At the Frontlines of the Global Transition
NEW YORK – Happy Thanksgiving from a city aswarm with misgivings about Donald Trump. I’m spending time here trying to help people decipher the details. I find it fascinating almost beyond measure — the careful work of a drama queen trying to calm the turbulent waters of the left and keep faith with his supporters on the right. Follow the steps Trump’s taken. They largely rely on appointing Steve Bannon as a White House advisor. …
SOMERSET, KY. — A story of leadership and poise emerged on Wednesday night after the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. It is a lesson with lasting value to our national life. The Cleveland Indians scored three runs in the bottom of the 8th inning to tie the game. Momentum had veered to the home team. To a man, the Cubs were rattled. Some said they were finding it hard to breathe. At the end …
SOMERSET, KY — There aren’t too many redder places in this reddest of red southern states than Pulaski County. Mitt Romney beat President Obama in 2012 with 80 percent of the vote in this south central Kentucky county, and a nearly 16,000-vote margin — 20,714 to 4,976. Still, on my afternoon runs through the pleasant leafy neighborhoods of Somerset, the county seat, I haven’t seen one yard sign for Donald Trump. It’s as though in …
BENZONIA — Will Americans give in to the darkness and elect Donald Trump? The disturbing answer at this point, just as it was in the late spring, is that enough of his supporters say yes, and too many of his opponents are not sure. There has never been a presidential election like this one in my lifetime, though ample numbers of similarly dangerous men elevated themselves to head of state in other countries. Mussolini’s rise …
COLUMBUS, OH — In the year of Trump it’s plain that the United States is entering a new and reckless age. Our federal lawmakers neglect their constitutional duties to legislate in the public interest. Ideology and inflexibility, the gravest threats to a democracy, are elevated as virtues on the political right and political left. Random massacres occur with weekly frequency. Fear and distrust and racism and hate have been unleashed as mainstream attitudes. Where are …
Until a ferocious drought withered crops, turned rivers to trickles, and dried up municipal drinking water supplies, one of Limpopo province’s distinctions was the ample sun and good soil that made it South Africa’s premier producer of fruits and vegetables. Another distinction was that farmers developed an informal accord to share scarce water with coal companies that were busy developing the Waterberg Coalfield that lies beneath dry central Limpopo. This week Yale Environment 360, the …
FLINT, MI —FLINT, MI – Before Barack Obama spent the afternoon in this tormented post-industrial Michigan city last week, the last president that visited Flint was Gerald Ford. That was 1974, just a few months after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. Flint in the 1970s provided the vital equipment, and perfectly reflected the auto-oriented, resource-abundant, mobile American way of life nearly half a century ago. General Motors employed 80,000 people in its Flint car and …
It’s been nearly three years since I traveled in Uttarakhand, India to report on the aftermath of a murderous Himalayan flood that killed thousands of Hindu pilgrims and wrecked at least 10 big hydropower dams. Witnessing that much damage from an ecological event changed how I viewed the power of Mother Nature and the wrath she is exhibiting to human communities. It’s been nearly two years since I reported on how citizens in Assam, India …
OWENSBORO, KY — By now, the 47th observance of Earth Day, the point of summoning people to protect Mother Nature is clear. What started in 1970 as a call to action from the youthful wing of American society has matured into mainstream global operating principles for assuring that human life thrives in the 21st century. Essentially, that is what the founders of Earth Day anticipated. Earth Day was never just about preventing pollution or conserving …
OWENSBORO, KY— I made it. Tomorrow, April 19, 2016 is my 60th birthday. It feels great. Purposeful. Definitive. Fully engaged. Fun. Turning 60 means you’ve been around for awhile. If I were a kitchen I’d have been remodeled at least three times. If I were a maple tree I’d be 80 feet tall. If I were a blue whale, I’d weigh 150 tons. Turning 60 means that you’ve learned a few things. You learn that …
