J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson of Louisiana arrives to update reporters about efforts to complete the appropriations process to fund the government, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 12, 2024.

In the time it takes to read this sentence, the U.S. national debt will have increased by more than $100,000. It’s now a record $34 trillion. Within just three years, the United States is on track to be spending more on interest than on its entire military.  

Yet Congress, which holds America’s purse strings, remains gridlocked over how to address the nation’s finances. Budget discussions have become prolonged messaging affairs, with Democrats calling for higher taxes on rich people and Republicans proposing deep spending cuts – and real compromise increasingly elusive. Congress hasn’t approved a budget on time in a quarter of a century. And it’s been nearly that long since the U.S. could show a surplus; every year since 2001, the country has spent more than it brought in, though increasingly there is a sense in some quarters that running deficits isn’t as bad as it was once feared.   

Now, lawmakers look likely to kick the can down the road again, for the third time since the new fiscal year began on Oct. 1. GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have agreed to another stopgap funding measure that would give their respective chambers until March to come up with a comprehensive budget, averting a potential government shutdown. The plan could pass the Senate as early as Thursday, though the right-wing House Freedom Caucus is pushing back hard and could threaten Speaker Johnson’s leadership as a result, as happened with his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. 

Meanwhile, almost no one is talking about the elephants in the room: “mandatory” programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which account for about two-thirds of spending and are not part of the budget process. 

To be sure, today’s Congress is more narrowly divided along partisan lines than it has been in years, if not decades. The institution is gridlocked on nearly everything, not just fiscal matters. But many say there’s a fundamental breakdown that goes beyond the personalities and politics.

“What we’re seeing today is the accumulation of a 50-year shredding of the congressional budget process,” says Brian Riedl, a former GOP Senate staffer now at the Manhattan Institute.

Reform today is much harder than in the 1990s, when lawmakers could leave Social Security and Medicare alone and tweak less-popular programs to close the deficit. Now, any reform will have to tackle those entitlements. And it will need to be bipartisan. 

“The fantasy that someday Democrats will be able to implement their Utopian solution to the deficits or Republicans will be able to implement their own is completely unrealistic,” says Mr. Riedl. “In order to build credibility with the public, any painful reforms will have to involve both parties holding hands together and jumping.”

Jacquelyn Martin/AP/File

President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. Last year's White House budget proposal aimed to trim deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade.

Models for reform

Other governments have shown it’s possible to turn things around. Sweden, for example, is held up as a model for fiscal reform, after a crisis in the 1990s forced the social welfare state to address its ballooning debt. It now has one of the lowest ratios of debt to gross domestic product in the European Union.

Democrats have long argued that the main problem is Republicans’ unwillingness to raise taxes, particularly on ultra-rich Americans. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist who as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, found innovative ways to save the city money and get its finances back on track, blames the “enormous power of the oligarchy.” He argues that America has more than enough resources to fund education and address issues like the housing crisis. “This is the richest country in the history of the world,” he says. 

As of 2022, overall U.S. tax revenues as a percentage of GDP were at nearly an all-time high, just under the 19.8% seen during World War II, according to Federal Reserve data. In the wake of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, however, two economists from the University of California, Berkeley found that the effective average tax rate of billionaires was actually less than that of the working class. 

But even if the total wealth of every American billionaire were confiscated – stocks liquidated, mansions and businesses sold, for an estimated net value of $4.5 trillion – it wouldn’t be enough to run the government for a single year. And it would only cover the budget deficit for a little over two years. 

“My Democratic colleagues would say, ‘Well, if we just tax the rich a little more or if we just got rid of foreign aid over here’ – those are like rounding errors in the scale of the borrowing,” says GOP Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona, vice chair of Congress’ bicameral Joint Economic Committee.

Nearly all U.S. states have some sort of balanced budget rule that prevents them from going into debt like the federal government. And sometimes a myopic focus on avoiding a shortfall can result in deep cuts to education or other services, or in short-sighted decisions like raiding rainy-day funds. 

Richard Auxier, a senior policy associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, says policymakers need to find a middle ground between defending government services and keeping spending – and taxes – under control.

