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Headed for a reckoning: A look inside NYT Magazine’s climate issue

by Elva Diller Posted on April 12, 2019

This Sunday, subscribers to New York Times Magazine will receive a noteworthy issue in their mailboxes. Its theme is climate change, marking the second time in eight months that the magazine has dedicated an entire issue to the pressing problem.

The first was Nathaniel Rich’s “Losing Earth,” which took up an entire issue last August and was reportedly the longest article ever published in the magazine. The 30,000-word piece covered the decade between 1979 and 1989 when humanity had a decent chance at putting a serious dent in the climate problem. (That article was recently turned into a book.)

This time, the so-called Climate Issue features several shorter articles instead of a single massive one, and those pieces look at the present and the future, rather than back at the past. It amounts to the Times’ most comprehensive look to date at the economics of climate change. Some highlights from the forthcoming issue:

“The Next Reckoning: Capitalism and Climate Change”

When the “Losing Earth” issue came out, it received some criticism for letting oil companies off the hook for their role in fomenting the political indecision that continues to plague Congress. Lo and behold, the new issue features a second article by Rich that offers a scathing rebuke of corporations for their ruthless pursuit of easy profits.

“It has become commonplace to observe that corporations behave like psychopaths,” he writes, calling out ExxonMobil by name. “They are self-interested to the point of violence, possess a vibrant disregard for laws and social mores, have an indifference to the rights of others and fail to feel remorse.” He wonders whether capitalism is fundamentally at odds with climate action and ends his piece with the assertion that coercion — economic, political, or moral — “must be the remedy” to whipping corporations into shape.

“The Problem With Putting a Price on the End of the World”

Another article from Sunday’s issue evaluates the obstacles to putting a price on climate change. Opinion columnist David Leonhardt, with help from a couple of prominent economists, weighs the pros and cons of carbon pricing and tries to uncover why that particular policy for reducing emissions is losing favor in the public square. The central question, he writes, “is whether any policy is both big enough to matter and popular enough to happen.”

“Climate Chaos Is Coming — and the Pinkertons Are Ready”

Journalist Noah Gallagher Shannon’s piece about a private security contractor prepping for climate fallout paints a bleak and fascinating picture of a future in which huge corporate clients turn to third parties to protect themselves against upheaval.

Turns out, that world is already here. Pinkerton, an agency originally formed in the mid-1800s “in response to the lawlessness of the frontier,” is rebranding itself as disaster-security-for-hire prepared to mitigate the risks of climate change for its clients: hurricanes, mass migration, violence, food shortages, and more.

Shannon observed a talk by Pinkerton’s senior vice president in charge of the Americas: “‘You’re going to turn to desperate measures,’ he said. Everybody will. The other Pinkertons nodded.”

What services, exactly, do the Pinkertons offer? “Armed warehouse defense, executive extraction, 24-hour surveillance, chartered helicopters and planes, escorted cargo shipments.” As Shannon writes, “Pinkerton sells safety.” Climate change is the new threat.

Whereas the New York Times Magazine’s previous climate-themed issue focused on a single narrative, its second foray into the world of climate writing puts a lineup of articles in conversation with one another about the economic, political, and moral feasibility of reigning in climate change.

In sum, the Climate Issue gives you a good idea of where humanity is headed if a policy that is both “big enough to matter and popular enough to happen” doesn’t come around soon: nowhere good.

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Headed for a reckoning: A look inside NYT Magazine’s climate issue

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Americans have planted so much corn that it’s changing the weather

by NatishaConnah Posted on December 7, 2018

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This story was originally published by Atlas Obscura and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Corn farmers in eastern Nebraska have long claimed weather patterns are changing, but in an unexpected way.

“It’s something I’ve talked about with my dad and granddad many times,” says fifth-generation corn farmer Brandon Hunnicutt. Along with his father and brother, the 45 year old lives in the 400-person village of Giltner and grows about 2,000 acres of corn each year. From above, the area looks like a blip of homes surrounded by an expansive grid of circular fields. Though Brandon’s grandfather is retired, he takes an active interest in the business. “Contrary to what you’d think should be happening, both him and my dad swear up and down [that] droughts used to come more often and be a lot worse,” says Hunnicutt. “Considering it’s been 30 years since we had a really bad one, I’ve started kind of taking them at their word.”

