Featured Commentary category, Page 74
Ray Lombardi, Angela Antipova and Dorian J. Burnette: Record low water levels on the Mississippi River in 2022 show how climate change is altering large rivers
Rivers are critical corridors that connect cities and ecosystems alike. When drought develops, water levels fall, making river navigation harder and more expensive. In 2022, water levels in some of the world’s largest rivers, including the Rhine in Europe and the Yangtze in China, fell to historically low levels. The...
Michael Reagan: Ukraine is America’s latest stalemate war
We don’t fight our wars to win anymore. We fight them to get to a stalemate. We’ve risked untold lives and wasted trillions of dollars to poorly fight wars for decades in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Vietnam. Then we negotiate and leave. And then the countries where we...
Rachel Kyte: How Putin’s war and small islands are accelerating the global shift to clean energy, and what to watch for in 2023
The year 2022 was a tough one for the growing number of people living in food insecurity and energy poverty around the world, and the beginning of 2023 is looking bleak. Russia’s war on Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain and fertilizer feedstock suppliers, tightened global food and energy...
Greg Fulton: 50 years later, remembering the greatest Pirate of them all
On Sept. 30, 1972, Roberto Clemente in his last at bat as a Pittsburgh Pirate stroked his 3,000th hit, an accomplishment achieved by only 33 players in baseball history. Sadly, three months later, Roberto Clemente, the greatest Pirate of them all, would be dead at age 38. On New Year’s...
Danny Tyree: Thoughts on the ‘bomb cyclone’
I won’t hazard a guess as to whether it achieves immortality like “grassy knoll” or “hanging chads,” but surely the phrase “bomb cyclone storm” will remain in the public consciousness of those who endured its cruelties. We’ll laugh about this someday, but right now an awful lot of Americans have...
Carl P. Leubsdorf: Some not-so-serious 2023 predictions
Last year’s column successfully predicted Democratic Senate gains and a smaller-than-expected Republican House takeover. Here is our not-totally-serious forecast for 2023: JANUARY: Rep. Kevin McCarthy falls six votes short of 218 in House speaker election as 10 Freedom Caucus members vote for challenger Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs. As deadlock persists,...
Bloomberg editors: Thanks to FTX, regulating crypto should be easy
As the demise of the FTX crypto empire unfolds — on Twitter, in bankruptcy proceedings, in congressional hearings and potentially in criminal court — lawmakers and regulators are grappling with a question: What, if anything, should they do to civilise a market so rife with abuse? A few simple fixes...
Cal Thomas: An old debt carries over to a new year
”Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.” — Herbert Hoover “Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.” — Benjamin Franklin Eighteen Republican senators voted for the monstrosity known as the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, thus forever relinquishing their claim to belong...
Paul Muschick: Is your New Year’s resolution to make more money? Here’s one idea.
If you’re looking for a resolution to make for the new year, here’s a suggestion. We’d all like to find a way to bring in some extra cash, right? So check to see if you have unclaimed property in your name. The Pennsylvania Treasury is holding more than $4 billion...
Peter Morici: Degrowth solutions won’t solve global warming
Climate change, pandemics, Putin’s madness and China’s ambitions threaten humanity with droughts and floods of biblical proportions, nonnavigable rivers and disappearing island nations, fractured global supply chains and shortages of vital resources like commercial fertilizer, and famine and mass migrations. Much of this has been enabled or exacerbated by industrialization...
Sarah Green Carmichael: What we learned about hybrid work in 2022
This was supposed to be the year of returning to the office. The same could be said for 2021, and even the second half of 2020. The office seems to have become a place where we’re always “returning” but never quite “arriving.” Although office occupancy rates have risen meaningfully, they...
Joseph Friedman: Finally, some promising news on opioids for patients in severe pain
The U.S. remains in the midst of an ever-worsening drug overdose crisis. Because prescription opioids drove its earlier phases, the nation responded by drastically reducing access to those drugs — with prescriptions dropping by nearly 50% over the last decade. But it’s now clear that approach was ineffective at combating...
