The Fix Archives

Economics

How Trump’s Cuts to Biofuels Research Would Hurt the Planet and Our Economy

Biofuels can reduce emissions, benefit American corporations, and create jobs. But slashing the budget of the Bioenergy Technologies Office effectively eliminates those possibilities.

Michael White

A woodcut of Mother Louise, a popular 17th-century alewife in England.

Social Justice

What Google Bros Have in Common With Medieval Beer Bros

The exclusion of women from coding fits perfectly into centuries of labor history.

David M. Perry

Environment

Are the Floating Houses of the Netherlands a Solution Against the Rising Seas?

Houseboats have long been a common sight in the Netherlands. But a new community of floating homes may signal a solution for rising sea levels across the globe.

Olga Mecking

Social Justice

What We Can Learn From People Who Have Left White Supremacy Groups

Pacific Standard spoke with a sociologist who has interviewed dozens of former members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups, Christian Identity sects, and other white-ethnicity hate groups.

Francie Diep

Engineering the End of Malaria

Intellectual Ventures has put some of the profits from licensing patents into developing breakthrough health-care technologies that nobody else has been able to pursue.

Julian Smith

Economics

How the Supreme Court Made It Easier for Corporations to Fight Class Action Lawsuits

Rulings in recent years have effectively forced consumers to file class actions in the region where the corporation is based or to disaggregate claims into separate filings.

Rick Paulas

People enjoy the beach during a forest fire in La Croix-Valmer, France, on July 25th, 2017.

Environment

Stop With the ‘Catastrophic Wildfire’ Scare Tactics

It's an alarmist, politically driven catchphrase. And, from a scientific perspective, it has little credibility.

Jimmy Tobias

The statue of Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and members of the alt-right on August 12th, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

News in Brief

When Polarization Isn’t the Problem: Seeing Charlottesville for What It Really Is

When violent white supremacists attack and kill people, criticizing divisiveness and urging people to unite is, at best, a dodge.

Seth Masket

How to Improve the Primary Process? Make It Less Democratic.

It sounds counterintuitive—and would be a hard sell—but making the way the two major political parties nominate candidates less traditionally democratic could also make it more open to compromise and negotiation.

Seth Masket

A mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Economics

How the Conflict Minerals Rule Failed

Enforcement was left up to consumers, and many legitimate mining operations were shuttered.

Rick Paulas