This is not the only noticeable development — University of Nebraska climatologists say the growing season has gotten 10-14 days longer since 1980. Hunnicutt now waits until the first weeks of November to pilot his 40-foot-wide, dump-truck-sized combine through the farm’s widely arching, seemingly endless rows of corn — enough to cover 800 city blocks.

Though subtle, the Hunnicutts have noticed these changes and more.

“To be successful in this business, you’ve got to pay close attention to the weather,” explains Brandon. In the past 20 years, on top of the above, he’s noted a gradual decrease in 100-degree days during the summer. “That missing digit isn’t something you overlook,” he asserts with a laugh. “High temperatures create a lot of anxiety. If they go on long enough, they’ll scorch your corn and put a hurtin’ on your bottom line!”

A 2018 report issued by climate researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claims to have solved the mystery and verified farmers’ suspicions: Namely, that large-scale corn production has changed the weather.

Over the past 70 years, farmers in America’s midwestern Corn Belt have made vast leaps in production. From 1950 to 2010, annual harvests increased by more than 400 percent, jumping from 2 billion to 10 billion bushels. In addition to making the area the world’s most productive agricultural region, climate scientists at MIT say the boom has created its own weather patterns.

“We studied data from the past 30 years and found that the intensification of corn production has increased average summer rainfalls by about 35 percent and decreased [average summer] temperatures by as much as one degree Celsius,” says former MIT researcher Ross E. Alter, now a research meteorologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Alter was the lead author of a 2018 report published in the journal of the American Geophysical Union that demonstrated how land use has impacted the region’s climate more than greenhouse gas emissions. “What makes these findings so fascinating is that, while global temperatures have risen, areas like eastern Nebraska have actually cooled,” continues Alter, referring to yearly averages. “We think it’s likely heavy agriculture counteracted rising summer temperatures that might have otherwise resulted from increasing greenhouse gases.”

In other words, the human-made shift has been helpful. By increasing yields, farmers have unintentionally created weather patterns that seem to be protecting their crops and helping them grow more corn. (Of course, burning fossil fuels to plant, cultivate, harvest, process, and ship farm products has been shown to be a major contributor to rising levels of greenhouse gases.)

Though similar effects have to some degree been observed in the rice-growing regions of eastern China, the report marks the first time the effects of agriculture on regional climate change in the central U.S. have undergone comprehensive analysis. The findings document the most significant human-made regional climate shift in world history.

“On a global level, this research is important because it proves the influence of agricultural intensification is really an independent problem from greenhouse gas emissions,” explains Alter.

By comparing observed historical trends in the Corn Belt’s climate to those predicted by a variety of global simulations used by the World Climate Research Program, which coordinates climate research sponsored by various international organizations, the report showed the models were inaccurate for the region (they predicted summer temperatures would rise and rainfall would increase by just four percent). Though the WCRP models accounted for greenhouse gas emissions and other human and natural factors, they did not consider agricultural intensification.

“Our findings are a bit different from what people thought about the mechanisms of climate change,” says Alter. He believes that accurately simulating and understanding climate change at the local level will require a look at cases of agricultural intensification like Nebraska’s corn boom.

But how, specifically, has growing more corn changed the climate? Associate Nebraska State Climatologist Al Dutcher says it’s complicated.

On one hand, it has to do with what Hunnicutt and other farmers refer to as “corn sweat.” This happens when photosynthesis boosts the amount of water vapor in the air.

“When a plant’s pores, called stomata, open to allow carbon dioxide to enter, they simultaneously allow water to escape,” writes Kimberly Hickok, who covers climate change for Science Magazine and reviewed the report. Known as transpiration, the process cools the plant and surrounding air, and increases the amount of water going into the atmosphere and returning as rainfall. As Hickok notes, “the cycle may continue” as that additional rainwater evaporates back into the atmosphere and causes rainfall on other farms and towns downwind.

