Greening Deserts, Productive Dialogue, and Garbage

How Climate Change is Turning Deserts Green (Yale Environment 360)
by Fred Pearce
Scientists thought that climate change would lead to the desertification of increasing parts of the Earth. Instead, air rich in carbon dioxide is turning drylands green. But that’s not necessarily good news.

Thinking Together with the Ju/’hoansi (Aeon)
by Vivek V. Venkataraman
For the Ju/’hoansi people of southern Africa, the idea of allowing leaders to make executive decisions for a group is anathema. So are debates and voting. Instead, they engage in dialogue designed to develop thoughtful solutions to problems without creating winners and losers.

The Price of Philanthropy (Public Books)
by John Miles Branch
Bill Gates, and other unimaginably wealthy modern philanthropists, tend to face less skepticism than their Gilded Age counterparts. Can the generosity of their foundations be separated from the power they wield to transform societies based on the whims of a few individuals?

Who Owns the Garbage? (Sapiens)
by Arba Bekteshi
Like tens of millions of people around the world, Egyptian and Romani waste pickers in Albania do the crucial job of sorting through trash for useful materials. Yet their work is low-paid and criminalized. Could seeing garbage as a common resource help create a more just system?

Incredible Invertebrates (Slate)
by Jules Howard
From ants that perform surgery to active termite mounds five times older than the Egyptian pyramids, invertebrates do amazing things. So why don’t scientists, or the public, spend more time thinking about them?

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