Pen International: Creative Non-Fiction

Energy visionaries imagine a future in which developing countries provide electricity to all using mini-grids powered by clean renewables, but that might not be what the developing world wants.

Markets have proven more efficient than regulations and other policies at addressing the energy and climate challenge, a leading environmental economist said recently in Aspen.

Dogs and cats are responsible for a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by animal agriculture, according a study published today— a whopping 64 million tons of CO2e emitted in the production of their food. But scientists remain divided about the role our pets play in global warming.

New research seems to confirm what some have suspected: climate change is behind a surge in suicides in India over the last four decades, particularly of farmers.

Asked to look ahead to a grid powered by renewables, executives from leading electric utilities Monday identified what they'll need to make it work, from new kinds of equipment to new kinds of employees.

Like a rocket on a radar screen, small-scale solar energy has muscled its way into the government's meticulous portrayal of the energy landscape.

Science has spoken the words that governments dare not say.

Since President Donald Trump’s abandonment of the global agreement to mitigate climate change, at least 12 states and more than 200 cities have stepped up to say they’ll do it without federal leadership. But according to the Congressional Research Service, the Constitution doesn’t allow that.

Four green technologies are growing fast enough to do their part in a zero-carbon-emissions world by mid-century, an International Energy Agency official said this week in Chicago. But they need a little help from other technologies.

Imagine 20 percent of your income going to damages from climate change, because that's the level of cost the poorest American counties could face by the end of this century, according to a study published today in the Journal Science.

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 […]