Weekly Columns
Stop buying bottled water (12/1/09)
…If you think you get cleaner, healthier water, you might be wrong…
Is economic growth still beneficial? (11/11/09)
…Up to a certain point, growth has done us considerable good. But that point may be surprisingly far behind us…
Public discourse is in danger in America (11/4/09)
…Every time we’re ankle-deep in progress, some half-wit with a Hitler effigy jumps up and starts shouting invectives across the room. These people don’t know it, but most of what they are shouting was scripted in focus groups and PR offices. The American public is being lobbied without even realizing it…
Women are now half of the American workforce (10/21/09)
…Today, only one in five families still conform to the traditional model of a male breadwinner and female homemaker. Fully two-thirds of mothers work to support their families and 40 percent are the primary breadwinners of the family…
We must think beyond oil drilling (10/7/09)
…Even if we decided to exploit all of our offshore oil, it would take about five years to get the permits, find the reserves, dig the wells and start pumping. By 2030, domestic production would only increase by 3 percent, still not enough to significantly affect oil prices…
Experiencing northern Colorado at harvest (9/30/09)
…I was looking for more honest food—food plucked from familiar land, still clinging to the soil it was born in. I wanted short, gnarled carrots and turnips just because they were in season. I wanted tree-ripened peaches that would have been smashed to pulp if they were shipped the 1,500 miles an average food item travels in America. I also wanted the dollar I paid for my food to go to the farmer who grew it—not the eight cents that typically does…
Putting ‘health’ back into the health care debate (9/23/09)
…Until now, the health care debate has largely ignored the growing health crisis linked to the American diet, despite its mammoth contributions to the rising cost of health care. A recent study showed that 30 percent of the rise in health care spending in America over the past two decades is due to obesity alone…
Swine flu, in memoriam (5/5/09)
…Humankind’s predictably irrational response to fear has led to a hilarious circus of overreactions and political posturing. Here’s a look back at the swine flu, in memoriam…
On Morality and Politics (4/28/09)
…Based on a survey of over 30,000 people, Haidt has concluded that liberals and conservatives differ in a fundamental way—they do not share the same morality…
U.S. ready to regulate for global warming (4/21/09)
…On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its intention to declare the six principal greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride—to be air pollutants that pose a risk to public health and welfare…
Manufacturing doubt: a multimillion dollar industry (4/14/09)
…This is a tale of caution. While dissent is an essential part of informed debate, be wary of where you get your information. Legitimate dissent is not industry-funded propaganda…
