Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

10 Lies Planet Earth Is Telling You

Earth

Today is Earth Day, some will tell you. (It's also my mom's birthday, you guys.) But if you were going to wish someone a happy birthday—which isn't exactly what Earth Day is, but it's as close as we'll ever get—would you want to send your regards if you knew that person was a conniving, shameless, pathological liar? No, no you would not. So, before you go around wishing "Happy Day!" to this planet we live on, here are some ways the Earth is trying to fool you. 01. Earth is smoother than a billiard ball. Remember that time you thought Earth had "peaks" and "valleys" and "altitude and "sea ... Read More

The Cheapest Way to Fight Climate Change? Block Out the Sun

This summer, the volume and extent of arctic sea ice fell to the lowest level on record; America experienced one of the hottest seasons in the last century; and the United Nations issued warnings about a coming world food crisis that could be catastrophic for tens of millions of people across the globe. All this, argues Bill McKibben, the patron saint of environmental soothsaying, is the New Normal. So what’s a world to do as we get increasingly hotter, more extreme weather events? Block out the sun, of course. Geoenginnering is the strange, far-from-perfect, science of deliberately ... Read More