Craig K. Comstock

As the current brouhaha about asteroid mining shows, visionaries may toil quietly until famous or rich people decide to enact an idea. With others, the director James Cameron (Avatar) and the founders of Google are now setting out to bring back valuable metals from near-earth asteroids (NEAs). The...

When we stop to think about it, we don't want to leave a world of climate woes to the grandchildren, or children, but we don't want meanwhile to give up the comforts of a way of life largely built, so far, on fossil fuels. What to do?...

While it's understandable to focus on a single problem, what succeeds in providing domestic energy may, for example, worsen global warming. Thus, we find triumphant articles that celebrate energy independence, as if extracting more domestic fossil fuel were an overall solution rather than, as it is, a continuation of a...

Can a lad sometimes regarded as bad by his father, by a Catholic priest, by the Army, and by the Drug Enforcement Administration transform in the middle of life's path into a Zen roshi and reinvent his tradition in ways that impress the brainy Ken Wilber, Mr. Integral? A Heart...

In order to achieve sustainability, we need scenarios of where we want to go: not only warnings and plans, but also reports as if we'd already made the transition. Who would have suspected they'd come from the south Pacific?

New Zealand, apart from supplying...

What is the optimal use of psychedelics, not only to cure human maladies but also to enhance human capabilities? This is the question considered by Jim Fadiman, a Stanford Ph.D. in psychology, in his new book, The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys.

Fadiman believes that...

An unpublished treasure of feminist scholarship has come to light after years in a drawer in Rome. Written by an American expatriate, the book-length typescript is called "The Serpent And The Storm God." The author is Julienne Travers.

A copy found its way to my wife, who used to...

Amory Lovins says we can do it all.

Do we need to emit far less CO2 into the atmosphere? To stop using the dirtiest fuel of all, which now generates more of our electricity than any other? To reduce sharply our importation of oil, from Canada and elsewhere, and...

Daniel Yergin has succeeded as a historian of energy, but failed as envisioner of a tolerable future.

On the jacket of his new book, a parade of establishment blurb-writers certify him as "one of the world's most experienced and influential authorities on global energy" (Henry Kissinger). The...

The new book GWR: The Global Warming Reader leaves a reader wondering why, given the evidence, there's not a robust movement to replace the causes of the warming. But the situation is unlike any other that's arisen, and our historical models of resistance or mobilization may mislead us. Many...

When crucial information is misleading or absent, what is the meaning of democracy? Key indicators are now being hidden or massaged, for example, in the areas of fighter levels abroad, money supply, unemployment, and oil reserves. In this situation, how can we reach intelligent decisions about war, economic recovery,...

It's a rare if not unique treasure to see a life measured out in paintings. The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco is currently showing 300 of Charlotte Salomon's autobiographical frames under the label, chosen by her, of "Life? Or Theater?"

She depicted the scenes as an alternative...

Scientific researchers have known for years that the birth control pill depletes nutrients, but to what extent have women been told this information and guided to supplements that will supply what's lost?

Browsing in a used book shop, I found a copy of the "Drug-Induced Nutrient...

If we're talking basic social change, we want to know what are the habits of empire, what kind of stories its leaders tell, what manner of effort is required to oppose the smooth lies told by power, what attitudes support this effort, what kind of opposition is likely, what...

Does a new U.S. President need to show he is tough by threatening or committing a violent act? Some say it's dangerous not to. For example, Frederick Kempe believes President Obama "became President" by ordering the lethal raid in Abbottabad, as JFK much earlier did by risking nuclear war...

Elites in both corporations and government are often quite good at running systems they create, and bad at looking beyond these systems at larger social effects. This doubleness was on display at the Worcester Polytechnic commencement.

For its main speaker, the college invited Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon. A group...

One of the dubious benefits of "voluntary" recruitment into the military, rather than a draft, is that presidents can more easily conduct wars despite a skeptical public, and another is that some civilians can regard service as mainly another cash transaction, as if to say, "nobody forced them, too bad...

Over breakfast with a client who had a $90 million fortune, I asked a hypothetical question: would it decrease your motivation as an entrepreneur if it were understood that each year people with big incomes would be celebrated and, as if at a potlatch, would give back to the community...

It's okay to warn or complain, but one of the attractive habits in American civilization is to ask: well, what's your plan? In his recent book World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, Lester Brown offers one.

While watching the global life-support system for a few...

Images obtained from scientific instruments: what makes some of them dance with visual delight? Most pictures from microscopes or telescopes are analyzed as data, in the hopes of eventually answering hard questions: what is "dark energy"? how did life arise on earth?

Recently, however, artists and scientists are seeking to...