The Feminist Self-Defense Practice That Could Give the Climate Crisis a Beatdown

It’s Time to Train Ourselves to Transform Our Fear and Anger into Action

The climate breakdown, which so many of us assumed lay far in the future, is upon us now.

Extreme weather conditions abound—drought, wildfires, super storms, floods. A recent and terrifying report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that more of the same is inevitable, and that the window to avoid the most horrific outcomes is rapidly closing. Only by reducing emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 can we limit the temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius, the panel concluded. Even that best …

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Sisson Callahan Trail

Where I Go: Hiking the Mountain That Almost Killed John Muir

Finding an Adventure Story and a Portal to the Past Beneath Mount Shasta

The great outdoor adventurer John Muir—who had skipped over glaciers in Alaska, surfed an avalanche, and gleefully rode a wildly swaying tree in a storm in the Sierras—lay in a …

Where I Go: The Geology of Memory | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: The Headlands of Yehliu

It Took Me 20 Years and Five Visits to Develop My Own Relationship to Taiwan

I was hiking the Port Orford Heads State Park on the coast of Southern Oregon this summer when I realized how closely the rock formations and coastline resemble the rugged …

Is Anything More American Than Oklahoma! in Oklahoma? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Is Anything More American Than Oklahoma! in Oklahoma?

Forget Broadway’s Reopening—The Nation’s Artistic Heartbeat Is at Its Center

If there’s a more rambunctious and promiscuous genre than musical theater, I haven’t met it yet.

Musicals are an everywhere phenomenon. They touch an enormously broad swath of American lives, unapologetically …

When an Empire Withdrew from an Unwinnable War | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

When an Empire Withdrew from an Unwinnable War

Hadrian’s Retreat From Parthia Drew Fierce Criticism—and Opened the Door to a Better Roman Future

Ending wars has always been hard for great powers. Hadrian knew this. In 117 A.D., the new Roman emperor decided to withdraw his forces from an unwinnable war against the …

Colorado River water

When the Colorado River Runs Dry

A Coachella Valley Farmer Reflects on the Water Source He, His Date Palms, and People and Animals Across California Rely On

Even as she was going blind, my mom, ever the poet, delighted in sitting out among the palms and birds, and enjoying and visualizing the scene, as I irrigated my …