Category: Technology

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“A view of the cleared right-of-way for the Constitution Pipeline on the property of the Holleran family of New Milford, PA. Tree-fellers authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission used chain-saws to destroy 90 percent of the family’s maple trees that produced syrup for their business, North Harford Maple.”

The Limits of Disturbance

With its permitting authority over natural gas infrastructure, the little-known Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has sweeping power over individual citizens’ property and our collective climate trajectory. Critics say that reforming its pipeline review process should be high on President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The Scientists Who Created America’s War Gases

SONORA, Calif. — In a back room of L. Philip Reiss’ condominium, the retired chemical engineer has covered the walls and filled his drawers with mementos of a long life in science. In one corner, he’s hung keepsakes from years volunteering with a Boy Scout

“History is Repeating Itself:” A Century of Chemical Warfare

IEPER, Belgium — The breeze blew in from the east as Simon Jones crossed a newly mowed field in Flanders. It was a brisk April morning. He followed a green ribbon of grass that stretched across the pasture and ended at a marble archway. On

The Scientist Who Explored the Skies

MT. PALOMAR – Visiting the Palomar observatory in the forested mountains northeast of San Diego is a bit like finding oneself at the foot of one of the great pyramids of Egypt. The scale is so intimidating, so outsized compared to its surroundings, that you

“Don’t Forget Your Court Date”

How text messages and other technology can give legal support to the poor. It has been three years since the Great Recession ended, but the nation’s courthouses are still swamped with eviction cases, foreclosures, and debt collection suits. If overdue bills and late rent were

The Marginal Men

The marginal ten, the wretched stragglers for survival on the fringes of farm and city, may already number half a billion. By 1980 they will surpass a billion, by 1990 two billion. Can we imagine any human order surviving with so gross a mass of

It’s a Revolution All Right

Rome May 2, 1971 The disintegration of Pakistan. The collapse of a government in Turkey. Heightened rural violence in the Philippines. Is it mere coincidence that political explosions have followed spectacular advances in agricultural production in all three countries? From the perspective of the Food

How Lonely Sits The City – Part II

Le Témoin Suse, capitale de l’Elam, est situe’ dans la province autrefois fertile du Khuzistan qui prolonge, en Iran, la grande plaine arrosee par le Tigre et l’Euphrate. Aussi sa civilization est elle plus etroitement lies a Celle de la Mesopotamie qu’a celle du Plateau

How Lonely Sits The City – Part I

A Survey in Two Parts of the Human Impact of Agricultural Development from Prehistoric to Contemporary Times as seen from the Village of Shush-Daniel on the Khuzestan Plain of Southwest Persia Contents Part One: 10,000 to 640 B.C. – Bedouin. PartTwo: Le Temoin – 640

Sketches Of The Green Revolution – Part I

A Study of the Human Impact of the New Seeds and Methods of Cultivation in Ghungrali-Rajputan, a Prosperous Village on the Punjab Plain in Northwest India Part One: Charan As a team of oxen are we drivenBy the ploughman, our teacherBy the furrows made are

The Thorn

A Play in Eleven Scenes Ludhiana, Punjab April 8, 1970 Home is the place whereWhen you go thereThey have to take you in From Robert Frost’s “Death of the Hired Man” (Introductory note: The Punjab plain, a vast expanse of flat, fertile wheat land extending

India Revisited

New Delhi February 15, 1970 Pick your step carefully down a crushed cinder path bordered with pink rosebushes that somehow survive the cold north India winter. A patch of sparse green lawn and bare sandstone platform set into a desiccated plain, sunny, brown and empty,

The Time Machines

Remagen Federal German Republic  August 18, 1967   Mr. Wilkins is the 1967 Alicia Patterson Fund award winner, on leave from The Tacoma News Tribune. Permission to publish this article may be sought from The Managing Editor, The Tacoma News Tribune, Tacoma, Washington. 1. The Tape