How Hidden Connections Nearly Sank Chicago
One morning in 1992, a Chicago radio reporter looked into the river and, stunned, told listeners he saw “swirling water that looks like a giant drain … I think someone should wake up the mayor!” Read More »
A Headline That Will Make Global-Warming Activists Apoplectic
We have a chapter in SuperFreakonomics about global warming and it too will likely produce a lot of shouting, name-calling, and accusations ranging from idiocy to venality. It is curious that the global-warming arena is so rife with shrillness and ridicule. Where does this shrillness come from? Some say that left-leaning activists have merely borrowed their right-leaning competitors from years past. A reasonable conjecture? Read More »
Is Locavorism for Rich People Only?
Sustainably produced local food is not accessible by all. In general, only the elite few with the time and material resources to capitalize on such environmental munificence have the time and money to benefit from transparently sustainable farms. As a result, the preconditions are inadvertently established for something that generally tends not to bind diverse communities into a cozy whole, but to fragment them: exclusivity. Read More »
Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
One of the things I’ve learned from Levitt is that you need a thick skin if you are going to write about controversial topics. And since Betsey Stevenson and I wrote about “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” we’ve been called everything from left-wing fools to right-wing tools. But it can be a real kick in the guts when you learn that someone you thought you admired turns out to be simply dishonest. And that’s how I felt when I read Barbara Ehrenreich’s “takedown” of our research in today’s LA Times. Read More »
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