Newsweek

Stop the Finger-Pointing, Democrats. You’re in the Grip of Big Oil

NEWSWEEK 01/10/24 By Michael Shank With 2023 ranking as the hottest year on record and 2024 estimated to break last year’s record, one would expect the world’s biggest economies—like the United States, which is the world’s largest producer of oil and gas—to take climate change more seriously. Especially given the […]

Indigenous People Need Real Compensation for Climate Change

NEWSWEEK 12/8/22 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Raul Grijalva As climate talks wrapped up at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Egypt this past month, the attending delegates agreed to make long-awaited history. For the first time, the United Nations adopted a pact to establish a “loss […]

Prosecute Putin for War Crimes. But Prosecute the U.S., Too

NEWSWEEK 03/17/22 By Michael Shank President Joe Biden has become the latest leader to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal when asked by reporters on Wednesday to weigh in on the subject. In so doing, he joins a growing list of international leaders to condemn Putin’s invasion of […]

We Care More About Ukraine Because the Victims Are White

NEWSWEEK 03/03/2022 By Michael Shank Citizens around the world are setting a new and impressive precedent in engaging in international affairs. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised a level of interest that dwarfs that of other recent conflicts or wars. This is undoubtedly a good thing: We need more voices […]

It’s Time for the U.S. to Pay Climate Reparations

NEWSWEEK 07/06/21 By Michael Shank and US Congresswoman Yvette Clarke The G7 meeting last month shows how much work is still needed to help less developed countries respond to increasing climate disasters. With rich countries merely reaffirming their over ten-year-old outdated commitment to provide $100 billion annually in aid for […]

Our Infrastructure Is Racist. Biden’s Plan Seeks Justice | Opinion

NEWSWEEK 4/12/21 By Michael Shank and US Congresswoman Yvette Clarke President Joe Biden’s long-awaited American Jobs Plan has finally arrived, clocking in at $2.3 trillion in spending over eight years. In today’s dollars, this is almost 5 times the new funding provided in President Obama’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment […]

The Government Is Arming Police for War. Reform Can Start Right There

NEWSWEEK 06/11/20 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Hank Johnson America’s streets are looking increasingly like countries we dismiss as petty dictatorships and rogue states. Mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles and Humvees are now patrolling cities all across America. We saw it at Standing Rock. We saw it in Ferguson. We saw […]

Will Coronavirus Be What Finally Kills Factory Farming?

NEWSWEEK 05/22/20 By Michael Shank and Em Heppler Although the identity of COVID-19’s patient zero is still unknown, the virus is widely suspected to have originated in a Wuhan wet market. And one thing is crystal clear: These informal slaughterhouses, along with their more formal counterparts in the factory farming […]

Clean Energy is Not Just Good for the Environment. It Also Prevents War

NEWSWEEK 02/12/20 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Hank Johnson Take oil out of the foreign policy picture, and American presidents would have lacked motive to preemptively attack Iraq, Libya and now Iran. There were equally authoritarian leaders of other countries at the time, operating with even greater propensity toward […]