The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible.

We, as Americans, have won the lottery of life and the distinction between us and people living in Kalighat is not that we are smarter, not that we're harder working, not that we're more virtuous - it's that we're luckier.

Rising seas create a higher baseline for future storm surges. The New York City Panel on Climate Change has projected that coastal waters may rise by two feet by 2050 and four feet by the end of the century.

If one is talking to a finance minister of a poor country, moral arguments tend not to get very far. But if you can argue that their country is going to grow 2 percent faster per year if they can just harness the power of the female half of the population more effectively, that is an argument they consider.

The bulk of the emails tend to come after a column. I can get about 2,000 after a column.

A few countries like Sri Lanka and Honduras have led the way in slashing maternal mortality.

Random violence is incredibly infectious