“You need to have someone to say, ‘This is needed; here’s why,’” he says. “But someone else has to say, ‘You can’t just keep turning the revenue knob. I need you to prioritize what you want to do.’”

A bipartisan debt commission?

Lately, the ranks of fiscal responsibility advocates in Washington have thinned considerably, with an increasing number of experts saying national debt isn’t inherently bad. They point out that American households also carry significant debt and argue it’s OK for the federal government to do the same, especially since it can print more money.

As interest rates rise, so would the debt, and at a certain point investors will show concern that it is not sustainable. If they increasingly demand to be compensated for rising risk, that could affect not only government finances, but also the overall economy and individual earnings. Unlike EU member Greece, America has no one to rescue it if it defaults.

When Speaker Johnson gave his maiden speech in October, he called for a bipartisan debt commission to begin work immediately. House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican, says Mr. Johnson “is pushing that more than anybody.” This week, the committee is marking up a bill for such a commission after talking with various stakeholders, including Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who is co-sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate.

Representative Arrington says it’s crucial for Congress to look at the bigger picture, since annual budget fights tend to focus on just a small percentage of overall spending. Of the roughly 25% of spending that does not involve interest or programs like Social Security, nearly half goes to defense. That leaves roughly 12% of spending for Congress to haggle over. 

“It’s inordinate how much time we spend on what is a relatively small part of the federal budget,” Mr. Arrington says. “And it is not the part of the budget that is going to put our country in a catastrophic and irreparable debt crisis.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Images from the war in Gaza play on television as Ahmad al-Deek, deputy foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, sits in his office in Ramallah, West Bank, Dec. 7, 2023. The war “shows the world that there is a problem that requires a solution,” he says.

An air of subdued resignation hangs thick above the desk of Ahmad al-Deek, the Palestinian Authority’s deputy foreign minister.

His television screen shows constant news of the devastation in Gaza, hour after hour, as it has for more than three months of Israel’s anti-Hamas offensive, which has pulverized infrastructure and left more than 24,000 dead.

Israel’s brutal military assault is a response to Hamas’ savage attack Oct. 7, which left 1,200 people dead and 240 taken hostage, and shook the Jewish state to its core.

For decades, there have been Israelis and Palestinians who have tried to see beyond the violence of the moment to seek dialogue and a negotiated peace.

Yet the carnage on Oct. 7 and since has deepened the challenge of finding any path forward, as the embattled peace camps fight to be heard over the roar of the war.

“Now that the Israelis feel hurt, and Palestinians feel they are more hurt, is the solution going to be something that will look into root causes?” asks Mr. Deek, with tired eyes. In the corner of his office is a small, faux Christmas tree left undisturbed from a year ago.

“We are working day and night to utilize [Oct. 7] as an event that shows the world that there is a problem that requires a solution,” he says. “At the beginning of the war, nobody was willing to listen to us. ... But people are seeing what is happening in Gaza.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

A banner with the words "We Are Not Numbers" hangs at a central square in Ramallah, Dec. 7, 2023, amid Palestinian protests over the thousands of civilians killed by Israel in its campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

Indeed, even as the extreme violence has caused a hardening of views – proving to many that coexistence is impossible – it has also clearly demonstrated to others that the status quo must change.

Two states on the agenda?

At the highest diplomatic levels, at least, the conflict has resurrected talk – for the first time in years – of a just and viable two-state solution.

After U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meetings in Israel and the occupied West Bank last week, for example, the State Department said the United States “supports tangible steps towards the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, with both living in peace and security.”

Yet for those who have actively sought peace for decades, the Israel-Hamas war has made visions of peace, such as a two-state solution, less likely, says Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project.

“A peace camp which is on both sides, and pulling in the same direction, is when there’s a solution there that can be gotten over the finishing line, that has enough to offer both sides,” says Mr. Levy, a former Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians under former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. “We’re not at all there now.”

He cites as hurdles multiple Israeli governments that have actively opposed any form of a Palestinian state, and encouraged illegal Jewish settlement-building in the West Bank. On the other side, Mr. Levy says Palestinian rule has been “discredited” because of poor governance and “security collaboration” with the Israeli occupation.

Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

Israeli demonstrators at a 24-hour protest demand that the government prioritize the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza as they mark 100 days since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 13, 2024.

“The talk now of a two-state solution isn’t just divorced from reality and cynical; it’s actually pernicious,” says Mr. Levy. “Why, when [Western powers] won’t even get Israel to stop the massacre that it is undertaking at the moment, would anyone think that you can get Israel to withdraw from the territories and allow for a Palestinian state?”

Like the Palestinian peace camp, the Israeli peace camp, too, has been in retreat since Oct. 7, he says.

“Those on the Israeli side who even say ‘two states’ – and there are very few politically who do – what they mean by a Palestinian state wouldn’t be recognizable as such to anyone who carries a law book or a dictionary,” adds Mr. Levy.

“What they’re really saying is, ‘It is a Bantustan. If you want to put a flag on it and call it a state, that’s all right by us.’ But even that camp is small,” he says.

Radicalized societies

Polls since Oct. 7 show reversing such trends will not be easy. A survey of 1,231 people in the West Bank and Gaza by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found in mid-December that Palestinian support for a two-state solution had risen only slightly since September, to 34%. In the same time frame, support for armed struggle in the West Bank had risen from 54% to 68%.

Indeed, while renewed expectations of a two-state solution may resonate in Washington and London, it barely registers in Jerusalem, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the most far-right government in Israeli history and has boasted that he is “proud” of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Such voices from Israeli decision-makers are one reason Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian peace negotiator in the early 1990s, says there is little common ground right now between societies “radicalized” by current events.

“The Israel that we are talking about [today] is no longer the Israel that we negotiated with and reached agreement with 30 years ago,” says Mr. Khatib, who held senior Palestinian posts for years and now teaches at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Israeli soldiers and reservists photograph the damage to a kibbutz near Gaza that was overrun two months earlier by Hamas militants who killed dozens of the community's residents and took scores hostage, in Nir Oz, Israel, Dec. 6, 2023.

Still, peace activists persist, in the fervent belief that there is no alternative.

“Some things are being worked on now to rebuild support in Israel and Palestine for the two-state solution,” says Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace process adviser and negotiator.

“What has been dead for years is now all of a sudden the issue – the issue on the agenda – so I think they can find a significant number of Israelis and Palestinians who will publicly say this is what they want to see,” he says.

A “wasted” crisis?

But converting that aspiration to reality would almost certainly require new leadership on both sides.

“Looking at the hyper-traumatized feelings of this moment, and trying to create a trend line from that of what the possible outcomes are, would be a mistake,” says Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli historian and journalist.

“If we end the war with a new version of the same stalemate, the crisis will have gone to waste,” he says. One poll among Israelis showed a significant drop in support for a two-state solution, he notes, though no other alternative had gained ground.

“This war makes it more difficult to deal with that problem, because the trauma and the pain have increased people’s sense on both sides that they can’t trust the other, that they ‘just want to get rid of us,’” adds Mr. Gorenberg. But “it only reemphasizes that nobody is going away, and there has to be an alternative to the war.”

The long slender blades, like the claws of a giant wolverine, are stacked in the port of New Bedford, ready to be barged out to sea and assembled onto turbines that believers say will help power America’s future. 

At 11:52 p.m. on Jan. 2, the first of what will be 62 wind turbines in the Vineyard Wind project off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, began sending electricity ashore. This and South Fork Wind, a smaller project off Long Island, New York, that cranked up its first turbines Dec. 6, are the first commercial-scale offshore wind power farms to begin operations in the waters of the United States. 

“I felt a lot of weight come off my shoulders,” says Klaus Møeller, the CEO of Vineyard Wind, who was monitoring the startup while in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the holidays. “We’ve had a ton of important steps, but when you do send electrons to the cable, that’s when you know the whole thing is working.”

When Mr. Møeller got the news, he ordered cake for all the Vineyard Wind offices – a company tradition. But he also says bluntly, “There’s a lot of work ahead.”

