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.

We've sued out-of-state power plants that are polluting our air and led a coalition of attorneys general from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts against efforts in the U.S. House of Representatives to remove critical environmental regulations that protect New York communities from toxic pollution.

Address these environmental issues and you will address every issue known to man. And we keep dabbling in things that aren't really that important in the long term.

The environmental movement's focus on the Keystone XL pipeline issue really used to baffle me.

Hollywood is a reflection of a general climate that we live in.