Each year Americans throw away more than three billion batteries constituting 180,000 tons of hazardous material. The situation is likely to get worse as the world shifts to lithium batteries to power a massive influx of electric vehicles (EVs). It needs immediate attention.
The experts tell us an energy gap looms. Fossil fuels are phasing out, and solar and wind power can’t produce enough electricity to meet the demand in the coming decades.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
2024 is likely to be filled with more than the usual challenges to planetary safety and survival. Here’s a look at 10 issues and a wild card that suggest what’s ahead internationally that is worth our attention.
Exactly what causes people to leave their homeland and make a difficult trek of 3,000 miles?
We all have our reasons for getting alarmed about the climate crisis. With bare ground at Christmas and no snow on the horizon, my neighbors just got theirs. This Northern Maine valley nestles against the border of Canada – and winter without snow is unfathomable.
When Swedish mechanics working for Tesla walked off the job in late October, their action may not have seemed consequential to most Americans. But, by way of contrast, these workers now powerfully remind us not only of some of the most glaring defects of American labor relations, but also of pathways that can return the U.S. to a greater measure of economic equality and labor justice.
This past year, Writers on the Range, an independent opinion service based in western Colorado, sent out 52 weekly opinion columns. They were provided free of charge to more than 200 subscribing editors of publications large and small, each of whom republished dozens of the columns.
In the streets of Bogalusa, Louisiana, a sadly familiar scene unfolds — the mournful wail of sirens, the piercing flash of blue lights, and another community shaken by the harsh crack of gunfire. This is a recurring nightmare echoing across Louisiana, reflecting a national crisis that grips the heart of America.
In most media coverage of war — including the hell in the Middle East, where World War III looms —the unexamined assumption is that we, the readers, are spectators, looking on as the missiles fly and Good dukes it out with Evil yet again.