Tom Ruscitti: Pittsburgh lost a treasure in Franco Harris
I grew up in Aliquippa, the son of a steelworker and a Steelers fan as long as I can remember. Franco Harris transformed an entire city in nine seconds — the “Immaculate Reception” gave an entire city hope, hope that we could be more than a dirty, smoky mill town...
Brian Backe: Use your head, not just your heart, when making charitable donations
It is that time of year when a little voice in our head reminds us that it is time to start thinking about giving to charitable nonprofits doing good work in our community and world. Sometimes there is another voice in the background asking, “How do I know they are...
Carl Kurlander: Franco Harris, a true hero
There already was going to be much written about Franco Harris, the legendary Pittsburgh Steeler who 50 years ago caught a deflected pass off his teammate at the last minute of a game against the Oakland Raiders in a play that would be known forever as the “Immaculate Reception.” Now,...
Sheldon Jacobson: Tech meltdown will help the economy — eventually
Technology companies are shedding jobs at disturbing rates. Those with experience in computing are being laid off, sometimes with little warning. Freshly minted computer science graduates are facing employment headwinds not seen for well over a decade. Is this the next dot-com bubble burst, which could send the economy spiraling...
Paul Muschick: Drug addicts, drivers will benefit from new Pennsylvania laws
The Christmas season is a time to be cheery and celebrate the good things in life. So I will take a break from my running criticism of our overpaid state legislators to note some of the positive work they’ve done recently that should make Pennsylvania a safer place to live....
David Lenga: As a Holocaust survivor, the most important thing I can do is share my story
From Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., antisemitism is once again on the rise, being echoed by celebrities with wide audiences such as Kanye West and Kyrie Irving. To Jewish people who remember the Holocaust — or those, like myself, who survived it — this shameless bigotry is nothing new. Although...
Aubrey Kirchhoff: What we should and should not do about kids and social media
Chances are if you’ve read the news in the past year you’ve seen a headline like these: It’s time to go nuclear. Mark Zuckerberg is choosing profit over children. We need to ban kids from social media … . And who could disagree with them? After all, you must be...
Theodore J. Kury: What social media regulation could look like — think of pipelines, not utilities
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and his controversial statements and decisions as its owner, have fueled a new wave of calls for regulating social media companies. Elected officials and policy scholars have argued for years that companies like Twitter and Facebook — now Meta — have immense power over public...
Elwood Watson: Right-wing media’s reaction to Griner’s release telling
It sure didn’t take long for right-wing media figures to criticize the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was released Dec. 8 by the Russian government as part of a negotiated prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed “the merchant of death.” Since the deal was made...
Marie DeMarco: Speaking up for cleaner air
As a health educator in Southeastern Pennsylvania, I’ve seen firsthand just how harmful methane pollution from the oil and gas industry can be to our health. That’s why I am relieved that the Biden administration and the Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed new federal safeguards to curb methane pollution from...
Carolyn Kuranz: Why fusion ignition is being hailed as major breakthrough in fusion
American scientists have announced what they have called a major breakthrough in a long-elusive goal of creating energy from nuclear fusion. The U.S. Department of Energy said Dec. 13 that for the first time — and after several decades of trying — scientists have managed to get more energy out...
Jarrod Hayes: A tortured and deadly legacy — Kissinger and realpolitik in US foreign policy
In 2023, Henry Kissinger will mark a century since his birth and more than 50 years of influence on American foreign policy. Kissinger’s centennial represents an important opportunity to reflect on not only his influence, but also the effects of the vision of foreign policy he has espoused. When Kissinger...
Tim Hartman: The joy and agony of a mall Santa
I used to be a mall Santa. From the ages of 17 to 27, I dressed up as a hairy, overweight elf to bring joy to children throughout the Pittsburgh area. It was good honest work. OK … it was honest work. For three to four hours a day, seven...
