Lots of great green stuff in the latest issue of The Atlantic 1

I haven’t read The Atlantic much lately, but I picked up the latest issue at the airport and it is superb. Three pieces are worth particular note.

First, Joshua Green has a piece on “The Coming Green Economy” that is as good as anything I’ve ever read in popular media about the contours of the green energy space over the last 30 years. It avoids many of the dumber canards passing as conventional wisdom these days, but is appropriately skeptical. Really top-notch.

Then there’s a piece by Graeme Wood that I fully expected to hate: “Re-Engineering the Earth,” about geoengineering. Articles in the popular press on this subject tend to be far too credulous and breathless about the awesomely laser-tastic future techno-zappery that’s going to save us. Wood actually does a decent job of presenting both the hopes and the many, many dangers.

And finally, not exactly green, but well worth checking out, is Jamais Cascio’s “Get Smarter,” about how technology is enabling us to enhance, extend, and network our natural intelligence. Climate change is never mentioned, but if you want a little hope about our ability to deal with something this huge, Cascio’s article is the place to find it.

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