'Climate studies are increasingly becoming politicized'

'The world can't afford to politicize climate change research'

Bjorn Lomborg in The Boston Globe

The hard truth is that focusing on cutting carbon emissions and investing in solar and wind power isn't doing enough to address climate change, says Bjorn Lomborg. We need to consider more potential fixes. One is geoengineering, which seeks to "directly reduce the planet's temperature" with approaches like emitting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to "cool the planet." But climate research is being "politicized." An "intense backlash" forced Harvard University to shut down a "key geoengineering research project." 

Read more

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'How Michael Cohen can crush Donald Trump from the witness stand'

Michael Tomasky in The New Republic

Donald Trump took some lumps in his New York criminal trial last week, says Michael Tomasky. His former assistant Hope Hicks tearfully told the jury Trump knew his then-attorney Michael Cohen paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. That was just the start of the "high drama." Cohen's testimony is still to come, and he's the "witness best positioned" to say "definitively" that Trump directed him to make the payment to "preserve Trump's chances to win the election."

Read more

'Biden's worst mistake of the Gaza war'

Elliot Kaufman in The Wall Street Journal

President Joe Biden has made the Gaza war "longer and bloodier than it had to be," contributing to greater suffering for Palestinians while inhibiting Israel's effort to defeat Hamas, says Elliot Kaufman. But his biggest mistake is that he "hasn't lifted a finger to stop" Egypt from blocking Palestinian refugees from fleeing Rafah over the border into Egypt. Instead of using U.S. aid as leverage, Biden "provided Egypt cover as it denied Gazans their human right to flee war."

Read more

'The utter absurdity of Donald Trump and RFK Jr. running as "outsiders"'

David A. Graham in The Atlantic

Voters want change in the 2024 election, says David A. Graham. Ironically, they're choosing from the "most insider slate" of presidential candidates in decades. President Joe Biden, a former vice president and longtime senator, is seeking reelection. The two candidates challenging him, posing as outsiders, are Donald Trump, who wants voters to "forget" his four years as president, and leading third-party candidate "Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is, well, exactly who his name suggests."

Read more