Opinion

  If global aviation were a country, it would be the 7th highest carbon emitter in the world, suggests a recent study. Another indicates that the greenhouse gases that airplanes spew are equal to the amount that Germany emits. Currently, airline carbon emission is around 2% of the global total. And if this is not checked, it might triple by …

  The Harvard Management Co., which oversees Harvard University’s endowment and other investments, just released its 2016 annual report. It’s grim reading: The fund had a negative return of 2 percent and was worth about $2 billion less than a year earlier, underperforming its benchmarks by a significant margin. At $35.7 billion, the university’s endowment is the biggest in the …

Imagine an entirely plausible scenario for the effects of climate change in 2045. The Greenland ice sheet has melted entirely, adding 20 feet to the oceans. Unprecedented outbreaks of pests have ruined crops of corn, wheat and rice around the world, causing food shortages and riots. In the U.S., the army patrols major cities. In such a desperate situation, could …

  Lawyers, beware. Robots really are coming for your jobs. Exhibit A: Venture-capital firm Invoke Capital just made a multi-million-dollar investment in Luminance, which is developing artificial intelligence to automate the legal drudgery involved in corporate mergers and acquisitions. The robot lawyer is just one of many — including offerings from Ross Intelligence and Kira Systems — aiming to replace …

  The conversation — or argument— we’ve been having on immigration has been remarkably skewed. It’s been all about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, otherwise known as the “undocumented.” Actually, what counts far more are the estimated 31 million immigrants who are here legally and the roughly 1 million who gain legal entry every year. Of course, the question …

    The West, it’s obvious, faces a migration crisis. Across the aging, stagnating economies of the developed world, citizens are revolting against what many perceive as an uncontrolled influx of foreigners. The U.S. apart, most of these economies are also facing a prolonged crisis of growth. Under other circumstances, the solution would be obvious: restore vitality by taking in …

Over the past couple decades, the Bank of Japan has tried time and again to get interest rates up from zero, only to discover that the zero bound has a peculiarly strong gravitational pull. Although I hope the new measures it announced this week will help, its past experience holds an important lesson for central banks everywhere. When interest rates …

  As the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) braces to meet in Algiers on September 28, there are pressures from different corners on the group to take a decision on oil supply. However, the OPEC has to take a very cautious approach. Any hasty step or quick fix to limit the production to raise the crude price may …

Millions of Americans are going to vote for someone other than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in November. The Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party candidate Jill Stein together command about 10 percent of the vote in recent polls. Yet their supporters, who feel alienated from the two-party system, probably don’t want their country to adopt a European-style multiparty …

  One of the big attractions of 3-D printing is that it’s so cheap and simple. Just come up with a design, and that nice little machine you bought for $499.99 at Staples will extrude it in layer after layer of warm plastic that hardens as it cools. And then you have…a plastic thing! If you want your thing made …