Bill McKibben

The Return of Trump—I

On losers, fear, the Supreme Court, the end of the FDR era, antisystemic times, and words without consequences. 

The Climate Election: Fighting for a Greener Future

Toward a Land of Buses and Bikes

There is more housing for each car in the United States than there is for each person.

Where Will We Live?

Three books on the movement, of both humans and wildlife, spurred by climate change illustrate the magnitude of the challenge before us.

The Future Is Electric

Because electricity is so much more efficient than combustion, totally electrifying our country would cut primary energy use about in half.

It’s Not Science Fiction

In Kim Stanley Robinson’s anti-dystopian novel, climate change is the crisis that finally forces mankind to deal with global inequality.

Biden’s Most Daunting Adversary

130 Degrees

This is going to be a century of crises, many of them more dangerous than what we’re living through now.

Big Oil Runs Out of Gas

People used to worry that the fossil-fuel industry would hit “peak oil” and we’d run out of crude. It now seems far more likely that it’s going to run out of money instead.

A Very Hot Year

The warmth we’ve added to the atmosphere—the heat equivalent, each day, of 400,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs—is already producing truly dire effects, decades or even centuries ahead of schedule.

My Land, Your Land

The Pentagon’s Outsized Part in the Climate Fight

The Pentagon can play an outsized part in the climate fight—but only in part by cutting the amount of energy it uses. 

A Future Without Fossil Fuels?

At what point does a new technology cause an existing industry to start losing significant value?

The Nuclear Option

A Very Grim Forecast

On climate change, we’re running out of options, and we’re running out of decades.

Seeing Red? Think Blue

It’s both unfair and unwise to elect people, even very good ones, and then consider our part of the job done. If you think about it this way, it’s a little easier to swallow your hurt and disappointment when the DNC does stupid stuff. Elections are about electing people whom you can then push effectively to do more.

Where Are the Smartphones?

The Americans We Need

America is not just doing refugees a favor by letting them in. They’re doing America a favor by coming here—revitalizing our economy, sure, bringing new talent and energy and enterprise to every part of our society, but also helping shore up our culture at its weakest spots.

Pause! We Can Go Back!

David Sax’s ‘The Revenge of Analog’

The Koch Brothers’ New Brand

Jane Mayer’s ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’