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Guest Column

Guest Column

Views of guest columnists are their own. To submit an op-ed for consideration, contact Commentary Editor Samantha Willis at [email protected]

COMMENTARY

2021’s biggest climate and weather disasters cost the U.S. $145 billion

By: - January 11, 2022

By Stacy Morford, The Conversation The disasters just kept coming in 2021, from Hurricane Ida’s destruction across Louisiana and the Northeast to devastating wildfires in the West and damaging storms, tornadoes and floods. Nearly half the U.S. was in drought, and extreme temperature spikes disrupted power supplies just when people needed cooling or heating most. […]

COMMENTARY

How democracy gets eroded – lessons from a Nixon expert

By: - January 7, 2022

By Ken Hughes, University of Virginia Now that a full year has passed since the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, the 2020 election and the republic, it’s evident that the attack never really ended. Instead, it spread out to other, less visible, more vulnerable targets. Donald Trump had hoped to reverse his election […]

COMMENTARY

The ‘sore loser effect’: How rejecting election results can destabilize democracy

By: - January 4, 2022

By James Piazza, Penn State An attendee at an October 2021 political rally hosted by right-wing activist Charlie Kirk asked: “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” The attendee was referring to the baseless allegation that Joe Biden stole the 2020 U.S. presidential election and that he unfairly denied […]

COMMENTARY

Incorporate social-emotional learning into physical education in Virginia schools

By: - December 30, 2021

By Lila Newberry The Virginia Department of Education says their recently developed equity-focused social-emotional learning standards are in place to “ensure every student in Virginia attends a school that maximizes their potential and prepares them for the future: academically, socially, and emotionally.” The development of SEL standards for Virginia schools is a step in the […]

COMMENTARY

Manchin killed Build Back Better over inflation concerns. Why that’s misguided:

By: - December 27, 2021

By Michael Klein, Tufts University One of Sen. Joe Manchin’s main concerns in deciding to pull his support for President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan is that it would drive up inflation, which is currently rising at the fastest pace in four decades. On Dec. 19, 2021, the West Virginia Democrat said in an interview […]

COMMENTARY

There’s something rotten in Bristol

By: - December 22, 2021

By Jo Albers My husband and I spent several years researching what part of the country we wanted to spend our retirement; our golden years. We wanted to be close to the mountains, but also to have access to restaurants, live music and shopping. We narrowed our search to the Southwest Virginia/ Northeast Tennessee region, […]

COMMENTARY

Home care is a lifeline for people with disabilities. Congress has to find a way to invest in it.

By: - December 22, 2021

By Steve Grammer In high school, while my classmates were away on college visits, I toured nursing homes. Even though I was just 18, I was informed that I would soon be living in one. It was true: Barely into my 20s, I was moved to a nursing home where my roommates were elderly Alzheimer […]

COMMENTARY

Halt hydrogen hype

By: - December 21, 2021

By Mary Finley-Brook  Hydrogen energy produced from natural gas can have a higher carbon footprint than using either natural gas or coal directly for heat. Hydrogen types are not the same: Green hydrogen production is based on renewable sources, yellow hydrogen comes from nuclear energy, grey from fossil fuels and blue specifically from fossil gas. […]

COMMENTARY

How effective are vaccines against omicron? An epidemiologist answers six questions

By: - December 17, 2021

By Melissa Hawkins, American University The pandemic has brought many tricky terms and ideas from epidemiology into everyone’s lives. Two particularly complicated concepts are vaccine efficacy and effectiveness. These are not the same thing. And as time goes on and new variants like omicron emerge, they are changing, too. Melissa Hawkins is an epidemiologist and […]

COMMENTARY

Chickahominy Pipeline: Should we trust them? 

By: - December 16, 2021

By Karen Gill The developers promoting Chickahominy Pipeline are asking central Virginians to allow them to build an 83-mile gas pipeline to feed a merchant gas plant, permitted for Charles City County. As they work to convince landowners to allow initial surveying and eventual construction of a high pressure pipeline for transmission of natural gas, […]

COMMENTARY

Keep Virginia moving forward: accelerate efforts on workforce development and equity

By: - December 15, 2021

By Scott Jenkins and Brian Sponsler To those who appreciate good government and the smooth transition of power from one administration to another, the scene of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Gov. -elect Glenn Youngkin together represented a moment to celebrate. Northam presented the next governor with his challenge coin and Youngkin graciously accepted it, […]

COMMENTARY
living shoreline

Virginia’s flood woes: It’s time for some consistency

By: - December 14, 2021

By Skip Stiles For those of us working on the threats that sea level rise and intense rainfall flooding pose to Virginia, December has been a confusing time so far. On Dec. 1, Virginia received an early Christmas present when the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) auction generated nearly $38 million for the statewide Community […]