Democracy, Resilience, and Political Transformation in Senegal
The Exceptionalism of Senegalese Democracy

When discussions of African politics arise in international academic circles, they are frequently overshadowed by narratives of military coups, civil conflicts, and democratic erosion. Yet, nestled within West Africa lies a striking counter-narrative: Senegal. Widely recognized as one of the continent’s most enduring and stable democracies, Senegal has maintained a continuous tradition of civilian governance, peaceful electoral transitions of power, and institutional strength since gaining independence from France. Unlike many of its regional neighbors, incumbent presidents in Senegal have been defeated at the ballot box on multiple occasions, and power has successfully migrated across different political factions and ethnic backgrounds. However, stability does not mean stagnation. In recent years, Senegal has experienced profound institutional friction, a youthful demographic revolution, economic anxiety, and intense political polarization. Examining Senegal requires a dual lens: appreciating the deep historical roots of its civic culture while critically analyzing the turbulent populist movements shaping its current destiny.

Read more

Introduction

As global temperatures continue to rise and the limitations of conventional mitigation strategies become increasingly apparent, unconventional interventions are moving to the center of environmental discourse. In a recent Project Save the World conversation, host Robbie Tulip and entrepreneur-turned-researcher Glenn Weinreb discussed the imperatives of tackling climate change through large-scale research and development (R&D). Weinreb, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who ran his own hardware and software company for 35 years, transitioned away from commercial enterprise six years ago to focus entirely on solving the global climate crisis. Through his nonprofit initiative, Manhattan2, and its associated platform, APlanToSaveThePlanet.org, Weinreb advocates for a “climate moonshot”—a massive surge in research directed toward geoengineering, improved climate modeling, and systemic technological transformations.

Read more

Everyone is welcome this Sunday July 26, 2026 from 2:00 to 3:30 pm Eastern time. Just keep your camera on and your microphone off except when you are speaking.

Please join us at: https://zoom.us/j/9108970203

We hope to see you there!

Metta and Project Save the World

The modern consensus on climate action, centered on the Paris Agreement and the pursuit of net-zero emissions, is increasingly being challenged by scientific scrutiny concerning the Earth’s energy balance and the role of albedo—the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight. A recent dialogue between Robbie Tulip of Project Save the World and resource economist Dr. Gene Fry highlights a critical, often overlooked reality: the warming of the Earth is being driven not just by greenhouse gas emissions, but significantly by a self-reinforcing feedback loop of planetary darkening. As the planet warms, reflective surfaces like snow, ice, and clouds disappear, allowing more solar energy to be absorbed, which in turn accelerates further warming and cloud loss. This cycle suggests that focusing solely on emissions reductions is a necessary but insufficient strategy for climate stability.

The Science of Albedo Feedbacks

At the heart of the current climate crisis is the distinction between forcings and feedbacks. Greenhouse gases act as a forcing, trapping heat, but the subsequent warming triggers feedbacks that amplify that effect. One of the most significant, yet poorly understood, feedbacks is the reduction of cloud cover over the oceans. As oceans absorb heat—absorbing nearly 90% of global warming’s heat—the rising sea surface temperatures contribute to the dissolving of cloud banks. These clouds historically acted as a shield, reflecting sunlight back into space; their dissolution creates a self-reinforcing loop where increased solar absorption leads to warmer oceans, which leads to further cloud dissolution.

Read more

The American political landscape is currently defined by a profound struggle over the nature, legitimacy, and scope of its administrative apparatus. As discussed in a recent conversation between historian Anne Kornhauser, journalist Doug Saunders, and host Metta Spencer, the United States is grappling with the consequences of an “inflection point” regarding its governing institutions. This essay explores the historical development of what Kornhauser terms “statist liberalism,” the dilemmas inherent in the growth of the administrative state, and the contemporary challenges posed by its overt politicization and systematic dismantling.

The Genesis of Statist Liberalism

To understand the current crisis, one must look back to the 1930s. During the Great Depression, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, facing catastrophic economic circumstances, engaged in a self-conscious project to redefine liberalism. Moving away from the moralistic underpinnings of the earlier “Progressive” movement—notable for initiatives like Prohibition—the New Deal forged a version of liberalism centered on an activist central government.

Read more

To see the contents
of this new July issue,
click here.

