Over the last half-decade, no issue has divided American society more than the question of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. In the years since the issue first rose to prominence during the summer of 2014, the Great Hot Dog Debate has torn families apart and shattered lifelong friendships. The question transcends traditional political and cultural divisions, and has the power to provoke vehement arguments among even the most apolitical of people.
Dozens of high-profile celebrities have weighed in on the debate, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and celebrity chef Alton Brown in the affirmative, with dissent from the likes of the late Anthony Bourdain, 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, and actor Matt Damon.
Washington state offers a new blueprint for how Cascadia can kick the fossil-fuel habit.
Peter Fairley is an award-winning journalist based in Victoria and San Francisco, whose writing has appeared in Scientific American, NewScientist, Hakai Magazine, Technology Review, the Atlantic, Nature and elsewhere. SHARES Climate activist Eileen Quigley is feeling hope after seeing her state of Washington set a bold new path toward renewable energy. She worked with modellers to inform the plan.
Photo by Dan DeLong via InvestigateWest. [Editor’s note: This is part of a year-long occasional series of articles produced by InvestigateWest in partnership with The Tyee and other news organizations on shifting the Cascadia region to a zero-carbon economy.]
The first challenge for the new Biden team, made up of many veterans of the Obama administration, is to resist the instinct to resume where it left off four years ago.