July Newsletter
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The Beautiful World of Sally Rooney
I just finished Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You. I’m not giving away any spoilers with this reveal: The Irish author’s third book is narrowly focused on four characters; one, a writer, seems to be a stand-in for Rooney. The plot is straight out of a Brontë novel — there’s even a brooding Heathcliffian love interest — and the prose can be distractingly cold and distant. But the questions this book forces readers to contemplate — wow. I’ve never read anything like it. Have you?
Coronavirus Gives Me Hope for Climate Change
Over the past few months, the strategies that people have taken to fight the pandemic – including working at home, sheltering in place, and delaying production – have dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions. In the face of the fears that accompany thinking about climate change – it’s too big, we can’t fix it, it’s too late – the experience provides an opportunity to reassess this perspective. We did this. Can we do it again – without the mayhem that the pandemic has wreaked?
How To Fight Coronawashing
The EPA’s latest move exempting corporations from environmental oversight is just one in a string of waiver requests from petrochemical, mining, plastic, and shipping industries. Are these reasonable requests – or coronawashing?