capitalism

This is the Dec. 15, 2022, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.How many solar and wind farms will it take for the U.S. to stop burning coal, oil and gas? How much energy will be needed to power hundreds of millions of electric cars? And where will we mine enough lithium to build the batteries in those cars?As an energy reporter focused on the climate crisis — and a young person hoping for a long…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The term "late capitalism" seems to be everywhere as a trending meme—often used as a kind of shorthand to illustrate the absurdities of certain free market economies. On Twitter, you will find the hashtags #latecapitalism (English), #tardocapitalismo (Italian), #capitalismotardio (Spanish), and…

Nonfiction A Busy History How beavers shaped America—and not just its ecology Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip Twelve, 2022 ($30) Beavers, you may have noticed, are having a moment. These tireless engineers build woody dams that form ponds, which in turn filter out water pollution, sequester carbon, furnish wildlife habitat and avert drought. The Los Angeles Times recently called the beaver a “superhero,” and the New York Times has deemed them “furry weapons of climate…

In the early 1990s, Prince started appearing in public with the word “slave” scrawled across his cheek. The facepaint was a protest against Warner Music, who had signed Prince when he was just 18, and had the power to dictate the pace of his creative output as well as owning the rights to it. Prince managed to escape his original contract – partly by changing his recording name to an unpronounceable squiggle – but remained distrustful of the industry that had “enslaved” him until his death, hiding the master recordings of…

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre answers questions during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, August 9, 2022.Evelyn Hockstein | ReutersWhite House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre indicated that U.S. President Joe Biden has little sympathy for Ticketmaster's parent company Live Nation, which is reportedly facing an antitrust probe over the fiasco Taylor Swift fans faced in trying to snag seats for her upcoming Eras Tour.Declining to comment on "any potential investigation" by the…

Lorcan Finnegan has a lot to say about the negative effects of capitalism and consumerism. In his 2019 feature Vivarium, Finnegan uses a young couple buying a house in a suburban neighborhood to represent how capitalism drives people to follow societal norms and get stuck in life’s mundanity. Finnegan explores capitalism once again in his new film, Nocebo, but frames his discussion through the wealth divide between the rich and the poor. Eva Green stars as Christine, a fashion designer plagued by a mysterious illness…

Some insight on NieR‘s legacy from some of its creative leads NieR: Automata was recently ported to the Nintendo Switch, and by most accounts, it was an excellent transfer over. Alongside checking the game out, we got the chance to send over a handful of questions to the leads behind NieR: Automata. Posed with the chance to ask director Yoko Taro, producer Yosuke Saito, and composer Keiichi Okabe about the 2017 game and its legacy, we inquired about a few things. Could 2B ever cross over into more games? Why was bringing…

We need businesses like Patagonia to set an example for what ethical capitalism can look like. Credit: Shutterstock Patagonia's recent blockbuster announcement that the company was "turning capitalism on its head by making the Earth our only shareholder" is generating a lot of attention. It is the start of another chapter in a long and storied history of a company that, more often than not, has been getting ethics right.…

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 20: Abigail Disney speaks at Firehouse DCTV's Cinema For Documentary Film Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on September 20, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)Santiago Felipe | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty ImagesAbigail Disney, a grandniece of Walt Disney and shareholder in the media giant, went viral back in 2019 when she criticized former CEO Bob Iger's $66 million compensation package. Ever since, the Disney heiress — who is a documentary filmmaker and social…

Data Capitalism got a push as advertising realized the potential of exploiting personal data Data capitalism also referred to as surveillance capitalism, is the unrestricted use of private human experience as a source of free data on human behavior. Personal data is viewed and conceptualized as a source of profit in this economic system. When advertising businesses realized the potential of exploiting personal data to target consumers more precisely, surveillance capitalism emerged and reached its zenith. The development…