Indeed, the task before the offshore wind industry is daunting, and many companies are stumbling. President Joe Biden and many East Coast states are counting on a massive and hurried expansion of offshore wind power. But just as the first electricity begins flowing, major companies have canceled some projects and put others on hold.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Vineyard Wind's offshore turbine blades measuring 352 feet each are stored for deployment and installation at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Jan. 3, 2024.

South Fork’s milestone was overshadowed by the company’s decision to cancel plans for two other large wind farms off New Jersey. Other developers have pulled out of three projects in New England. 

They say the costs of credit, parts, and construction have swollen so much that the projects would be money-losers under the contracts they made years ago while awaiting government approval. And the abrupt upsurge of demand for wind turbines after Russia cut off natural gas to Europe has left the supply cupboard bare. 

“Developers have to go to manufacturers and say, ‘Can we please, please, please buy your turbines?’” says Mr. Møeller. 

Jim Gordon knows the obstacles. Sitting in his Boston office 60 miles north of the New Bedford cranes that load turbine parts onto barges, Mr. Gordon ponders his dashed dreams of being the company with the first big U.S. wind farm. He spent 14 years fighting to create the Cape Wind project off Martha’s Vineyard. He spent more than $80 million and beat back, by his count, 26 court cases and regulatory challenges.

“We proposed the first U.S. offshore project in 2001, and now the first projects are finally coming to fruition,” he says of the Vineyard and South Fork projects. His offices are lined with photos of past and current energy projects, including his latest: Smartflower, a self-folding 16-foot-diameter solar dish that can stand on a lawn and track the sun to help power a home. 

Doug Struck

Jim Gordon tried to create the first large-scale U.S. offshore wind farm more than two decades ago. After 14 years of court and regulatory battles, he ultimately failed, but says he is delighted that the industry is finally starting up on a commercial scale.

At the century’s turn, Mr. Gordon had proposed a $2 billion wind farm with 130 turbines between Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. He faced a barrage of legal and regulatory challenges from powerful neighbors who did not want the turbines within their sight.

“We had a very sophisticated opposition group that knew all the tricks of the trade, and spent millions opposing us,” Gordon says. He won all legal fights, but the clock ran out on his contracts. “It was such a toxic mix of politics and NIMBY-ism and the fossil fuel interests.” 

Mr. Gordon insists he is “delighted,” if a little envious, at the start of Vineyard and South Fork wind farms. “I hope there will be 500 more.”

The Biden administration agrees. President Biden has proposed that 80% of the country’s electricity be generated from renewable sources in seven years, and 100% by 2035. That massive scale-up is crucial for America to quit the fossil fuel addiction bringing more extreme floods, droughts, and heat waves to an alarmingly hotter world, his administration contends. 

Few analysts think the timetable is achievable. The administration’s plan sets a goal of generating 30 gigawatts from offshore wind by 2030. That would require more than 2,000 turbines in the water. As of two months ago, there were seven. The Vineyard and South Fork projects will bring the total to 81. 

“I’m confident that goal will not be met,” says engineering professor Christopher Niezrecki, director of the Center for Energy Innovation at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He co-authored a recent report looking at the “daunting” wind power needs of his state. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Two Vineyard Wind’s nacelles, which will be used to generate 13 megawatts of electricity each, wait for deployment at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. The first of 62 turbines in the project has begun sending electricity ashore.

He cites challenges beyond the higher costs cited by the companies: yearslong regulatory reviews, little U.S. manufacturing of components, needed overhauls of the nation’s electric grid, few available installation ships and docks, and shortages caused by the war in Ukraine. Atop all this comes opposition from powerful fossil fuel companies, which Dr. Niezrecki says are underwriting a “lot of misinformation in the news about the dangers of wind energy causing cancer or killing birds and things like that.”

But he also notes, “There’s a ton of offshore wind that’s being planned now. Are they going to come online? The answer is yes, they eventually will. The question is the timeline.” 

“It’s very unfortunate that this confluence of factors has disrupted the momentum,” says Anne Reynolds, the incoming vice president of the American Clean Power Association, which lobbies for renewable energy. “But I do think in short order, we will regain the momentum and growth trajectory.”

