As COP27 met this month, the looming effects of climate change are again in the headlines. Devastating wildfires, hurricanes, droughts and sea level rise now affect more than 6 in 10 Americans within their local communities. Billions of dollars have been committed through the Inflation Reduction Act and various state measures, including California’s most recent … Continue reading »

  Some of the best jobs in academia are to be a professor of Cooperative Extension at Berkeley. The Cooperative Extension is one of the greatest inventions of the American educational system, designed to transfer knowledge to and learn from the experience of practitioners in agriculture and industry. We have two types of extension professionals: … Continue reading »

The mining companies’ justification for deep-sea mining is based on a big lie

When I arrived in Berkeley for my Ph.D. about 50 years ago (1973, before the Yom Kippur War), I learned that the department of Agricultural Economics, which I joined, had several faculty members who were extension specialists. Their job has been to do real applied research and to provide information and education to adults (regular … Continue reading »

For over 230 days, Ukraine has been resisting Russian aggression. This war brings death and destruction at a scale not seen in Europe since WWII and the ripples of the war are felt everywhere—from the Ukrainian families who lost their loved ones to African countries that face the prospect of hunger. A long war rather … Continue reading »