Bill McKibben: From Coal and Gas to Wind and Sun

Bill McKibben: From Coal and Gas to Wind and Sun

Bill McKibben: From Coal and Gas to Wind and Sun

Plus Maia Szalavitz on the opioid epidemic and Sean Wilentz on impeachment.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

To replace coal and oil, do we need nuclear power? Is switching from coal-powered electric plants to natural gas a step in the right direction? And what lessons can we draw from the recent victories—and setbacks—for the climate movement in California? Bill McKibben comments—and talks how to get to a Green New Deal. Bill’s latest book—Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?—will be published on April 16.

Plus: The House Judiciary Committee is moving toward impeachment proceedings, and asking what kind of precedents—and what kind of lessons—can be found in the Republican effort to impeach Bill Clinton 20 years ago. Sean Wilentz comments—he’s an award-winning historian who teaches at Princeton. He writes for the New York Times, the New Republic, Rolling Stone, and The New York Review of Books, where he wrote recently about the Clinton impeachment.

Also: what can we do to reduce the death toll in the current epidemic of opioid overdoses? Maia Szalavitz suggests our focus should be on harm reduction, and especially on the creation of safe injection sites—Philadelphia may be the first US city to follow the example of Vancouver and many West European cities. Maia is the author of the New York Times best seller Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction.

 

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x