On the last Sunday of June, a micro-community of activists, scholars, and researchers gathered virtually for Project Save the World’s monthly town hall. Hosted by Metta Spencer—who casually announced her upcoming 95th birthday during the call—the conversation served as a stark barometer of human anxiety. What began as a gentle dialogue about the emotional lives of California mountain lions seamlessly evolved into a sweeping interrogation of the poly-crisis facing modern civilization: the erosion of human intellect via artificial intelligence, the rise of “surveillance capitalism,” experimental nonviolent pedagogy, and the grinding realities of the war in Ukraine.

The Minds of the Wild

The session opened with Marilyn Krieger, a California-based behavioral therapist specializing in felines. Krieger monitors local mountain lions and bobcats to observe how rampant urbanization and human encroachment—even seemingly benign additions like hiking trails in open-space areas—disrupt wildlife behavior.

Marilyn Krieger

For Krieger, the core of her work relies on building human empathy. By profiling individual animals on social media, she hopes to inspire voters to protect local ecosystems. “Animals are capable of very complex emotions,” Krieger noted, sharing a striking story captured on her trail cameras. After a mother deer fled from a perceived threat, her three-week-old fawn deliberately turned back to nudge and rescue an anxious, lagging sibling.

“Most people think animals are purely instinct-driven... but this little fawn was showing concern for her sibling.”

Read more

On July 1st, 1946, the United States military initiated Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, marking the dawn of the atmospheric nuclear testing era. This fateful anniversary serves as a stark reminder of a largely obscured chapter in global history—one characterized by geopolitics, environmental devastation, and human suffering. In an episode of Project Save the World, host Metta Spencer, filmmaker Andrew Nisker and biogeochemist Dr. Thomas Goreau illuminated the enduring ramifications of these tests. Their dialogue exposes how 67 nuclear tests transformed pristine Pacific ecosystems into radioactive sacrifice zones and permanently displaced Marshallese people. The legacy of these tests intersects with modern climate change, framing a narrative of a population twice victimized by global powers.

Andrew Nisker

The Human Toll: Exile and Ill Health

The human cost of Operation Crossroads began with deception. In 1946, the U.S. Navy informed the residents of Bikini Atoll that they must temporarily vacate their ancestral lands “for the good of mankind,” promising they could return within a few weeks. Instead, they were permanently exiled. The Bikinians were relocated to various uninhabited islands, most notably Kili Island. This relocation proved disastrous due to fundamental geographical differences. While an atoll features a protective lagoon cove that allows safe fishing and transport between smaller islets, a single island like Kili is exposed to the open Pacific. The rough reef, large waves, and abundant sharks effectively imprisoned the population, rendering traditional reef fishing impossible.

Read more

When Metta Spencer, host of Project Save the World, sat down with Marjan Ehsassi — lawyer, international governance expert, and Executive Director of FIDE North America — their talk was not a naive celebration of democracy’s traditions, but a serious examination of what is going wrong with representative government and what can be done about it.

The episode begins with Spencer acknowledging something that may seem uncomfortable to admit: that what we have long called democracy may not deserve the name. She points to ancient Athens, where citizens were not merely invited to vote every few years but were expected to participate directly in the daily work of governing. That kind of civic engagement, Spencer suggests, puts our current arrangements to shame.

Ehsassi does not disagree. She frames the problem with precision, identifying three distinct failures that together explain why so many people in mature democracies feel alienated from the governments that are supposed to serve them.

Three Failures, One Crisis

The first failure is accountability — or rather, the near-total absence of it between elections. Citizens are invited to vote every three or four years, and then essentially sent home. There is no meaningful mechanism by which ordinary people can hold their elected representatives accountable in the intervening period. As Ehsassi points out, this has produced a distorted understanding of political voice itself: many people now equate having a voice entirely with casting a vote. But a vote, she argues, should be only one of many ways citizens express their preferences and influence the decisions that shape their lives.

The second failure is responsiveness. Data across developed democracies consistently shows a growing gulf between what people want and what their governments actually do. Citizens increasingly sense — correctly, Ehsassi implies — that policy is driven not by the preferences of ordinary people but by the interests of lobby groups and narrow elites. This sense of being ignored is not paranoia. It is an accurate reading of how policy gets made in most representative systems.

Read more