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Put another way: More corn means more transpiration. Which, in turn, produces slightly cooler temperatures and increased precipitation. The fact that corn is a non-native species boosts the effect.

“The predominant native vegetation in central and eastern Nebraska is grass,” explains Dutcher. Farmers have replaced the area’s vast seas of grass with more than 9 million acres of corn, which transpires at a rate 20 percent higher than indigenous grasses. “Agriculture is literally funneling moisture into the atmosphere, and all that humidity has created a kind of protective bubble against rising temperatures.”

Dutcher and Hunnicutt say growing more corn — and thus, creating more transpiration — would have been impossible without advances in farming efficiency. The introduction of high-yielding varieties, better irrigation, and soil management techniques, along with the ability to use computer sensors to closely monitor field conditions, have all contributed to soaring yields.

“One of the biggest factors is the widespread use of cover crops, crop residue management, and no-till farming methods,” writes University of Nebraska-Lincoln Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources extension engineer Paul Jasa. Together, the practices have erased the need for conventional tillage, dramatically increased organic matter in the soil, reduced evaporation and runoff, and lowered summer surface temperatures. “With time, the [native clay-based] soil has become much healthier and better at retaining water,” Jasa continues. “This has made crops more resilient to traumatic weather events and, in general, much more productive.”

Hunnicutt says automated irrigation has helped boost overall production and allowed him to grow corn in pivot corners where his grandfather could not. Upward of 340 acres that formerly yielded nothing now contribute as much as 180 bushels per acre. In his tenure as a farmer, full-field yields have grown by more than 50 bushels an acre.

“I can get minute-to-minute weather predictions and tell you moisture levels anywhere in our fields just by glancing at my phone,” says Hunnicutt. “In the 1950s, my grandad was using a Farmers’ Almanac. Back then, if they thought the soil was too dry, they just dumped water on it. Now, I know exactly what my plants need and when to apply it.”

As might be expected, Alter’s report has a dark side. And that dark side has global implications.

“In terms of the Corn Belt, the degree of agricultural intensification we’ve seen in the last 30 years isn’t sustainable,” he says. “It’s projected to soon come to an end and may even decline.” And if that happens, the mitigating effect of agriculture will disappear, and global temperatures will rise even faster.

Though studies have yet to be conducted around the world, Alter says that areas that have experienced substantial agricultural intensification have likely experienced similar benefits: more rainfall and cooler average temperatures during the summers. Like Nebraska, the effects have probably masked negative changes and will eventually be overwhelmed.

“I know some of the anti-climate change folks will probably poo-poo this, but it’s something my family takes very seriously,” says Hunnicutt. “We’ve been in this business for five generations, and I hope to see my children and grandchildren carry on that tradition. We’re doing everything we can to reduce fuel consumption and increase efficiency. Our hope is these [mitigatory effects] will give us enough of a window to make adjustments and prepare for what’s coming.”

In the meantime, he hopes the world gets its act together and curbs emissions before it’s too late.

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Americans have planted so much corn that it’s changing the weather

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Wilderness and the American Mind – Roderick Frazier Nash & Char Miller

by Myrna Posted on October 26, 2018

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Wilderness and the American Mind

Fifth Edition

Roderick Frazier Nash & Char Miller

Genre: Nature

Price: $17.99

Publish Date: January 28, 2014

Publisher: Yale University Press

Seller: Yale University


Roderick Nash’s classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. The  Los Angeles Times listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine included it in a survey of “books that changed our world,” and it has been called the “Book of Genesis for environmentalists.”   For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness. Char Miller’s foreword provides a twenty-first-century perspective on how the environmental movement has changed, including the ways in which contemporary scholars are reimagining the dynamic relationship between the natural world and the built environment.

