The roots of this hopeful tipping point in the politics of climate change lie in the failure to deliver on the promise of something virtually every nation in the world agreed to do. The Paris Agreement of 2015 achieved agreement and ratification by country governments at an unprecedented rate for any international agreement – and, quite remarkably, entered into force years ahead of schedule at the end of 2016, due to the political momentum generated in the international community.

When these cleaners are rinsed down the drain, they contaminate our water source.  Some of the chemicals that are washed down the drain are removed at wastewater treatment plants, but some remain, making their way back into rivers and lakes. When in the water, these toxic chemicals cause massive overgrowth of certain plants, crowding out wildlife. When the plants die in large masses, they deplete oxygen in the water, killing off more plants and marine life.  

"I think there are many pressing issues of our time, and gun violence is one of them,” said Ofori-Atta, who has lost loved ones to gun violence. “As a journalist, I was looking for a place where I could devote my time, and resources, and talents to an issue of grave importance — one that is consequential, one that we grapple with, and something that is just a fact of American life.”

The puzzling “no collusion” finding by Mueller is particularly troubling since this conclusion was apparently reached without any actual interview or sworn testimony by Trump as to, for example, what was going through his mind when he invited the Russians to hack into Hillary Clinton campaign’s database to find her “missing” emails or when he appeared to have advance knowledge of one or more of the WikiLeaks data dumps.

Extreme weather impacted almost 62 million people in 2018, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), while the fallout from Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi continues. At one degree of warming above pre-industrial levels, freak floods, heatwaves, and prolonged cold snaps have devastated lives across the globe, the WMO’s State of the Climate report revealed.

At worst, the discriminatory effects of voter identification laws tend to prove minimal, mainly because their effect on elections overall has proven minimal, despite the intent to push down turnout among groups more likely to vote for one party over the other. These are results that have been repeated in the political science literature: Even though the effect in the short term falls primarily on minorities and the elderly, the overall effect on all but the closest of elections is minimal at best.

If Wagner does prove to be too controversial or if we finally admit that the Ring Cycle is too long and stuffier than a Lord of the Ring marathon, Strauss, Weber, and Beethoven can give us that German opera fix (as well as many other Austria-Germanic composers, such as Mozart, Schoenberg, and Berg, if we choose not to care too much about political borders and the like). If film witticism and quirk ala Woody Allen is what you’re craving, Noah Baumbach, Sofia Coppola, and Wes Anderson will save the day. And there is definitely no shortage of white male actors and poets. 

Women are not only far less likely to whack you over the head for your watch, or juggle the account books in your office, they are also harder-working and more responsible. In interviews with scores of factory managers, corporate presidents, restaurant managers and industrial bosses in places as far afield as Tokyo and Tashkent, Northern Ireland and South Africa, Sydney and Shanghai, I have been told repeatedly that women report on time, stay later and are more quality-conscious than men.