Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature)In the summer of 2023, researchers “binge-watched 250 of the most-rated movies” of the past 10 years for climate research purposes. A mere 13 percent of films made mention of climate-related disasters, some more seriously and others “offhandedly” in dialogue. In contrast, since the rise of Hollywood as the […]
The Earth and Human Beings must Be Saved Together
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – A postcard I use as a bookmarker contains a set of principles for gardening in urban soils for minimizing risks to human health from exposure to lead and other contaminants. Developed many years ago for Boston Natural Areas Network by Dr. Wendy Heiger-Bernays, a toxicologist, and myself, […]
The Serviceberry: Native American Ecology and the End of Carbon Capitalism
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – No one wrote more powerfully about humans’ poisoning the Earth and its consequences than biologist Rachel Carson–with a focus on one contaminant, the pesticide DDT. She traced its toxicity through the food chain of nature and the loss of beneficial insects and birds, and then warned of […]
A Do-it-Yourself Kit for Defeating Trumpism: Because the Mainstream Politicians Won’t
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The Republican Administration’s edicts – imposed by broligarchs President Trump and Elon Musk – are with us for the next two to four years. Who/what will defeat them? Not the inside-the Beltway Democratic politicians. Most are supine and silent, or cautious and cowardly, or helping to advance […]
On Int’l Women’s Day: Women’s Equality: What will it Take, What will it Yield?
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – International Women’s Day (now March 8) had its origins in great social unrest, turbulence and critical debate among women in Western countries regarding their oppressive working conditions in factories and their lack of voting rights. Marching through New York City in 1908, 15,000 women demanded shorter hours, […]
Above all Now, Workers’ Unions are the Way Forward
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment, Feature) – My father was a family doctor in the mid-twentieth century whose main political issue was socialized medicine, which he preached against to his “large, poor family,” as he liked to describe us. Dad never turned away a patient who couldn’t pay and brought in indigent patients from […]
In a Time of Oligarchy, a New People’s (Women’s) March for a Green New Deal
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Pick up any US liberal newspaper today and there are reams of columns speculating on the fate of our country. What will happen and how quickly to our country with Trump as president and a cabinet of billionaires as they destroy an already shredded social safety net? […]
Post-Election Beatitude: Beating the Blues
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Whatever postures our country has projected to the world – shining city on a hill; leader of the free world; model of democracy; the indispensable nation; a rules-based order–all have crumbled like a house of cards. Our country’s failures, however, are deeper and older than the recent […]
Your True Self
On a blackboard in a 1930s log cabin at Jacob’s Pillow dance theater in the hills of western Massachusetts, I came upon an intriguing question written in chalk: When do you feel your true self? Visitors had left responses on the blackboard, some thoughtful, some light, such as: “When I am with my friends eating […]
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