NEWSWEEK 05/04/23 By Michael Shank There’s a looming threat facing Ukrainians, and it’s not Russian; it’s American. There’s a “fossil fuel gold rush” currently underway by American energy companies exploiting Russia’s war in Ukraine for gain. Under the guise of “liberating” Ukraine from a reliance on Russia’s dirty energy imports, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 With rich countries merely reaffirming their over ten-year-old outdated commitment to provide $100 billion annually in aid for […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
NEWSWEEK 1/17/20 By Michael Shank and US Congresswoman Yvette Clarke We’re starting 2020 with some scary climate signals. We’ve finished another record-breaking year—but for the wrong reasons. 2019 locked in the highest global carbon emissions on record and was the second hottest year ever. At these rates, the climate change–caused […]