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Wilderness and the American Mind – Roderick Frazier Nash & Char Miller

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What the Eyes Don’t See – Mona Hanna-Attisha

by Myrna Posted on June 19, 2018

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What the Eyes Don’t See

A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City

Mona Hanna-Attisha

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $13.99

Publish Date: June 19, 2018

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


The dramatic story of the Flint water crisis, told “with the gripping intrigue of a Grisham thriller” ( O: The Oprah Magazine )—an inspiring tale of scientific resistance by a relentless physician who stood up to power. Flint was already a troubled city in 2014 when the state of Michigan—in the name of austerity—shifted the source of its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Soon after, citizens began complaining about the water that flowed from their taps—but officials rebuffed them, insisting that the water was fine. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at the city’s public hospital, took state officials at their word and encouraged the parents and children in her care to continue drinking the water—after all, it was American tap water, blessed with the state’s seal of approval. But a conversation at a cookout with an old friend, leaked documents from a rogue environmental inspector, and the activism of a concerned mother raised red flags about lead—a neurotoxin whose irreversible effects fall most heavily on children. Even as circumstantial evidence mounted and protests grew, Dr. Mona knew that the only thing that could stop the lead poisoning was undeniable proof— and that to get it, she’d have to enter the fight of her life.  What the Eyes Don’t See is the inspiring story of how Dr. Mona—accompanied by an idiosyncratic team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders—proved that Flint’s kids were exposed to lead and then fought her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Paced like a scientific thriller, this book shows how misguided austerity policies, the withdrawal of democratic government, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. And at the center of the story is Dr. Mona herself—an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother whose family’s activist roots inspired her pursuit of justice.  What the Eyes Don’t See is a riveting, beautifully rendered account of a shameful disaster that became a tale of hope, the story of a city on the ropes that came together to fight for justice, self-determination, and the right to build a better world for their—and all of our—children. “Flint is a public health disaster. But it was Dr. Mona, this caring, tough pediatrician turned detective, who cracked the case.”—Rachel Maddow   “It’s one thing to point out a problem. It is another thing altogether to step up and work to fix it. Mona Hanna-Attisha is a true American hero.”—Erin Brockovich 

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What the Eyes Don’t See – Mona Hanna-Attisha

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California is turning farms into carbon-sucking factories

by EllenDMOYi Posted on May 11, 2018

In a grand experiment, California switched on a fleet of high-tech greenhouse gas removal machines last month. Funded by the state’s cap-and-trade program, they’re designed to reverse climate change by sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. These wonderfully complex machines are more high-tech than anything humans have designed. They’re called plants.

Seriously, though: Plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. They break open the tough CO2 molecule and use the carbon to build their leaves and roots. In the process, they deposit carbon into the ground. For years people have excitedly discussed the possibility of stashing carbon in the soil while growing food. Now, for the first time, California is using cap-and-trade money to pay farmers to do it on a large scale. It’s called the California Healthy Soils Initiative.

In April, trucks full of fertilizer trundled into Doug Lo’s almond orchards near Gustine, California, and spread composted manure around his trees. He then planted clover to cover the ground between the trunks. In theory, these techniques will pull 1,088 tons of carbon out of the atmosphere every year. Lo’s is one of about fifty farms getting money from the state of California to pull greenhouse gas from the air. California is paying him $50,000 to try it out.

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“We’re trying to sequester some carbon,” Lo said. “It should also help with the water-holding capacity of the soil, and the flowers in the cover crop should feed bees after the almond bloom is over.”

This is the first major utilization of farms as state-sponsored carbon-sucking factories. (To be fair, Oklahoma, of all places, has been experimenting with soil carbon since 2001, albeit on a smaller scale.) Agriculture and climate nerds — we wonkiest of wonks — have been anticipating this for the last decade as the scientific evidence accumulated.

In 2014 we wrote about the people pushing this research in California. And Grist told the story last year of how scientist Jonathan Sanderman put together key pieces of this puzzle after finding jars of old dirt, long forgotten in storage. And just recently, the New York Times Magazine ran a story summarizing the state of the science. But for years it’s felt like a lot of talk and not much action. That’s changing with the Healthy Soils Initiative, which makes money available for farmers like Lo, and monitors the results.

