Selected Writing​

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The Lost Art of Looking at Nature, Dissent, Summer 2022

Ad Astra: The Coming Battle Over Space, Harper’s, November 2021 (cover story)

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Life After Lynching in “Ashes to Ashes” The New Yorker, 1/13/21

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Fighting COVID-19 in the Amazon, with Herbs and the Internet, The New Yorker, 12/11/20

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Is Dolly Parton the Voice of America? The New Republic, December, 2020

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The Ongoing Trauma of California's Wildfires, The New Yorker, 8/26/20

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The Faces of Those Marching for Racial Justice in New York, The New Yorker, 6/20/20

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Scenes from George Floyd Memorial, The New Yorker, 6/5/20

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“Quiet No More” Shows How Grief Can Become Activism, The New Yorker, 6/5/20

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How Zoom Colonized Our Lives The New Republic, May 2020

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The Thankless Task of Being a Topless Anti-Dairy Protester, The New Republic, March 6, 2020

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The Good Internet Lives On The New Republic, February 2019

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Why Climate Change Is the Ultimate “OK, Boomer” Issue The New Republic, 12/9/19

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The Stark Inequality of Climate Change The New Yorker, 10/17/19

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Olga Tokarczuk’s Gripping Eco-Mystery The New Republic, 10/10/19

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The Nihilistic Euphoria of the Fish Tube The New Yorker, 8/15/19

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Can a Company Own the Moon? The New Yorker, 6/18/19

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An Uncommon Victory for an Indigenous Tribe in the Amazon The New Yorker, 5/15/19

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The Future of Artificial Intelligence The New York Times Book Review, 5/2/19

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David Attenborough Delivers an Urgent Message The New Yorker, 4/13/19

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The Other Kind of Climate Denialism The New Yorker, 3/6/19 

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What if Plants Were One of Us? The Nation, 3/1/10

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The Vegan Future of Meat and the End of Animal Farming The New Republic, 2/13/19

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The Optimistic Science of De-Extinction The New Yorker 12/27/18

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The Not-So-Uplifting Year in the Animal Kingdom The New Yorker, 12/23/18

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Narcissists in Space Jacobin, Fall 2018

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Letter from Lancaster County: Nuns Square Off Against a Pipeline Pacific Standard, 9/10/18

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Bear Cam's Captivating, Unedited Zen The New Yorker 8/6/18

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Free the Whales: The History of Orca-Catchers in America The New Republic, 8/17/19

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Blood Will Out: Theranos and the Shark Tankification of American Life The Baffler, 6/12/18

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Can Rivers Be People Too? The New Republic, 5/9/18

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Libertarians Seek a New Home on the High Seas The New Republic, 5/29/17

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Innocent Intellect BOMB, 3/30/17

 

The Future of Remembering Vice, January 2017

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It Takes a Lot of Money to Look This Cheap Dissent, Winter 2017

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Who Gets to Be a Science Nerd? The New Republic, 11/29/16

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Inky the Octopus and the Upsides of Anthropomorphism  The New Yorker, 4/26/16

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The Selfie Project  The New York Post, 5/4/16

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Jeb: An Elegy!  Catapult, 2/26/16

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The Rainmakers  Meridian, Winter 2015 Nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson is Your—And Everyone Else’s—Personal Astrophysicist  Vice, 10/26/15

 

How the Rich Profit from Natural Disasters  The New Republic, 10/5/15

 

The Climate Hackers  Dissent, Summer 2015

 

On Barbara Grizzuti Harrison  Tin House, Summer 2015

 

Aral Spring  Audubon, 1/8/15

 

Whose Moon is it Anyway?  Dissent, Fall 2014

 

Chasing a Comet  Cafe, 11/18/14

 

Celebrate Corporate Personhood!  Guernica, 5/23/14

 

The Teaching Class  Guernica, 5/16/14

 

Will Space Mining Save the Earth?  The New Republic, 5/19/14

 

Tournament of Books.  The Morning News, 3/26/13  

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On E.F. Schumacher.  Tin House, Spring 2013. 

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The Marvelous Mrs. Stanley & the Amazing Dr. Youtz. The Pinch, Spring 2013

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Planetary Emergency. Guernica, 12/20/12

 

Rape and Rhetoric. Guernica, 8/22/12

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Let's Get Radical. The Revealer, 7/13/12



Human Rights Horror Stories. Guernica, 6/22/12.



On Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. Mother Jones, 4/28/12

 

Emergency in Slow Motion.  Guernica, 4/19/12

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Rockstars of Neuroscience Debate the Future of Brain Studies. Capital New York, 4/3/12

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How the Million Hoodie March Quells our Unreasonable Fears. Guernica, 3/29/12

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Uncommon Sense. Tin House, Spring 2012

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No Such Thing as Giving Too Much. Treehugger, 1/27/12

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The Beautiful and the Dammed: Part 1 & Part 2.  Myoo, 11/10/11 and 11/20/11



Patient. The Missouri Review, Spring 2010.  Anthologized in Best American Essays 2011, edited by Edwidge Danticat.

 

In Next Round of Budget Talks, Big Cuts for Health Research. The Nation, 4/11/11

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We’ll See What Happens Tonight. The Faster Times, 7/22/10

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Progress. The Rumpus, 5/13/10

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Collected Climate Reporting Portfolio

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