war and peace
Is the US headed for a cold civil war?
A majority of Americans fear that political violence is imminent. But it may not take quite the form we imagine.
The future of the fights against disease and war
God has had his turn. Securing a future with less disease and war is up to us.
Nuclear panic and the satellite wars
Reading Time: 6 minutes In 1962, the US detonated a high-altitude warhead, with a yield of 1.4 megatons of TNT equivalent, some 250 miles above the Earth. The blast expelled the planet’s magnetic field for nearly half a minute, created a brief cavity in the ionosphere, and damaged
So this is 90 seconds to midnight
Reading Time: 4 minutes On January 24, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists officially moved the hands on the Doomsday Clock, which for three quarters of a century has been used to depict humanity’s risk of global disaster from nuclear war. When the clock was first
Can we ever truly combat climate change in a world at war?
Reading Time: 6 minutes According to The Guardian, which has not given up on its war counter since February 24, 2022, we are now over 572 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Every day, this media outlet and many like it try to keep the world aware of the fact that, even if our terminology dif
Whose justice will emerge from ‘Under the Cloak of War’?
Reading Time: 13 minutes This week’s main episode of Strange New Worlds, which was moved up to accommodate the surprise early launch of a crossover episode on July 22, enters difficult territory. On the surface, “Under the Cloak of War” bears some resemblance to facets of Star Trek VI: The Undiscove
When is killing justified?
Reading Time: 5 minutes I watched uncomfortably as a municipal employee expertly slit the terrified little goat’s throat in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. It was 1985. The tiny, skittish beast made not a sound during the quick execution, except for the hyper-nervous skittering of its hoofs slip-sliding on th
Is America on the precipice of Civil War II?
Reading Time: 5 minutes The American Civil War is still far from over. A powerful metaphor for this worry was the violent insurrection Jan. 6, 2021, at the US Capitol, during which a Confederate battle flag was carried triumphantly, by an aggrieved Southerner, through the hallowed confines of Statua
Study: How most of the 5 billion would die in a US/Russia nuclear exchange
Reading Time: 2 minutes A new study found that a nuclear war between the US and Russia could be the worst catastrophe in world history. But most people wouldn’t die from the exchange itself; 5 billion would perish from the hunger that follows. The study, published in Nature, found that the soot prod
The day the white pelicans came
Reading Time: 4 minutes One recent glorious morning in tranquil South Dakota, as Russia rained more death and destruction on Ukrainian cities and hamlets, I awoke to a perfect day, my wife peacefully checking her email beside me and turning to smile, and our cat trying to tunnel under the covers to
Why are we so timid in defending Ukraine? It’s MAD.
Reading Time: 5 minutes MAD is the excellent reason why American President Joe Biden—along with the rest of the West—is so seemingly over-cautious in trying to defend Ukraine against the brutal Russian invasion now in progress. MAD is the canny acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction, which, in bri