Roy Wehrle

 The opening statement in the Burns-Novick TV documentary series is accurate. The U.S. was overconfident, its policy was based on a fateful misunderstanding of the Vietnam conflict and the U.S. found it easier to muddle on than to face the truth that it was unwinnable. This 10-episode story of the Vietnam War shown recently on […]

This triangle of the world is where the two world powers brush up against each other in a perilous friction caused by an upstart nuclear power. Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, threatens to hit us with nuclear fire. Perhaps after decades of failed U.S. policy it is time to try something new.  From […]

 Yeats’s famous line of poetry during the dark times after the Great War comes eerily down to us today: “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.” Yet in the preliminary French elections on April 23 the center did hold, or so it seems. Let’s unravel this most important election which could decide whether the European […]

 Nationalism is returning to a world badly in need of internationalism. An increasing number of countries are moving sharply to the political right, endorsing nationalism, while the public and global goods of our world such as the fish in the ocean and our environment and climate have no international shepherds to watch over them. More […]

The Italians vote their leader out and this affects all of us. Prime Minister Renzi in Italy recently resigned as promised after losing a plebiscite on whether or not to amend the Constitution so Italy could move forward. His proposal was designed to shore up faltering banks and to start economic growth. The people said […]

Almost a year ago, 178 nations agreed to the Paris Climate Accord which recently was ratified as the first world climate agreement designed to eliminate fossil fuel energy, preferably by 2033. How are we doing one year later? Recent developments The density of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has now climbed above 400 parts per […]

The Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, to be voted on by Congress soon, is a quilt of many colors, disparate pieces stitched together. This is a complex bill which you probably will support if you believe it will strengthen U.S. leadership in the world, but you will oppose if you think corporations should not be given excessive […]

 The two-week negotiations came to a jubilant climax on Dec. 12 as 195 nations voted yes to a world climate accord. Tough negotiations, all-night sessions, citizen protests, good planning and diplomacy by the United Nations and by the French hosts brought accord. Though Paris does not solve the climate problem, for the first time in […]

PARIS – Join us as we stroll through Le Bourget Airport, site of Lindberg’s landing and now the Climate Conference. ( Aside: No, Illinois Times did not really send me to Paris.) Our first impression is the smell of French bread baking in special ovens constructed for the conference. Next, we are overwhelmed by people […]

 Two paths converge at the giant Paris climate conference: the political path and the scientific path. Based on the following discussion you can decide what you think will happen in Paris. The political path had its origins in 1992 at the Rio Conference where the UN delegates decided that greenhouse (fossil fuel) emissions must be […]

 The big Paris climate conference is now just three months away. The latest research on climate change is just in from the dean of climate scientists, James Hansen. He and his team of 16 climate scientists, using the research findings of hundreds of top scientists, along with the work of the United Nations climate science […]

What a wonder! At a time when so many of the leaders and people of our world are sleepwalking through the most exciting, promising and treacherous time in the history of our world, there arrives a shaft of bright sunlight through the clouds. It is the pope’s encyclical, his proclamation on global warming. When we […]