The following is excerpted and adapted from Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America (Haymarket Books, 2022). *** If you thought breathing in microscopic drops of COVID-19 was bad for your lungs, try inhaling a little of the vapor emanating from the exhaust pipes of Hanford’s burping waste tanks. For years, workers at Hanford—which turned out unfathomable amounts of plutonium for the US’s atomic weaponry, and is now home to the most expensive environmental clean-up ever—received mixed messages about whether or not they should wear respirators while working in areas that could potentially expose them to noxious,…

Developing countries face a dilemma. Most have run up public indebtedness in a sensible response to the global recession induced by COVID-19 lockdowns. This has led to a deterioration in creditworthiness but saved their economies and protected their most vulnerable citizens. In normal times, developing countries should be slowly restoring fiscal discipline and retrenching public spending to restore their credit scores, as recommended by international agencies.[1] But times are not normal. The global economy is slowing, and many developing countries face growing setbacks from food, energy, and flood crises to drought and conflicts—all while facing the urgent need to transition to…

BEIJING—After unrest erupted in parts of China this past weekend, many friends asked, “Will this end in bloodshed, just as the 1989 Tiananmen protests did?” The recent outburst of public dissent attacking the Chinese government’s zero-COVID policy was the most intense and widespread that many Chinese had ever seen. Wednesday then brought another eerie parallel with 1989: The death of former President Jiang Zemin echoed the April 15, 1989, demise of former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head Hu Yaobang, whose popularity drew an estimated 100,000 demonstrators to Tiananmen Square just before his funeral. Would Jiang’s death inflame the protesters of…

A lot of writers and media talking heads always enjoy being right. They rarely are. For twenty years now, however, The American Conservative has been right—right about American adventurism in the Middle East, right about the dangers of free trade and open borders, right about the hazards of monopoly power, right about the perils of putting Wall Street over Main Street. For the sake of this canary-in-the-coal-mine of a publication, better right than wrong—but that doesn’t mean we always enjoy it. It's become a running joke in the office among the staff, as I’m sure it has been from time to time…

The international community has gathered this week in Egypt for the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP27) and will be discussing a range of issues including loss and damage, climate finance, adaptation and mitigation over the next two weeks. This year’s COP27 is being held in the aftermath of Pakistan’s disastrous summer floods, which led to the announcement that Pakistan’s Prime Minster Shahbaz Sharif will serve as vice-chair of the summit. This — combined with Pakistan’s presidency of the G77 this year — has afforded Pakistan a significant place on the international stage to make its case for continued support toward post-flood recovery…