Tag: apocalyptic scenarios
The Masks We’ll Wear in the Next Pandemic
On one level, the world’s response to the coronavirus pandemic over the past two and half years was a major triumph for modern medicine. We developed COVID vaccines faster than we’d developed any vaccine in history, and began administering them just a year after the virus first infected humans. The vaccines turned out to work better than top public-health officials had dared hope. In tandem with antiviral treatments, they’ve drastically reduced the virus’s toll of severe illness and death, and
Why Europe Can’t Shut Off Russian Gas
No fossil fuel is more important to understanding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than natural gas. Russia sells gas to Europe via pipelines; Europe relies on it to heat its buildings, power its industry, and generate electricity. This interdependent relationship has gone on for decades, and although it may soon come to a close, it has limited the West from imposing harsher sanctions on Russia than it might have otherwise: The sanctions were “specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue,”