War in Ukraine is sobering reminder to Europe to ramp up electricity production from renewable sources
The war on Ukraine – a major exporter of natural gas – has wreaked havoc on energy markets in Europe. Faced with imminent energy shortages, governments have ramped up coal use and expanded import of liquified natural gas from other nations. The International Energy Agency estimates that coal use in...
America’s addiction to war: To convert war into something sacred means fashioning a deceitful myth
Complexities involving alternatives to Washington’s war-making urges are, of course, not part of the national conversation on Veterans Day. Instead, we are promised that war and this country’s warriors will somehow redeem us as a nation. The unimaginable losses to families, communities, infrastructure and culture in the lands where such...
How US exploits religion to bless violence that hides wars’ hideous destructiveness with sacred sheen
Dear Veterans, I’m a civilian who, like many Americans, has strong ties to the US Armed Forces. I never considered enlisting, but my father, uncles, cousins, and nephews did. As a child I baked cookies to send with letters to my cousin Steven who was serving in Vietnam. My family...
We’re back to 20th century when people researched out of sheer curiosity, love or madness
In July this year, attended the Animal Behaviour Society conference in Costa Rica, which I found to be very LGBTQ-friendly. The organisation had planned to have its 2023 meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee. But I was one of the more than 50 per cent of society members who voted not to...
How gun violence, racism, healthcare and divisive politics are repelling foreign scientists in US universities
For the past five decades, the United States has been a top destination for international early-career researchers to do their training in a PhD or postdoctoral post. Since the 1960s, post-cold-war US diplomatic policies have aimed to attract foreign scholars, especially those in then-budding democracies. After a steady increase, numbers...
This sick joke of Qatar World Cup born out of corruption and stadiums were built by modern-day slaves
Dear President and Secretary-General, The FIFA World Cup in Qatar is now just around the corner and excitement about the world’s premier football festival should be building globally as we count down the days to kick-off in Doha on Sunday, November 20. I would like to commend you both on...
Why without conceptual clarity, the fuzziness in social sciences can drive a news reporter to despair
US millennials are rejecting suburbia and moving back to the city. That was a prevailing idea in 2019, when I started as the social sciences reporter at Science News. But when I began digging into a possible story on the phenomenon, I encountered an incoherent mess. Some research showed that...
Why Liz Truss’s 44-day stint as UK premier has been branded a ‘globalist coup’ in financial markets
The shortest-serving prime minister in British history. She went after days of absolute mayhem at Westminster. Everywhere people are lining up to say that this represents some kind of democratic collapse. And everywhere, those people are wrong. At worst we see the conspiracy theorists of the right branding this a...
Uproot cobwebs: Women consultants should bear in mind that when you focus on struggle, you grow it
Women consultants, I want to share a piece of advice I often share with my clients. The subject of the advice is: What I focus on expands. And it is in the mind – the longer it dwells in the mind, it becomes etched into it and also deeply rooted...
We should abandon the illusion that politicians will come to the rescue of planet Earth
We are living in a state of emergency: the climate, ecological and sustainability crisis is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. For too long, we have ignored the effects, and now we are living through the consequences. Twenty of the 21 hottest years since records began in 1850 have...
