Activists protested. On wednesday, the pope told young environmentalist greta to keep up her fight, and monday is earth day, and do we have time, or are we at the beginning of the end of a habitable planet. Thats what author Bill Mckibben asks in his new book. Ill talk to him about it. But first, heres my take. Around the democratic world, theres a power struggle taking place that might end up being the most damaging and long lasting consequence of this era of populism. Elected leaders from donald trump to turkeys erdogan to indias modi have been steadily attacking the independence of their nations banks. As the economist points out, politicians in the 1970s would routinely use Central Banks to goose the economy to help them win elections. This helped create a wave of inflation that paralyzed economies and caused untold misery. As a result, over the last three decades, countries have given Central Banks much greater independence. The United States was one of the leaders in this regard