Elizabeth Kolbert

Fertilizers filled with the nutrient boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today, they’re creating vast and growing dead zones in our lakes and seas.

Since World War I we’ve been solving problems with dangerous chemicals that introduce new problems.

In the nearly sixty years since the Cuban missile crisis, the story of near-catastrophe has only grown more complicated.

Barnum called himself the “Prince of Humbugs,” which left open the possibility that one day there would arise a king.

Perhaps, in ethical terms, it doesn’t matter whether overhunting was or was not the cause of the passenger pigeon’s extinction. Practically speaking, it matters a good deal.

The self-confidence that kept Columbus going was his undoing.