, all levels of government in Germany have retooled policies to promote growth that is more environmentally sustainable. Germany’s experiences can provide useful lessons for the United States (and other nations) as policymakers consider options for “green” economic transformation. Our analysis focuses on four case …

In BriefAcross Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States, small teams of architects are helping communities recover from disaster by bridging the gap between short-term emergency needs and long-term sustainable recovery. In the process, these architects have developed a new approach to working with local communities to utilize …

Rural China is home to about one in every ten people on earth and to more than 150 million school-aged children—a staggering number, comparable to half the entire U.S. population. The children of rural China suffer the negative consequences of the country’s economic boom: their parents often move to the cities as migrant workers and […]

There are “sweet spots” in life where circumstances come together to create seemingly ideal points in time. Some of these are ephemeral: the sweet strike of a golf club on a ball, for example; or the endorphin rush of a long run or an intense romance. Others occur on a larger scale: the height of […]

Christine Walela is a smallholder farmer in Kisiwa, a village in western Kenya. She has four children, and, as is the case for many women in western Kenya, her husband does not support the family. He lives with his second wife, and Christine hardly ever sees him. Christine depends on farming for food and income. […]

For centuries, Minqin Oasis, along the Silk Road in northwestern China, provided a welcome port of call to travelers, serving as a natural barrier against the unremitting dryness of the Tengger and Badain Jaran deserts. That changed in the 1950s, when Chairman Mao implemented a national plan to boost food production. The resulting cultivation, …

Mongolia is the country of endless plains and eternal blue skies. Eighty percent of the land area is covered by grassland, giving home to about 35 million horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and camels. Half of the country’s population of 2.7 million depends on livestock production, which contributes more than 20 percent of the country’s GDP.1 […]

In 1974, chemists Mario Molina and Frank Sherwood Rowland published a landmark article that demonstrated the ability of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to break down the ozone layer, the atmospheric region that plays a vital role in shielding humans and other life from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation.1 It marked the opening salvo of a …

Suppose we could move gloriously and quietly along in our own comfortable car compartment some 20 feet high between the trees, yet with no engine running, no fossil fuel use, no greenhouse gas emissions, and no need to watch the road (Figure 1). Or, we could zip along in channels dug just below ground level […]

In his new book, Fighting Poverty Together: Rethinking Strategies for Business, Governments, and Civil Society to Reduce Poverty, Aneel Karnani challenges conventional thinking about poverty. A professor of strategy at the University of Michigan with a doctorate from Harvard University, Karnani studies poverty reduction and examines how …

The year is 2020. Climate change has been ignored, resources are running low, and the world is faced with environmental and financial crisis. Can you solve the world’s problems? This is the challenge posed not to world leaders, but to video gamers who log onto Fate of the World, a new online game. Confronted with […]

In The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters (Princeton University Press, 2011), economist Diane Coyle gives us a thoughtful, thorough, and somber account of the West’s, and the world’s, ecological and economic problems. Coyle correctly observes that these cannot be divorced from political and social problems; it …

Misuse of European Union subsidies aimed at tackling overfishing has put increased pressure on dwindling fish stocks. Taxpayer subsidies to the tune of 1 billion euros are paid each year to owners of fishing vessels and others working in the fishing industry under the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy. While ostensibly intended to …

Germany has committed to shutting down all of its nuclear reactors by 2022, making it the biggest industrial power to go nuclear-free. Prompted by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the German government has committed to finding alternative sources for almost a quarter of its energy within the next ten years. The move has created […]

More than almost any other nation, Bangladesh is on the front lines of climate change. It’s one of the world’s poorest and most densely populated countries, and most of its lands are less than 30 feet above sea level. In recent years, storms have become more frequent and more severe, claiming the lives of thousands. […]

Green capitalism is thriving in India and nowhere more so than in the renewable-energy sector. Take the entrepreneurs behind the homegrown company Husk Power Systems. Seeing an opportunity to both do good and make money in its home state of Bihar, Husk Power helps provide electricity to a region where 85 percent of the 80 […]