Replacing fossil fuels in the U.S. will require all available sources, and they must be diversified, say analysts. No single renewable energy source will be a lone “winner.” 

Giant turbines off the East Coast can pump huge amounts of power with great consistency to nearby communities, but they are expensive to build. Solar power can be generated at small scale on rooftops nearly anywhere, but it needs the sun and large amounts of space for big projects. Onshore wind turbines work well in the windy West, but they face opposition from potential neighbors and falter when the wind dies. Hydro, geothermal, and nuclear power have their merits but also limitations or risks.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Vineyard Wind’s site manager, Zack Paris, oversees operations at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal Jan. 3, 2024.

“It’s kind of an all-of-the-above strategy if we’re to address the threat of climate change,” says Fred Zalcman, director of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance, a coalition of wind developers, environmentalists, and organized labor. 

“If we could do it all with rooftop solar, then I’d say, ‘OK, let’s do that.’ But we can’t,” adds Ms. Reynolds. “There comes a point in the process where we say we need offshore wind to get there.”

Despite the recent concerns, some say investment in offshore wind could accelerate quickly based on the prospect of manageable costs and abundant jobs.

“South Fork Wind will power thousands of homes, create good-paying union jobs and demonstrate to all that offshore wind is a viable resource,” proclaimed New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, alongside other officials in East Hampton last month as the switch on that project was turned on.

The next day, Mr. Zalcman boarded a boat to see the South Fork turbines in the water. The hourslong trip was worth it, he says. 

“I don’t know how to describe it other than, you know, just being an awesome sight,” he says. “Mammoth structures that are nearly the height of the Empire State Building, and the turbines turning ... the industry [is] actually starting to materialize.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP/File

Morris Brown College in Atlanta has gone from 20 students in 2019 to 342 this academic year. It is a rare story of a college winning back its accreditation.

Kevin James once heard a sermon in church that gave a name to his mission: The Hard Reset.

That pretty much sums up his efforts to turn around a historically Black college in Atlanta. When he first started as president of Morris Brown College in 2019, there were only 20 students left. The college had lost accreditation in 2002 due to financial mismanagement. Morris Brown had filed for bankruptcy and sold 30 acres to pay down debt. The water had been shut off. Then, in Dr. James’ first semester, the administration building literally caught on fire.

No one donated money to fix it. In fact, many potential donors thought the school had closed.

“No one would give me any money, but someone donated a can of paint,” Dr. James recalls. “And so the staff, we painted the walls ourselves. We did the Sheetrock work the best we could by ourselves.”

Today, 342 students are enrolled at Morris Brown – still just a fraction of the 3,000 who attended during its heyday. But the water is back on, debts have been paid, and in a rare outcome, the school won back its accreditation.

“One day they’ll film a movie about this, kind of like ‘Lean on Me’ or ‘Coach Carter,’ something like that – a real story of how Morris Brown was resurrected,” says Dr. James.

Morris Brown’s is a rare tale of survival. Closure – particularly after losing accreditation – is by far the more likely outcome for struggling smaller schools. Places such as 181-year-old Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, and 154-year-old Holy Names University in Oakland, California, ceased to exist in 2023. Faltering enrollments, which the pandemic exacerbated, helped shut many campus doors, according to a study done by Bloomberg News. According to Fitch Ratings, 20 to 25 schools with fewer than 5,000 students will close annually going forward. That’s double the previous 10-year average for private nonprofit schools. 

“The loss of accreditation is a death knell for most institutions,” says John Drea, an assistant professor at Illinois State University who has written about what small colleges need to do to survive. “I’m pleasantly surprised Morris Brown has remained open. Unless a school has an enormous endowment or a network of donors to sustain it while it tries to regain accreditation, the loss of accreditation is what pushes a struggling college under. If a college is highly dependent upon tuition revenues from year to year to survive, one to two bad years can push you towards the precipice.”

There is some good news, and not just for Morris Brown: Overall undergraduate enrollment in the U.S. was up 2.1% in fall 2023 for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, a report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found. Historically Black colleges and universities, such as Morris Brown, saw even higher growth, with a 6.1% increase in undergraduates over 2022.

Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP/File

Morris Brown President Kevin James speaks about new funding for the historically Black college in Atlanta, Jan. 17, 2023. Under his tenure, Morris Brown won back its accreditation and had its largest first-year student class in decades.

Making Morris Brown affordable and restoring students’ access to financial aid were two key tasks. (No accreditation meant no federal financial aid.) Typically, 70% of HBCU students qualify for aid. With only 20 undergraduates, one of Dr. James’ first steps was halving the 60-person staff. 

“We weren’t making payroll,” Dr. James remembers, “and I had to make the very, very difficult decision of rightsizing the organization and living within our means.”

He asked the mostly adjunct faculty to volunteer and issued a call to action for alumni with Ph.D.s or master’s. More than 150 alumni raised their hands. From that number, volunteers taught for free for 2 ½ years, allowing the school to lower tuition. Currently, it stands at $4,250 a semester.

By 2022, the president had paid down debt, made new partnerships, and applied for accreditation from the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. It was granted. The U.S. government then offered a $2.9 million grant to help grow enrollment.

“Just thinking about if they would have closed, what would the impact of the closure have been is huge,” says Stephanie Hall, acting senior director for the Center on American Progress who specializes in college accountability. Schools often just shut down operations and leave students without a plan or place for them to go.

Less than half of students at schools that close finish their degree, according to a 2020 study by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Shy’Quon Rudolph is a senior at Morris Brown. He sought out the school after initially enrolling at Tuskegee University in Alabama and dropping out after two years. Then he moved to Atlanta, where he was working full time. 

“I can 100% say that if Morris Brown hadn’t had their accreditation, I probably wouldn’t have enrolled,” says Mr. Rudolph, who also works as an enrollment specialist and one day wants to be director of enrollment. Mr. Rudolph, 28, describes himself as a nontraditional student.

“By me just working in enrollment, I see the applications that we’re getting, the students actually interested in Morris Brown,” he says, predicting brighter days ahead for his school.

In 2023, Goldman Sachs released a study that showed that HBCUs had outperformed Ivy League schools in paving a way for upward social and economic mobility for Black Americans.

After winning back accreditation in spring 2022, Morris Brown saw the largest first-year student class in decades in fall 2023, totaling 150. Last semester, 342 enrolled. Alumni returned to celebrate homecoming. More people gave money. The first fraternity on campus in 20 years, Alpha Phi Alpha, restarted its chapter in October.

“I felt strongly that I would work to save the institution and that I would build a team for us to do it,” Dr. James says. Now The Hard Reset has a $10 million capital campaign. The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation recently donated $3 million, and Chick-fil-A gave a $500,000 grant.

Other schools are looking at Morris Brown as a comeback model. Barber-Scotia College, an HBCU in Concord, North Carolina, lost its accreditation in 2004. Businessman and former Spring Lake mayor, Chris Rey, was hired as president last July. The school only had four students, so Mr. Rey suspended classes for fall 2023. Classes resumed online this January. As with Morris Brown, instructors are volunteering. Tuition has been lowered to $1,500 a semester, down from more than $7,000. Students can download all their books for $250. 

“We’ve had an opportunity to really observe how [Dr. James] has leveraged his marketing and social media to bring attention to the story of Morris Brown College. That’s what we began to do,” Mr. Rey says. He’s taken mental notes on rebranding, communicating with stakeholders, and getting Barber-Scotia’s finances in order.

The work isn’t over for Dr. James, but he often reflects on the Sunday service that inspired him. His pastor used the analogy of doing a soft reset on a cellphone, where you turn it off to get things to work correctly. 

“But then he was talking about if you need to restart ... you can do what’s called a hard reset. And you can wipe your entire cellphone clean, all the apps, everything would come off, and it would go back to factory settings. And that mindset came back to me as I was walking around the campus, and I was like, wow, what Morris Brown needs is a hard reset.”

From tornadoes in Florida to floods in Maine, record-setting freezes in Montana to blizzards in Buffalo, extreme weather has battered much of the United States this past week. It left us, along with many Americans, wondering: What, exactly, is going on? 

