The Future of Environmental Disasters

Robert Hernan’s This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from the Fifteen Worst Environmental Disasters around the World studies over a dozen environmental disasters, but one is particularly close to Hernan. In the early 1990s, Hernan served as legal counsel for the State of New York in the Love Canal trial, against the chemical company that turned the Niagara Falls neighborhood into a toxic waste site – thick black goo bubbled up in backyards, toxic chemicals seeped into basements, and an elementary school shut down. During the case, which was settled for $100 …

March 1, 2010

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Have Americans Been Carjacked?

January 31, 2010

Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez grew up together, as Catherine put it, “in the backseat, getting driven around, going on at least an annual family adventure in the car.” …

José Ramón Sánchez on the Iraq Papers

January 24, 2010

José Ramón Sánchez began putting together The Iraq Papers with three colleagues when they realized, he said, “how important this war is going to be to this generation.” Just as …

Tomás Jiménez on Mexican Americans

January 19, 2010

Tomás Jiménez knew that something was missing from the way the press and academia portrayed Mexican Americans. Growing up in California in a Mexican American family, Jiménez said he noticed …

Daniel Pink on What Motivates Us

January 13, 2010

As Daniel Pink found while writing Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, carrots and sticks are very last century. The go-to method of meting out rewards and punishments, …

The Real Cost of Poor Working Conditions

January 12, 2010

Jody Heymann’s study of working conditions around the world may not seem to have a lot to do with her clinical training as a pediatrician. “If you look at what …

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