So how do you turn a farm into a carbon-sucking machine? Lo figured the money from the state would allow him to experiment without risk. He made a deal with a compost company to truck manure from dairies across California’s central valley then spread precisely 5.3 tons per acre under his almond trees as required by the state guidelines. An inspector from the California Department of Food and Agriculture showed up on the day the trucks arrived in April to make sure Lo was actually doing the work and not just doing the paperwork. Next, Lo planted clover and other cover crops in the rows between the trees.

A lot is riding on this, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that it will work. In theory, compost and cover crops should get carbon out of the sky and into the ground. But will it work in practice on Lo’s farm? With the farm’s particular soil structure, irrigation pattern, as well as the dirt’s microbiome? We don’t know how fast carbon will accumulate in his soil, or how long it will stay there.

When I asked Lo how confident he was that he was going to get exactly 1,088 tons of carbon into the ground he responded: “Well, that’s just what the soil scientists said. We’re going to see I guess!”

As of last Thursday the soil samples on Lo’s farm haven’t shown an increase in carbon content, but it takes about three years for compost to break down, he said. Other farmers and state officials will be watching this rollout of carbon-sucking farms closely. And if it works, and these farms manage to capture enough carbon, program could scale up massively. California’s Healthy Soils Initiative could serve as a model for other states.

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California is turning farms into carbon-sucking factories

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The EPA edited out farmworker concerns about pesticides.

by MTEElissaujgl Posted on March 30, 2018

Producing artificial snow used to be a desperate move taken by ski areas within striking distance of surfing beaches. Now, the practice is commonplace, even high in the Rocky Mountains and the Alps.

As a headline in Powder Magazine read last year, “Like It or Not, Snowmaking Is the Future.”

Utah’s Alta ski area has doubled its snowmaking capacity in the last decade. To make sure all those big machines and water pipes don’t detract too much from the scenery, they’re painted to blend in with the background, according to a dispatch from Wired. At Snowbird, also in Utah, each snow gun has its own weather station, allowing the machines to start, stop, and adjust water flow all on their own.

California’s Squaw Valley spent $10 million on machines that automatically change their water pressure and amount several times a second. Heavenly Ski Resort, at Lake Tahoe, can cover 3,500 acres with fake snow.

All these machines run on electricity, which comes from the still-mostly-fossil-fueled grid. That means making fake snow increases the rate of The Great Melt, which in turn creates demand for … more snow machines. There’s a self-perpetuating cycle of job security for these snow-bots: Is this the way Skynet becomes self-aware?

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The EPA edited out farmworker concerns about pesticides.

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These 5 Southerners are fixing up Dixie.

by KraigDbozfoaye Posted on March 29, 2018

Producing artificial snow used to be a desperate move taken by ski areas within striking distance of surfing beaches. Now, the practice is commonplace, even high in the Rocky Mountains and the Alps.

As a headline in Powder Magazine read last year, “Like It or Not, Snowmaking Is the Future.”

Utah’s Alta ski area has doubled its snowmaking capacity in the last decade. To make sure all those big machines and water pipes don’t detract too much from the scenery, they’re painted to blend in with the background, according to a dispatch from Wired. At Snowbird, also in Utah, each snow gun has its own weather station, allowing the machines to start, stop, and adjust water flow all on their own.

California’s Squaw Valley spent $10 million on machines that automatically change their water pressure and amount several times a second. Heavenly Ski Resort, at Lake Tahoe, can cover 3,500 acres with fake snow.

All these machines run on electricity, which comes from the still-mostly-fossil-fueled grid. That means making fake snow increases the rate of The Great Melt, which in turn creates demand for … more snow machines. There’s a self-perpetuating cycle of job security for these snow-bots: Is this the way Skynet becomes self-aware?

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These 5 Southerners are fixing up Dixie.