To get some answers, we called up Jeff Masters, the meteorologist who co-founded the online weather forecasting service Weather Underground – and who used to chase hurricanes for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

He told us that some of the winter weather is just, well, winter. But there’s also a lot that has been unusual, like those tornadoes. Indeed, meteorologists are expecting the unexpected these days, he says, and are feeling increasing pressure to predict, explain, and protect their followers from the weather.

“The role of meteorologists has become more important because the climate is changing in unprecedented ways,” Dr. Masters says. “And we really need to understand what’s going on.”

Here’s what else he told us, with edits for length and clarity.

Is it us, or has the weather just been crazy this week?

You had a lot of hazards going on all at once. I mean, you had freshwater flooding due to heavy rain. You had coastal flooding due to these storms. And, of course, inland you had heavy snow. Buffalo got, I think, 40 inches of snow. And then down South you had tornadoes and severe storms, a lot of power outages, strong winds. So, we had the full gamut of extreme weather over the past week. And cold, too. I mean, it’s pretty darn cold here in Michigan where I am.

Diane Hallinen/Courtesy of Jeff Masters

Jeff Masters is the co-founder of Weather Underground and a former hurricane chaser for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

How much of this extreme weather is because of climate change?  

There’s more heat in the atmosphere. And more heat means energy. So that means the energy to evaporate more water from the oceans and create heavier rains. We can ascribe some of the extra precipitation we’ve been seeing from these storms to climate change. The other way that climate change can influence extreme weather is through changes in circulation patterns. The jet stream, for instance, is not behaving like it used to; it’s not going straight west to east like it normally does. It’s been contorting into these unusually strong ridges and troughs, which tend to amplify extreme weather events. 

Does that mean that last week’s snow storms, with their record low pressure systems, were caused by climate change?

It’s really impossible to say what percentage of that was due to climate change. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a study you could do showing that there was a significant influence. But you really would have to do the work. It could also be that most, or all, of the extremity that we saw with the jet stream over the past week was natural variability.

One of the more active debates in the climate science community is just how much climate change is affecting extreme winter weather outbreaks. And that is definitely not decided at this point. We have a lot more confidence about how climate change is affecting things like summertime drought, heat waves, heavy precipitation events.

Do you think the wild weather is going to continue?

It’s gonna be a bonkers year. This summer, in particular. We’ve got a record amount of heat in the oceans right now. That means this coming summer should be a record warm summer, globally. And when you’ve got record heat in the atmosphere, that means a lot of energy to power extreme weather events. So, we’re going to see record heat waves, we’re going to see record droughts and record rainfall events because you can evaporate more moisture into a warm atmosphere. And I’m really concerned about the Atlantic hurricane season, too. If you look at the region of the tropical Atlantic where hurricanes form, right now it is the same temperature as we typically see in late July. So that’s pretty insane that in January, we’ve got July-like ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic. 

Deb Cram/Foster's Daily Democrat/AP

The Atlantic Ocean spills over the seawall and flows into an intersection on Ocean Boulevard in Hampton, New Hampshire, Jan. 10, 2024.

So what does this mean for us as a society?

Until we go to zero emissions and the planet stops heating up, the weather is going to get more extreme. We’ve really got to up our game as far as responding to this new climate we’ve created. Our infrastructure in the U.S. was built for the climate of the 20th century. And the climate of the 21st century is a completely different thing. If you’ve got a city where the levees are built to withstand a one-in-100-year flood, what happens if that flood occurs every 20 years? We’ve exceeded the capability of our 20th century climate infrastructure.

You’ve written about this and have suggested large-scale changes we need to make, such as no longer building in areas prone to floods or wildfires. But what can everyday people do today to adapt to this 21st century climate?

If you go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency website, they’ve got recommendations on how to flood-proof your home. It makes sense to spend some dollars to make sure your home is flood-proof. You should also understand what your flood risk is. One tool I would recommend is a website called floodfactor.com. It basically gives you a 1-to-10 rating of what your risk is from weather hazards. There’s a flood rating, a wind rating, a wildfire rating, and a heat rating. It would be smart to do some flood-proofing if you do live in a flood zone. Consider buying more flood insurance if you are in a flood zone. If you’re living in a wildfire zone, there’s a lot you can do to make your home more resistant to fires, like creating a defensible space around it so you don’t have a pile of wood next to your house or a wooden deck or eaves where embers can get under. There are a lot of smart things you can do. 

