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Articles by Lissa Harris

Lissa Harris is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass.

Featured Article

Warning: The following article contains naughty words — but we can’t help it, as they’re the whole subject of the story. It also contains links to websites that are, as they say, “not safe for work.” So all you kids, go play Pokemon or whatever it is you do these days. The rest of you, consider yourselves warned.

How much do you love the rainforest?

Photo: National Center for Atmospheric Research.

It’s been nearly a thousand years since Lady Godiva, the original libertarian libertine, went on her famous naked horseback ride through the streets of Coventry to protest high taxes imposed by her husband.

Since then, the West has been subjected to the Enlightenment, free love, bra burning, Third Wave feminism, and Janet Jackson’s nipple. And yet, it seems, getting naked for a good cause is just as scandalous as it ever was.

There is no shortage of naked activists willing to carry on the legacy of Lady Godiva. Nude and partially nude protesters shocked this year’s Republican National Convention, from ACT UP supporters clad only in painted slogans to Axis of Eve m... Read more

All Articles

  • A new GMO treaty is about to get tangled up in trade tussles

    All but eclipsed by the somber anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety will become international law today with little fanfare. Nonetheless, its entry into force could mark the beginning of a new era in international trade — with potentially sweeping consequences for the environment. Fields of grain […]

  • The economic heresy of Herman Daly

    If economics is a religion, the World Bank is perhaps its grandest church. For the last half century, the venerable institution at 1818 H Street in Washington, D.C., has been dispatching its missionaries around the globe, spreading the theology of the free market to the heathens. And if economics is a religion, Herman Daly is […]

  • Rewriting the book on economics

    Joshua Farley, a researcher at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, didn’t get into economics to make money. In fact, he tells me, he almost quit the academy altogether to go back to carpentry — a far more lucrative career prospect. “When I graduated, there were virtually no jobs in ecological economics. I applied to […]

  • Ecological economist Robert Costanza puts a price tag on nature

    The idea of slapping a dollar value on to an alpine meadow or the dappled green shade of a forest strikes a chill into the very bones of most environmentalists. Like love, nature is the kind of thing that money just can’t buy. Or is it? A small but growing chorus of ecological economists are […]