Robert Jensen is Emeritus Professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent book, This I Don’t Believe: A Fulfilling Life without Meaning, will be published by Blue Ear Books in 2026. Jensen is also the author of It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics (Olive Branch Press, 2024), and coauthor with Wes Jackson of An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022). Email: rjensen [at] austin.utexas.edu
Website: http://robertwjensen.org/
by Robert Jensen Cornelia Gipson is trying to understand the hold that whiteness has on white people. “I grew up black in Mississippi, and from the time I was 4, I knew I was black and what that meant,” she said. “How do white people come to understand they’re white? When did you first realize…
by Robert Jensen Caitlin Taylor believes that a sustainable food system needs “legible” infrastructure, which is why she proposes—not entirely in jest—building slaughterhouses next to farmers markets. Architects and engineers usually strive to make infrastructure invisible—so functional and reliable that we forget about the countless systems that undergird modern life. We turn on a faucet…
by Robert Jensen Bill Rees likes to say that ecological footprint analysis began with an epiphany—when he was 10 years old. Sitting down to lunch on his grandparents’ Ontario farm with relatives he had worked with that morning, the sweaty kid realized he had played a small part in raising everything on the table—beef, chicken, potatoes,…
by Robert Jensen Not so long ago, the conventional wisdom in most liberal/left circles was that people concerned about population growth tended to be racists, nativists, and eugenicists. And mostly old white guys, according to a leading UK environmental writer. “It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive…
by Robert Jensen Wes Jackson’s career demonstrates that sometimes the race goes not to the swift but to the unconventional, that the battle can be won not only by the strong but by the stubborn. Straight-A students don’t always lead the way. Jackson, one of the last half-century’s most innovative thinkers about regenerative agriculture, has…
by Robert Jensen Smart people sometimes say not-so-smart things about freedom of speech. Let’s start with Elon Musk, the boss at Tesla and SpaceX, and his often-quoted declaration that he is a “free-speech absolutist.” Whatever one thinks about Musk, he seems to be a smart person. But that’s a silly statement. After he bought Twitter…