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The Edge of Physics – Anil Ananthaswamy

by Myrna Posted on March 20, 2018

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The Edge of Physics

A Journey to Earth’s Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe

Anil Ananthaswamy

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: March 2, 2010

Publisher: Mariner Books

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


A tour of the exotic and remote outposts where scientists seek answers to the great mysteries: “A thrilling ride around the globe and around the cosmos.” —Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here In The Edge of Physics , a science writer journeys to the ends of the Earth—visiting remote and sometimes dangerous places—in search of the telescopes and detectors that promise to answer the biggest questions in modern cosmology.   Anil Ananthaswamy treks to the Atacama Desert in the Chilean Andes, one of the coldest, driest places on the planet, where not even a blade of grass can survive, and the spectacularly clear skies and dry atmosphere allow astronomers to gather brilliant images of galaxies billions of light-years away. He takes us inside the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere’s Very Large Telescope on Mount Paranal, where four massive domes open to the sky each night “like a dragon waking up.”   Ananthaswamy also heads deep inside an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota—where half-mile-thick rock shields physicists as they hunt for elusive dark matter particles. And to the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, where engineers are drilling 1.5 miles into the clearest ice on the planet. They are building the world’s largest neutrino detector, which could finally help reconcile quantum physics with Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The stories of the people who work at these and other research sites make for a compelling new portrait of the universe—and our quest to understand it.   “From the top of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea to Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider and more, Ananthaswamy paints a vivid picture of scientific investigations in harsh working conditions. . . . Even for readers who don’t know a neutrino from Adam, these interesting tales of human endeavor make The Edge of Physics a trip worth taking.” — Bookpage   “Ananthaswamy journeys to several geographically and scientifically extreme outposts, and returns not only with engaging portraits of the men and women who work there, but also a vibrant glimpse of how cutting-edge research is actually performed. Part history lesson, part travelogue, part adventure story, ‘The Edge of Physics’ is a wonder-steeped page-turner.” — Seed Magazine   “Ananthaswamy displays a writer’s touch for the fascinating detail.” — The Washington Post “These experiments and others are heroic in every sense, and Ananthaswamy captures their excitement—and the personalities of the scientists behind them—with enthusiasm and insight.” — Publishers Weekly   “Sure to appeal to general readers interested in science books without the philosophy and mathematics found in drier, more academic physics titles.” — Library Journal   “Physicists are trying to understand the furthest reaches of space and the furthest extremes of matter and energy. To do it, they have to trek to some of the furthest places on Earth—from deep underground, to forbidding mountains, to the cold of Antarctica. Anil Ananthaswamy takes us on a thrilling ride around the globe and around the cosmos, to reveal the real work that goes into understanding our universe.” —Sean Carroll, California Institute of Technology, author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time   “An excellent book. The author has a great knack for making difficult subjects comprehensible. I thoroughly enjoyed it.” —Sir Patrick Moore, former president of the British Astronomical Society and presenter of the BBC’s The Sky at Night   “Ananthaswamy’s juxtaposition of extreme travel and extreme science offers a genuinely novel route into the story of modern cosmology. His tale turns on the price of success: we already know so much about our universe that it becomes hugely difficult—even risky—to pry loose from nature that next burst of insight. The result is a well-written and enormously accessible account of what it takes to push past the edge of human knowledge.” —Thomas Levenson, author of Newton and the Counterfeiter and Einstein in Berlin   “Clean, elegant prose, humming with interest.” —Robert Macfarlane, author of Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places   “ The Edge of Physics  . . . is, quite simply, the ultimate physics-adventure travelogue. . . . As an adventure story and a fly-on-the-wall account of remote places that most of us will never visit, The Edge of Physics is brilliant.” — Physics World   “Ananthaswamy displays a writer’s touch for the fascinating detail . . . whether he is in an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range or the frigid Siberian expanse of Lake Baikal, he finds intrepid physicists and explains to us why these weird places are the only locations on the planet where these experiments could be done.” — The Washington Post   “A grand tour of modern day cosmology’s sacred places . . . evocative . . . engaging . . . refreshing . . . a taste of science in the heroic mode.” — Sky at Night Magazine   “Ananthaswamy, a science writer and editor, smoothly weaves together the stories of people who help push science forward, from principal investigators to research institute gardeners, with exquisitely clear explanations of the questions they hope to solve—and why some research can be done only at the edge of the world.” — Science News   “A remarkable narrative that combines fundamental physics with high adventure . . . Ananthaswamy is a worthy guide for both journeys.” — New Scientist   “ The Edge of Physics is an accomplished and timely overview of modern cosmology and particle astrophysics. Ananthaswamy’s characterizations of the many physicists he meets are on the mark. . . . Ananthaswamy conveys that cutting-edge science is a human endeavour.” — Nature   “Ananthaswamy’s investigation of current experiments in physics bypasses the mathematics of the field, making it easier for the average reader to dig in and enjoy the amazing discoveries and research methods that he encounters. The author has a knack for intertwining an overview of the purpose of these experiments with a finely balanced dose of related history and trivia. He also exhibits poetic touches here and there as he shares colorful vignettes from each of his destinations.” —CurledUpWithAGoodBook.com   “While Ananthaswamy—a consulting editor at New Scientist in London—focuses heavily on the science, The Edge of Physics reads like a travel-adventure story or a work of fiction.” — Failure Magazine Anil Ananthaswamy is a contributor to National Geographic News and a consulting editor for New Scientist in London, where he has also worked as a deputy news editor.

