First up, on the Financial Page: “Elective Economics” by James Surowiecki, is a look at how the economy is affected by a change in political power. Before the midterm elections this year, Dick Cheney and the Republicans warned that if the Democrats took control of Congress, the “economy would sustain a major hit.” But what happened, besides a short term rise in prices, wasn’t much. Which is exactly Surowiecki’s point. Politicians have little control over the economy as a whole, but they can decide how the wealth is divided. As the author puts it: “This election won’t change the size of the pie, but it may change how it gets sliced.” Well put.

“Downfall” by Peter J. Boyer tracks the rise and fall of the recently ousted Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld held the same position under Gerald Ford. He also ran the Pentagon and oversaw the reunification of Vietnam. So when General Henry H. Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that Rumsfeld was “exactly the right man for the job in this new century” the Republican national-security establishment applauded. After Clinton’s era of dismantled military bases and botched military missions in Mogadishu, Bosnia, and Kosovo, Rumsfeld was seen as a savior. What went wrong? Read Boyer’s article here.

“The Darkening Sea” by Elizabeth Kolbert is of huge importance. I wish the article was available online, but it’s not, so if you can find this issue on newsstands, buy it. It’s time everyone seriously considered the affect of humankind and its industry on the environment. The possible results are chilling.

In this piece, Kolbert presents evidence of how carbon dioxide is not only changing our atmosphere, but our oceans. “The concentration of CO2 in the air today—three hundred and eighty parts per million—is higher than it has been at any point in the past six hundred and fifty thousand years, and probably much longer. At the current rate of emissions growth, CO2 concentration will top five hundred parts per million—roughly double pre-industrial levels—by the middle of this century. It is expected that such an increase will produce an eventual global temperature rise of between three and a half and seven degrees Fahrenheit…

Gases from the atmosphere get absorbed by the ocean and gases dissolved in water are released into the atmosphere. When the two are in equilibrium, roughly the same quantities are being dissolved as are getting released. But change the composition of the atmosphere…and the exchange becomes lopsided: more CO2 from the air enters the water than comes back out.”

The affect? In sufficient quantities, it changes the water’s PH. “Already, humans have pumped enough carbon into the oceans—some hundred and twenty billion tons—to produce a .1 decline in surface PH.” Doesn’t seem like much, but PH is a logarithmic measure, like the Richter scale, so a .1 drop “represents a rise in acidity of about thirty percent.”

Stop. Read that again. Thirty percent. If you can’t imagine how that would damage sea life, and eventually your own, I deem you hopeless. But if you can, if any of this pricks your worry center, remember these statistics every time you drive, every time you flip a light switch, or use any product containing fossil fuels. And do what you can to break the cycle, no matter how insignificant it seems. Do it anyway. Over and over again.