Pen International: Creative Non-Fiction

Analysts were studying the carbon benefits of switching homes to electric heating when they discovered financial benefits too, in some homes.

In some American cities the electric grid is already clean enough that carbon emissions would drop if homes converted to electric heating, according to a new study by the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Writing for NBC, science journalist Erin Biba criticizes WeWork for relying on a single Oxford study in its decision to ban meat, but then Biba relies on a single University of California San Diego study to argue WeWork's effort will fail. And the San Diego study doesn't even fit.

Fundamentally we are making the same mistake whether we’re sucking carbon out of the ground and spewing it into the atmosphere or slaughtering animals by the billions and flushing them down the toilet.

Imagine villages in the Canadian wilderness powered by small nuclear reactors that also provide the fuel for homes, cars, trucks, and trains.

California is on track to meet its clean-energy goals a decade early thanks in part to communities demanding and delivering renewable energy faster and cheaper than utilities can, a new report says.

Nuclear operators are scrambling to keep nuclear plants, typically either all-the-way on or all-the-way off, alive in an emerging electricity market that puts a premium on flexibility.

Companies have to take the lead on environmental regulation now that it's clear the federal government won't do it, former EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said.

Nuclear energy has been the recipient of almost half of the federal government's energy research and development spending since 1948, according to a new assessment from the Congressional Research Service. Fossil fuels come in second.

In an otherwise dour outlook on the world's chances of recovering from climate change, the International Energy Agency director named one bright prospect that arrived this year bearing President Trump's signature.

A Self Made of Words by Carl H. Klaus Iowa, 2013 Recently a Buddhist acquaintance suggested I read Simone Weil because of her work on attention. She writes, for example, that “Absolute undivided attention is prayer,” which lends a Buddhist flavor to her Judeo-Christian theology. Attention can be aimed at anything, after all, not necessarily […]

Since Roger Ebert died I’ve been watching the tribute writers struggle to express his contribution. At The Atlantic, Christopher Orr rightly describes Ebert as a movie enthusiast, but here’s the analysis that follows: “The movies he loved, he truly loved. And the movies he hated, he truly hated.” That’s so truly true Orr can reuse it for […]

It wasn’t the great science fiction novels, “Fahrenheit 451” or “The Martian Chronicles,” that most reflected Ray Bradbury’s life, but a play he wrote—”Something Wicked This Way Comes”— “It’s a metaphor for all of life,” Bradbury said of his play, which you may know better as a 1983 movie starring Jonathan Pryce, Jason Robards and […]

[capti on id=”attachment_2694″ align=”alignright” width=”300″ caption=”By fox_kiyo via flickr”][/caption] When we published the summer issue of Contrary two days ago, we had less than $2 in the bank. We’ve been scraping by since the recession hit, but this marked the first time we had published an issue without knowing how we’d pay for it. Scary, […]

Lauren Berlant speaking on media sensationalism? I couldn’ t miss that. So I found my way to the University of Chicago’s Gleacher Center to have a listen. Only to find out I’d overlooked the comma between media and sensationalism. Lauren Berlant is an English professor at the University of Chicago, but that title can’t contain […]

Juliana Baggott wrote a smart and calm defense of the Osama bin Laden death celebration for NPR last week. Americans should be free to release their fear, she contends: their cheering shows they are paying attention, are emotionally invested, and are participating in an act of unity. She didn’t convince me, but she helped me […]

For a lifetime Mary Oliver has gently secluded herself, walked the woods, sent bottles out on the tide bearing simple messages that reconnect humanity to a beauty beyond us. Now we know why. In an interview with Maria Shriver Mary Oliver reveals she was sexually abused when very young, that with eroded trust she withdrew […]

I left the daily life of journalism at the turn of the Century, just before the daily life of journalism collapsed. That left me feeling a bit like Charlie Chaplin, who sold all his stocks in 1928. Since then I’ve maintained journalism as a practice more cyclically, and less cynically, focusing more on reporting and […]

The genius of James Fallows’ new piece in The Atlantic is that he takes some of the best values of traditional journalism—skepticism, research, fairness, eagerness to question authority and topple conventional wisdom—and he applies them to traditional journalism. He disputes the tediously common view that old journalism is better than new. Unless they are different from […]

Last week when my friend David Alm published his lament of digital publishing in these pages, I happened to be writing an introduction for a visiting writer. I recognized in my draft a soft rebuttal to David’s post, but I decided it had to complete its original mission before I could post it. This introduction […]