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The Edge of Physics – Anil Ananthaswamy

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New Yorker Cover Takes a Swing at Trump’s White House

by MarciaBrummitt Posted on March 31, 2017

Mother Jones

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The New Yorker offered a preview of its newest cover Friday, which takes aim at President Donald Trump and the ongoing chaos within the White House. The cover illustration, which features an unflattering looking Trump using the White House as his personal golf course, comes amid mounting anger over the president’s frequent golf trips. Trump appears on track to outpace former President Barack Obama’s visits to the golf course—despite routinely complaining that his predecessor enjoyed golfing from time to time.

Illustrator Barry Blitt, the mastermind behind several other recent covers that appeared critical of the president, explained to the magazine:

“I see that the word ‘duffer’ is defined as ‘a person inexperienced at something, especially at playing golf,’” Barry Blitt says, about his cover for the upcoming issue. “That’s the word that comes to mind as I watch President Trump plowing one drive after another through the glass windows of American politics.”

Coincidentally, the Economist‘s upcoming issue also features an image of a golf course, with someone attempting to dig themselves out of a hole. The image is paired with the headline, “The Trump presidency so far.”

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New Yorker Cover Takes a Swing at Trump’s White House

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Anne Frank Center Unimpressed by Trump’s "Band-Aid on the Cancer of Anti-Semitism" Statement

by IsabelOShanassy Posted on February 21, 2017

Mother Jones

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Following a recent wave of anti-Semitic attacks, including more than a dozen bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers around the country on Monday alone, President Donald Trump condemned such acts as “horrible” and promised these kinds of actions would end soon.

“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful, and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” Trump told reporters during a visit to the National Museum of African-American History on Tuesday.

The president’s comments come amid increased pressure for him to directly denounce anti-Semitic incidents, which have surged since he won the election. In addition to bomb threats on Monday, dozens of tombstones at a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis were pushed over in an apparent act of vandalism.

But Jewish groups, including the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which addresses civil rights issues in the US, called Trump’s brief remarks on Tuesday insufficient and are demanding the president do more than place a “Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism” that has affected his administration.

“When President Trump responds to anti-Semitism proactively and in real time, and without pleas and pressure, that’s when we’ll be able to say this President has turned a corner,” a statement from the center on Tuesday said. “This is not that moment.”

Trump’s statement on Tuesday comes less than a week after his chaotic press conference, in which he angrily dismissed a Jewish reporter’s question concerning the uptick in anti-Semitic attacks.

“Not a fair question,” Trump responded, before ordering the reporter from Ami Magazine, Jake Turx, to take his seat. He then defended himself as the “least anti-Semitic” and “least racist person.”

In addition to Trump’s unwillingness to speak out against anti-Semitism, the administration also came under fire last month for releasing a statement commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day that conspicuously failed to mention Jews. Critics, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), slammed the White House statement by comparing it to Holocaust denial.

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Anne Frank Center Unimpressed by Trump’s "Band-Aid on the Cancer of Anti-Semitism" Statement

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