Capitalism, the Doomsday Machine (or, How to Repurpose Growth Capital)
David Fleming, the late British economist, contributed many blazing insights; one that’s captivated my attention recently has to do with capital. Fleming counted six kinds of capital (natural, human, social, scientific/cultural, material, and financial), and noted that all six...
Nomadland: The Impact of Gender-Bias in Wages
If you grew up agitated that “women earn 59 cents on the dollar,” for the same work as men, there’s a movie for you. At the beginning of the new film, Nomadland, one of the characters tells Fern, the...
Drucilla Cornell on the power of the public imagination
I recently read a brilliant article by Drucilla Cornell and Stephen D. Seely, called ‘What has happened to the public imagination, and why?’. I found it so insightful, and such a powerful take on what the public imagination is and why...
Will Technology Solve Climate Change?
The following is Richard Heinberg’s contribution to a two-way discussion with Adam Dorr, an environmental social scientist at the nonprofit think tank Rethinkx. The exchange was hosted by Pairagraph, a platform for written dialogue between pairs of notable individuals. For the entire exchange, click here....
Recovering from Covid
Count me among the tens of thousands of cancer survivors who’ve said, “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me.” When I told friends, in 2004, that I had...
Insurrection, Pandemic, and Censorship
On January 6, thousands gathered in Washington, DC to hear an inciteful speech from President Trump, then forcefully breached the US Capitol Building in an effort to disrupt the peaceful transition of presidential power—an institutional foundation of democracy. Some...
Trump and His Many Billionaire Enablers
We’ve heard plenty about the GOP members of Congress and Trump political appointees who have “enabled” Donald Trump over these four years, failing to act to stem his excesses. But what about the billionaire donors to Trump’s campaign and...
2020: The Year Consensus Reality Fractured
Virtually everyone agrees that 2020 was an abomination. An entire industry of opinion writers is busying itself with end-of-year handwringing, scouring every online thesaurus for adjectives to express just how horrible the last twelve months have been. But what...
The Real Plan? To Make America Ungovernable
The US presidential election of 2020 is now behind us—or is it? President Trump has yet to concede his defeat, and many Republican lawmakers have demanded recounts and backed lawsuits. Some commentators fear that the current administration is laying...
A Target of Alberta’s ‘War Room’ Fires Back
[Editor’s note: Last year Alberta Premier Jason Kenney established a $30-million-per-year, publicly funded “war room” to promote the oil and gas industry and slam those who don’t. Hired to run it was Tom Olsen, a veteran right-wing politico and losing candidate...