We Had the Vaccine the Whole Time The silver bullet we’ve been waiting for took all of one weekend to design.
just asking questions
Dec. 4, 2020
How Rapid Antigen Tests Could (In Theory) Quash the Pandemic Within Weeks “We have this academic precision, and it’s really screwing us up in terms of being able to act with the urgency we need,” says Harvard’s Michael Mina.
Un-Normalizing America’s Third Wave of the Pandemic The ongoing tsunami of new coronavirus cases should snap us out of any complacency.
Biden’s Lame Duck Presidency Democrats have likely won the highest office, but nearly everything below is broken, blocked, or locked into dysfunction.
The Third Wave of the Pandemic Is Here The coronavirus is once again gaining ground, with no end — or plan — in sight.
in conversation
Oct. 11, 2020
Andrew Cuomo on His Pandemic Response and New York’s Future Alternately combative and reflective, the governor tries to make sense of the last seven months.
just asking questions
Sept. 14, 2020
Bill Gates on the Pandemic: ‘You Hope It Doesn’t Stretch Past 2022.’ The philanthropist shares his thoughts about COVID-19 vaccines, America’s failures, and when we can expect real global relief.
life after warming
Sept. 11, 2020
California Can’t Afford to Wait for Climate Action The horrific fires of 2020 are just a preview. No matter what we do, two to four times as much land area will soon burn annually in the West.
life after warming
Aug. 21, 2020
California Has Australian Problems Now The extreme wildfires the state is battling are apocalyptic heralds of climate change. And the scariest part is that they could be worse.
coronavirus
Aug. 17, 2020
The Human Cost of the Pandemic May Dwarf Its Death Toll The long-term health effects of COVID-19 could be the most common and most devastating outcome, by far.
life after warming
Aug. 14, 2020
What Climate Alarm Has Already Achieved Even as we “normalize” climate change, we’ve also normalized alarmism, with panic about warming suddenly at the very center of our politics.
The Good (But Not Great) News About T-Cells and Herd Immunity Two areas of research offer tentative hope that meaningful natural protection from COVID-19 may come sooner than expected.
‘We Should Not Surrender on This’ Bernie Sanders speaks with David Wallace-Wells about the pandemic, the economy, and why Biden is prepared to make sweeping systemic change.
intelligencer chats
July 17, 2020
Could the Pandemic Be a Climate Turning Point? The volatile political conditions created by the coronavirus may matter more than a temporary downturn in carbon emissions.
Jay Inslee on How Joe Biden Got Progressive on Climate Change The Washington governor who set the bar for climate pledges discusses Biden’s ambitious new policy and how the pandemic radicalized the nominee.
America Is Refusing to Learn How to Fight the Coronavirus The pandemic is surging again in the Southwest, where hospitals are reaching capacity. And it’s probably going to get worse.
life after warming
June 27, 2020
Global Warming Is Melting Our Sense of Time Climate change isn’t just a brutal form of time travel to both the future and prehuman past, it is discombobulating to our very sense of linear time.
Why Don’t Americans Trust the Public-Health Experts? Maybe because the public-health experts don’t trust them.
Has the Pandemic Peaked? Looking at a broad cohort of nations, and especially at the U.S., it appears, at the moment, as though the answer may be yes.
Learning to Live in the Valley of Uncertainty For many critical coronavirus questions, like when schools should reopen, we simply do not have clear answers.
life after warming
May 19, 2020
Welcome to the End of the ‘Human Climate Niche’ The pandemic shows how hard it is going to be to adapt comfortably to climate change.
Covid-19 Targets the Elderly. Why Don’t Our Prevention Efforts? The evidence that the novel coronavirus targets the elderly are overwhelming. But our public-health measures treat everyone equally.
