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The world is filled with war and wonder

Watching the Artemis II space flight has filled my days with awe and wonder. From pilot Victor Glover’s poignant Easter message and mission specialist Christina Koch’s “space plumber” story to the crew naming a moon crater for commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife. Artemis II really shows us what humanity is capable of. All of this took place with the backdrop of war in Iran and horrid threats spewed from President Donald Trump on Truth Social. It all serves as a great reminder that on any given day, we simultaneously exist in a world of tragedy and wonder. The good news is ...

Ehrlich was wrong about everything

Biologist and author Paul Ehrlich, the most influential Chicken Little of the last century, died at the age of 93 last week. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” launched decades of institutional panic in government, entertainment and journalism. Ehrlich’s core neo-Malthusian argument was that overpopulation would exhaust the supply of food and natural resources, leading to a cascade of catastrophes around the world. “The Population Bomb” opens with a bold prediction, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will ...

The energy policy we could have had

Oil, oil, oil. The war with Iran has oil prices soaring. And no thanks, President Trump, for your other war, the one against green energy. As Americans freak over gas prices, they are taking another look at electric vehicles. But guess what? Most domestic automakers dropped ambitious investments toward that end, leaving car lots bereft of these gasoline-replacing vehicles, at least American-made ones. It didn’t have to be that way. Barack Obama and Joe Biden launched serious programs to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Trump trashed those ambitious plans to bring Americans ...

Secrecy is too often the norm in Pa.

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. We pay for our government, and it should answer to us. But too often, that’s not how it works. Records get buried. Agencies stonewall. Officials wait out the news cycle or criticize reporters rather than answer hard questions. And the more those in power know news organizations are struggling under cutbacks, layoffs and closures, the more they default to secrecy. According to a recent ...

Think energy is unaffordable now?

The facts remain: Pennsylvania is the nation’s second-largest producer of natural gas, and the tri-state region is the world’s fourth largest producer. Both small “conventional” wells and large “unconventional” shale wells supply the state affordable and reliable energy. That could change drastically for tens of thousands of families in 2029 if the Department of Environmental Protection implements a federal methane reduction rule known as Subpart OOOOc in a rigid manner. Subpart OOOOc imposes sweeping new monitoring, reporting, and equipment mandates to reduce oil and gas ...

Kids aren’t picky; parents make them so

It’s not my fault that my kids are picky eaters, I learned today. But it’s my fault if I don’t fix it. That’s what I gleaned from a recent article by Helen Zoe Veit, the author of a forthcoming book called “Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History.” Children are not naturally picky, Veit tells us in her piece. Not at all. In fact, children are voracious eaters of vinegar and raw oysters and tiny crabs still in the shells. They are not engineered to demand Lunchables, then only eat the cheese out of the package and the second you cave and buy 10 ...