‘If regulators nix the rail merger, supply chain inefficiency will persist’

‘America needs a transcontinental railroad’

Michael Toth at The Wall Street Journal

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are “seeking approval to create America’s first transcontinental railroad,” which would “upgrade critical infrastructure and send the right message on affordability,” says Michael Toth. Freight “transport times could drop by days.” A “significant benefit of the deal is the ability to bypass bottlenecks.” Without a “single line that can transport freight across the country, long-haul shipments are transferred from one rail company to another at inland junctions,” and “America’s supply chain deserves better.”

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‘We can safely experiment with reflecting sunlight away from Earth’

Dakota Gruener and Daniele Visioni at The Guardian

The “idea of reflecting a small fraction of incoming sunlight to reduce warming is not a new idea,” say Dakota Gruener and Daniele Visioni. It is “no substitute for cutting emissions,” and if “deployed and then suddenly halted, the planet will experience rapid rebound warming.” The “world may never need to reflect sunlight,” but the “only way to make a future responsible decision about its use will be to generate real-world evidence, transparently, before a crisis forces our hand.”

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‘The Yemeni crisis: More complexity and many repercussions’

AbdulHakim Helal at Al Jazeera

Events in Yemen are “escalating quickly and dramatically, reaching the point of armed clashes,” says AbdulHakim Helal. Many “view these developments as a natural outcome of a long, cumulative trajectory of complexities the country has experienced since the civil war erupted in late 2014, and the humanitarian and economic repercussions that followed.” But “external interventions had a profound impact in creating political and administrative chaos that intensified internal divisions and exposed what remained of the legitimate state.”

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‘The miracle month’

Jude Stewart at Slate

January is a “tundra of the calendar and the mind,” says Jude Stewart. Every “year January enacts a miracle: it seems to slow down time, in an era when everything feels hysterically sped up.” But “January is already so difficult, it demands you prioritize self-care and solidarity.” For “one-twelfth of the year time slows to a crawl, and the only job is to power cheerfully through. Turns out we still know how to do that.”

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