There Is Still No Plan The lockdowns were an expensive way to buy time. The government has squandered it.
public health
May 2, 2020
What the Coronavirus Models Can’t See Deaths and new infections in the U.S. are surpassing projections even during lockdowns, and it’s likely to get worse.
in conversation
Apr. 27, 2020
Thomas Piketty Knew This Was Coming The scholar of inequality warned us that our economic systems couldn’t withstand a global catastrophe.
coronavirus
Apr. 26, 2020
We Still Don’t Know How the Coronavirus Is Killing Us Six months in, doctors and researchers are continuing to discover dangerous new ways COVID-19 affects the body.
coronavirus
Apr. 19, 2020
There Is A White House Blockade Stopping States From Getting Coronavirus PPE The NEJM has published a horrifying account of a health-care executive trying to evade what appear to be mafia tactics by the federal government.
coronavirus
Apr. 17, 2020
coronavirus
Apr. 16, 2020
Is Coronavirus Ushering in a Chinese Future? The world has experienced the pandemic on terms largely defined by one country. That might not be a temporary phenomenon.
coronavirus
Apr. 10, 2020
Best-Case Scenario for Coronavirus Is That It’s More Infectious Than We Think We are stunningly ignorant about the virus that’s shutting down the world. Some of that uncertainty includes reasons for hope.
life after warming
Apr. 8, 2020
The Coronavirus Is a Preview of Our Climate-Change Future The warming of the planet will lead to pandemics that are far more dangerous and disruptive.
There Is No Plan for the End of the Coronavirus Crisis On top of Trump’s ongoing mismanagement, there is a shocking lack of a strategy, at any level of government, for what the country will do next.
life after warming
Mar. 31, 2020
The EPA Is Another Coronavirus Casualty Climate activists and climate enemies both see opportunity in the pandemic.
coronavirus
Mar. 26, 2020
Why Did an Expert Who Warned About COVID-19 Have So Much Trouble Being Heard? Though we often feel that we live in a sea of panic, it may be that the general din prevents us from hearing most important warning cries.
coronavirus
Mar. 12, 2020
Coronavirus Shows Us America Is Broken We are seeing the collapse of civic authority and public trust at what is only the beginning of a protracted crisis.
life after warming
Feb. 26, 2020
life after warming
Feb. 21, 2020
Jeff Bezos’s $10 Billion Climate Pledge Is Actually Tiny Judged by the standards of the climate crisis, the sum is, practically speaking, almost nothing.
life after warming
Dec. 31, 2019
Global Apathy Toward the Fires in Australia Is a Scary Portent for the Future A months-long climate disaster in a wealthy, white country is tailor-made to dominate news coverage. It hasn’t.
life after warming
Dec. 20, 2019
Here’s Some Good News on Climate Change: Worst-Case Scenario Looks Unrealistic Global energy use patterns suggest some baseline assumptions about warming are too high. What remains is still a stiff challenge to humanity.
life after warming
Dec. 16, 2019
U.N. Climate Talks Collapsed in Madrid. What’s the Way Forward? Following the unsuccessful COP25 conference in Madrid, it’s time to think about a new framework for climate action.
life after warming
Oct. 28, 2019
This Is What a Calm California Wildfire Season Looks Like Now A dozen wildfires are burning, and the state is at the mercy of the wind.
intelligencer chats
Oct. 17, 2019
Is Annoying People the Right Way to Combat Climate Change? Intelligencer staffers discuss the intentionally divisive tactics of an upstart movement.
life after warming
Oct. 15, 2019
Extinction Rebellion and the Birth of a New Climate Politics The U.K. movement’s claims might be exaggerated, but it shows us how the world is ready to grapple with the depth of the problem.
just asking questions
Oct. 2, 2019
‘Any Further Interference Is Likely to Be Disastrous’ “Gaia theory” scientist James Lovelock talks about nuclear power and his hope that AI might save the planet from catastrophic warming.
just asking questions
Sept. 30, 2019
‘We Are Living in a Reality That Is Fundamentally Uncanny’ The Great Derangement author Amitav Ghosh describes just how totally we’ve failed to face up to the unfolding climate crisis.
just asking questions
Sept. 26, 2019
‘The House Is Burning Down and We’re Just Sitting Around Discussing It’ Why Trust Science? author Naomi Oreskes on how much science it actually takes to move public opinion on climate change.
just asking questions
Sept. 24, 2019
Do We Need to Abandon Growth to Save the Planet? A conversation with scientist Vaclav Smil, author of Growth — a dense treatise that covers everything from “microorganisms to megacities.”
just asking questions
Sept. 23, 2019
The Necessity of Optimism in Fighting Climate Change A conversation with Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
climate change
Sept. 20, 2019
just asking questions
Sept. 20, 2019
A Green New Deal Co-Author on the Rapid Evolution of Climate Policy Rhiana Gunn-Wright talks about just how fast climate politics have changed and why focusing on targets like two degrees may be beside the point.
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