Author Archives: Harry Katz
The Spirit of Green
In The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World, Yale economics professor William D. Nordhaus examines a wide range of economic, social and political issues from a Green perspective. Nordhaus won the 2018 Nobel Prize … Continue reading
Babel: An Arcane History
Once or twice a year I take a break from nonfiction and read a novel. This time it was R. F. Kuang’s Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution. Quite a mouthful. I’ll … Continue reading
After the rain …
Evening walk, down by the lake, after the rain. If you liked this post, please subscribe to Unsolicited Feedback.
Crow Planet
On a recent holiday in Ireland, we encountered several species of birds from the crow family that are quite different from the American Crow we see almost every day at home. The Hooded Crow has a black head but a … Continue reading
Some Assembly Required
Last month, I reviewed The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen. It’s all about the destruction of life through mass extinctions. Fascinating but grim. The book left me with a nagging question, though: after each mass extinction how could … Continue reading
The Ends of the World
You might think a 290-page deep dive into mass extinction would be the most depressing book ever. But The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen is … Continue reading
Measuring Greenhouse Gas Emissions
A lot of numbers get tossed around in discussions about climate change. Degrees of warming, meters of sea level rise, square miles burnt or flooded, and most important, tons of greenhouse gases emitted. I like to know exactly what these … Continue reading
Under a White Sky
Whether you believe that God gave man dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” or that humans have spent the last two hundred thousand years or so winning the Darwinian race, there’s … Continue reading
Held v. Montana: A Landmark Climate Victory
This is worth celebrating. Yesterday in a Montana district court, 16 youths, aged 5 – 22, won a lawsuit against the State of Montana for violating their right to a “clean and healthful environment” under the state constitution. This trial … Continue reading
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