Columns

In the fall of 1983 I was applying to go to college and was invited to come to the University of Delaware to write an essay to help determine if I would be admitted to the honors program.  For my younger readers, 1983 was just...

For hundreds of years European explorers searched the world for El Dorado, a city of gold.  In fact, El Dorado was waiting for them underground in the form of liquid petroleum.  Petroleum is so amazing that it’s hard to wrap...

It appears that the North Carolina General Assembly is going to take up the issue of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” again in this legislative session.  I’ll leave the details of the political process to other fora, but I...

Last week in “2012 The Year Without a Winter” I explained that in order to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million, the goal set during the 2009 UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, we need to leave half of the...