Last week's news reports included the jarring juxtaposition of two very remarkable stories. The first was Mitt Romney's amazing confession that he didn't lose any sleep over poor people in America. Or to quote the candidate: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net...

As Newt and Mitt continue their ritualistic slugfest before the Republican right-wing base, it's clear that some of their over-heated rhetoric will be replayed for the independent voters who will eventually decide the race in November. Immigration will hurt these guys with the growing Hispanic vote, and their rabid anti-environmentalism...

The effort by Republican Presidential candidates to paint President Obama as some kind of job-killing socialist marches on. Romney, Santorum and Gingrich are not as anti-government as they'd like you to think, and the President is not about to Occupy Wall Street. The proposed Keystone oil pipeline is not a...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's most recent State of the City address focused on education, but still managed to raise the sustainability issues that I believe will be the signature legacy of his three terms as mayor. In his annual address the Mayor observed that:

Some of my climate scientist colleagues at Columbia University's Earth Institute are frustrated about the inability of the U.S. Congress to enact new legislation on climate change. They are dismayed by the effort to deny the results of their analyses and amazed to find their laboratories thrown into the political...

As the media frenzy in Iowa fades to the media frenzy in New Hampshire, the selection of an American President has completely descended into a poorly acted reality TV show. If the winner didn't lead the world's most powerful nation this might almost be funny. The Republican debates have proven...

As 2011 ends and we find some time for reflection, I am thinking a lot about the issue of material consumption and sustainability. Many of my students believe that a key answer to the crisis of planetary sustainability is for individuals to reduce their material consumption. When they say this,...

The commercialization of renewable energy technology is the central element of the transition to a sustainable green economy. I have long believed that solar power is the most likely energy technology for household use in America. Smaller, more efficient solar cells and batteries, connected to smart grids built with public...

It is getting to be a pretty familiar routine by now. Thousands of people from around the world gather to negotiate and influence global climate policy. Rhetoric flies for a week or two, negotiators bargain long into the night, and a modest, unenforceable agreement is finally brought up for a...

Despite occasional errors like appointing Cathy Black as Schools Chancellor, and more recently suggesting that we could finance improvements in teacher salaries by doubling class size, Mike Bloomberg has been a superb mayor. I should mention that I think New York City, America's largest local government, has been well-led for...

Hydrofracking for gas, like deep sea oil drilling, is both a complicated and potentially dangerous practice that provides more and more of the fuel we need for daily life. The increased use of these technologies tells us that fossil fuels are getting harder to find and more difficult to extract...

While attention in Washington D.C. is focused on the federal debt and the failure of the Congressional "super committee," 2011 has already seen a number of local governments head toward bankruptcy. Some are filing for chapter 9, others are seeking state approval to go bankrupt, and a number are just...

While the federal government's ideological conflicts have stalled many efforts to achieve environmental sustainability, here in New York the grownups running our state and city environmental agencies have managed to continue to make progress. Recently the state and city signed a draft agreement allowing the city to begin...

The surprise snow storm that hit the Northeast of the United States at the end of October resulted in massive power outages and reminded us of our dependency on energy. Without plentiful, easily accessible energy we must do without heat, cooling, refrigeration and light. We also lose television, the internet...

With the planet's population now at seven billion, and the American presidential election starting to focus on Republicans in Iowa, it's easy to get discouraged about the state of the planet. As an educator, I am fortunate to spend a great deal of time with students who are unwilling to...

The constant complaint by the Right that America's businesses are over-regulated always reminds me of the losing team that blames the refs. "If only we'd gotten that call we could-a, should-a, would-a, won." Apparently the late Steve Jobs told President Obama that it was easier to build a...

Like many in my generation, my first taste of political involvement was in the movement to end the war in Vietnam and achieve civil rights. As a teenager at James Madison High School in Brooklyn I helped organize demonstrations and spent many afternoons leafleting subway stations and staffing literature tables...

Like many people over the past several days I was saddened by the untimely death of Steve Jobs, but inspired by the story of his amazing, if too brief, life. Jobs imagined technology as a force to make human lives better. He took technology invented by others and through his...

The battle between money and the majority is the story of American politics and has been the central theme of the evolution of American democracy. It starts with the historic deal providing for representation of property or land in the U.S. Senate and representation of people in the House of...

Last week I watched my friend David Jones, of the Community Service Society, discuss the growing rate of poverty in New York City on the all-news TV station NY1. I also read Sam Roberts' piece in the New York Times observing that one in five New...