Every policy is shaped by two forces: background analysis and foreground politics. The political forces are loud, self-serving and, in the case of energy policy, well known.

Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany have detailed plans to cut their greenhouse emissions by 20 to 50 percent.

There have been high crimes and misdemeanors, but they have been committed by the special prosecutor and the Congress, not the president.

A grand jury hears only one side - that of the prosecutor

Scientists worldwide agree that the reduction needed to stabilize the climate is actually more like 80 percent.

You may be able to fool the voters, but not the atmosphere.

A knowledgeable and courageous U.S. president could help enormously in leading the world's nations toward saving the climate.

Calculating how much carbon is absorbed by which forests and farms is a tricky task, especially when politicians do it.

There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.

We can't control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!

Glaciers are almost gone from Glacier National Park

I would much rather have you believe in something I don’t agree with than to accept everything blindly.

Dr. King's general principles are universal. But the things he confronted took place in another era.

I like reading, I like boring things, and yet I think people for ages had this image of me that I was on the tube with a chainsaw looking for any likely candidate.

If you start taking yourself more seriously than you do God then there's a problem.

Maybe that's what is means to be human . . . forever questioning our certainties.

Abyss-mongering makes professors and poets feel daring.

The crew, the actors and the writers all work the same way. We always want to do the best job.

Online journalism has rendered us all news wire hacks - get it posted fast, forget about context or nuance or interpretation, and errors will be fixed on the fly.

The world, although well-lighted with fluorescents and incandescent bulbs and neon, is still full of odd dark corners and unsettling nooks and crannies.

Law is order in liberty, and without order liberty is social chaos.