A whole bunch of big technological shocks occurred when Asian innovations - paper, gunpowder, the stirrup, the moldboard plow and so on - came to Europe via the Silk Road.

Artificial lighting, air-conditioning, and automobiles, all powered by fossil fuels, swaddle us in our giddy modernity. In our ergonomic chairs and acoustical-panel cubicles, we sit cozy as kings atop 300 years of flaming carbon.

Americans are willing to cheer on politicians who denounce bureaucratic overreach and job-killing red tape in abstract terms. But they turn out to like specific regulations against toxic chemicals in their drinking water.

The queue of activists, interest groups, and ordinary people wringing their hands over what a President Donald Trump might do in office is long, and environmentalists are at the front of the line.

I imagine Heaven would have very nice weather - perfect climate where you can wear a leather jacket or shorts and a sweater.

I don't know if acting is genetic. Maybe it's environmental.

However useful computer models may be, the one thing they cannot be is evidence. Computer climate models are simply conjectures.

Square Roots creates campuses of climate-controlled, indoor, hydroponic vertical farms, right in the hearts of our biggest cities.