The green energy revolution is making greater progress than expected. Solar and wind power have seen exponential cost declines, and electric vehicles seem to be a market winner. That’s all good news, but improving green energy is not the same as addressing climate change. There is good chance…

In the never-ending quest to make the world a better place, a new idea is beginning to draw more attention: educational migration. If you want to assist someone in a poor country, why not spend extra money and help them get a good college education in the West? Part of the appeal of educational…

The dual crises of the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine have been testing our governments, our institutions, our diplomacy — and our collective sense of time. In part because of social media, both events already seem intolerably long, even though the Russian invasion of Ukraine is less than a…

It is conventional wisdom that misinformation — particularly about Covid and vaccines, and often enabled by social and other media — is worse than it’s ever been. It’s hard to measure misinformation over time. But the premise that there was ever a golden age of accurate information, especially…

How to respond to climate change is often postulated as the central question of our time, and while that’s undeniably important, I have another nomination: How will we stop our new and often splendid technologies from being weaponized against us? I use the term weaponization quite literally —…

The nationwide truckers’ protest in Canada, known as the “Freedom Convoy” and centered in Ottawa, reflects so many global trends that it’s hard to say what it means. But the movement may well end up as the most consequential story of the year. Under one plausible reading, many Canadians are…

How to respond to climate change is often postulated as the central question of our time, and while that’s undeniably important, I have another nomination: How will we stop our new and often splendid technologies from being weaponized against us? I use the term weaponization quite literally —…

Crypto prices are tumbling. By one account, crypto assets have lost about $1.35 trillion globally since November, with some falling in price by 80% or more. Many investors feel a real pinch. The good news is that the global economy, or for that matter American society, is not poorer. And thus…

To envision the future of crypto, I keep trying different analytical tools. This time around the concept of relevance is focality, by which I mean the part of the system at which consumers direct their attention. Focality could determine whether crypto ushers in an era of dystopian inequality, or…

With inflation now rising faster than at any time in the last four decades, economists are debating which group suffers more from inflation, the poor or the rich. This kind of economy-wide question is not easy to answer, especially when rates of inflation have been so low in recent times and hard…