Tag Archives: social distance

Godwin’s Law and Us

This is a follow up to my “Shame” blog about the president-triggered mob attack on the American government in Washington, DC on January 6th. The attack was one part of a series of efforts to void the November 3rd election … Continue reading

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Job and the Just World Hypothesis

I asked my wife, a psychologist and college administrator, to help explain climate change denial. She suggested the “just world hypothesis.” I included her proposal in the last chapter of my book, Climate Change: The Fork at the End of … Continue reading

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Can We Reopen Schools? Who Loses Out if We Don’t?

I just read an important op-ed in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, “‘Remote Learning’ Is Often an Oxymoron: We need to try harder to get kids back in school.” The essence of the piece is that, while rich … Continue reading

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Happy Jewish New Year

 Let This Year be as Short as Possible and Mark the End of the Virus I started to write a blog about opening schools—a timely topic right now. However, I got a message from my Australian family for Rosh Hashana—the … Continue reading

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School Curriculum: The NYT

Why do we send our kids to school? Why did our parents send us to school? People are wondering this more than ever, now that many schools are still closed physically and have moved to an online educational experience. But … Continue reading

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How to Use COVID-19 to Make your Workplace Greener

The “lonely” Brooklyn College in June This is the beautiful campus where I teach. There are almost no students; it looks lonely. Granted, I took the photograph on Sunday, June 21st, a day when the campus likely wouldn’t look much … Continue reading

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COVID-19-Inspired Longer-Term Changes to the Energy Transition

I started to write this blog on Thursday, June 11th. On that day, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that, “we can’t shut down the economy again.” The Federal Reserve and others had already made grim predictions about the long-term economic … Continue reading

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Global Disasters at Different Speeds: How Do We Teach and Learn Now?

Israeli beach, May 16th My university just wrapped up its 2020 spring semester. As in most schools, our classrooms all moved online shortly after the semester began. This shift has applied to most other activities as well. In the US … Continue reading

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Phased Reopening and Lessons to Learn

Figure 1 – Dana Summers’ cartoon on phased opening Roughly two months ago, my campus completely shifted to remote learning and teaching and I started lockdown. I have made a corresponding shift here, covering the COVID-19 viral pandemic that now … Continue reading

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Scaling Properties of COVID-19

Saturday was a beautiful spring day. The Brooklyn green market downstairs was open. The street and the market were relatively (in the pandemic era) crowded; well managed social distancing was enforced but many people went without masks. The talk of … Continue reading

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