Climate Change and the E.U.'s Soft Power

This year of the apocalypse actually began with good news about climate change. In a perfect example of soft power with an edge, the European Union decided to leverage its weight as the world’s largest economic market to compel the majority of the world’s airlines to participate in its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). This bold move promises to both directly cut emissions, as well as provide incentive for airlines to innovate and increase their efficiency globally — and it foreshadows what could

Thou Shalt Hate the Poor

Apparently there is a new commandment that has been revealed unto the Republican Party. One that Jesus errantly left out of his parables and teachings and that Joseph Smith must have failed to read before he lost his special glasses or perhaps just forgot to pull out of his magic hat. It is “Thou shall hate the poor.” This new commandment dominates today’s conservative politics and discourse, reveals the turmoil at the heart of America’s public morality and shows the clear ideological choice bef

The Indispensable Continent: Why the World Still Needs Europe

Europe as a continent and a society didn’t just teeter on the precipice of destruction, it fell off — twice. It is from this history that the European Union has become a living dream of nonviolence and proof of the possibility of redemption, created from a cry for harmony and the necessity for coexistence. It is an effort born of the blood of the countless millions slaughtered in two devastating and senseless wars; an attempt by a continent finally spent of violence and strife to reach its ancie