Little Mohammad Rifat, who lost his home in a flood, doesn’t go to school. 

His parents had to move from the coast to the capital, and they can’t afford to send him. Instead, he attends a program for vulnerable kids run by the government and supported by UNICEF in Dhaka. It’s one of thousands of initiatives by governments, United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organizations aiming to protect children’s rights to education and safe and healthy environments.

When photographer Melanie Stetson Freeman and I traveled through Bangladesh last fall, we clearly saw children at risk from poverty, climate change, and the economic fallout from the pandemic. Yet meeting so many young people also reinforced our understanding that children around the world are the same; only the contexts are different. 

Despite his nation’s big struggles, Mohammad is focused on the little things: the friends he misses and the dragon fruit he craves.

After showing off a drawing he made of the National Martyrs’ Memorial, Mohammad snatches another child’s drawing and tries to pose for a picture with it. He makes us laugh.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Mohammad Rifat and his family were displaced by floods, which wiped out their home and livelihood.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Teacher Khadija Islam works one-on-one with student Lamia Akter.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A child’s drawing of a home hangs on the wall of one of UNICEF’s Child Protection Community Hubs in Kalyanpur, in an area known locally as “burnt slum.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Two boys sleep in the corner at the Child Protection Services Hub near the bus station.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Children gather outside UNICEF’s Child Protection Services Hub at Gabtoli bus terminal, Sept. 19 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The hub provides activities, schooling, food, and support to vulnerable children.

AP

The statue of a woman with a Confederate flag is removed from the top of the “Women of the Southland” monument in Jacksonville, Florida, on Dec. 27, 2023. The pursuit of equality has many fronts. Many companies are starting to define diversity on the individual talents and intrinsic worth of their employees.

From the last U.S. presidential election to the one underway, the public conversation over equality seems to have taken a dramatic pendulum swing. Four years ago, a series of Black fatalities at the hands of police caused an outcry for racial justice. Huge investments in diversity programs followed.

Now the measures widely adopted to address diversity, equity, and inclusion have become a wedge issue. On Jan. 1, Texas banned its public colleges from funding DEI programs, following a similar law that Florida adopted earlier. Scores of corporate diversity officers have resigned in recent months, citing frustration and lack of clarity about their roles.

Yet two surveys released this month shed light on how public attitudes toward equality are shifting focus from identity based on ethnicity or other social determinants to individuality based on character and talent. That change ties diversity to various social goods, such as enhanced corporate productivity.

“I think the first thing we have to do is get shame out of the equation,” Kathleen Enright, president of the Council on Foundations, told Philanthropy News Digest. An enduring commitment to diversity, she said, involves creating “space for learning and growth and deeper understanding for folks ... who are attempting to do the work from their seat in the context where they are.”

One poll, published by Gallup on Tuesday, found that 68% of adults think the Supreme Court’s decision last June to end the use of race as a factor in college admissions was “mostly a good thing.” Notably, 62% of Black adults between the ages of 18 and 39 held the same view. Another survey by employment law firm Littler found that among 300 corporate executives, 91% said the court’s ruling against affirmative action would not diminish their commitment to cultivating DEI.

What may be changing, however, is emphasis. In philanthropy, funders are shifting more toward collaboration with grantees in designing grants and projects. In corporate offices, explicit talk of diversity is shifting toward transparency, recognition, and individual agency and creativity. Sharing data on hiring and promotions engenders trust among employees. Encouragement removes a key impediment to integration.

“People are able to thrive and flourish in contexts in which failure is met with a measure of agility and grace,” Laura Morgan Roberts, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, wrote in a recent essay on DEI in Harvard Business Review.

A Harvard study of 79 businesses last year found that DEI “is linked not only to company performance but also leadership and employee engagement.” Its metrics are changing, based on the immutable characteristics of individual worth.