’Tis the season to consider causes that need our support. Let’s not overlook terrorism. Terror is a multi-billion-dollar business with a clever strategy. But it could have a fatal flaw. To succeed it must recruit a steady stream of pawns to take on tasks that mostly fail. Almost all those who don’t fail end up […]
The world’s last great ice sheet is in the process of collapsing. This is not about climate change. It is about gravity and unstable foundations. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) will raise North America’s sea levels ten feet when it goes. It will shift some shorelines inland many miles. A new study sets out […]
No doubt political science is political. Recent travel through the Balkans renewed questions about: Is it science? Greece is out of the news except when refugees grab headlines. In Thessaloniki one could sense a certain un-Greek gloom. Not surprising. Most Greeks want to be in the EU. The EU keeps on treating them as almost […]
Is Bassar al-Assad causing all those Syrian refugees to flee? Well, yes, in a way — but also no. Science now has something to say of this though few have noticed: Chances are that climate change led to the war the refugees are fleeing. They lived in a region that both climate modeling and weather […]
Strategy—as I use the term—is all about survival in a situation. So much of what we know of it relates to war. But the world has many other life-and-death situations. Seeing them through the eyes of those who choose to live can cast new light on complex questions. Recent news gives us an example: Why […]
Strategy (in its strict sense) is about survival in a situation. I have studied it for forty years. The Syrian situation seems to center on Bashar al-Assad’s survival. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin—also a survivor—is making a move. The news says Russia is flying planes and tanks and troops into Latakia, a port city in […]
It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of reports of terrorism. Yet we all can do something to stop it. This is especially true of those who work (as I do) at journalism: writing news and editing and publishing. Do journalists have a special duty when terrorism becomes news? It’s widely thought that journalists […]
Ebola is a scary virus. Most know it is deadly. It is an international problem. We need evidence-based action to solve it, not play-on-fear border closings (c.f., SARS and swine flu) that do no good but damage the economy. We need a public conversation on ebola and it might be aided by some terms you […]
Last week, headlines said ANTARCTIC GLACIER LOSS IS UNSTOPPABLE. Melting slowly, said the texts. It’s not a new concern. Forty years ago reinsurer Munich Re warned of such hazards. So, why now and what’s this to you? There’s more to this than meets the eye. Those glaciers are part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. […]