Steve Pomerance

Many of you are probably familiar with Lorie Smith, a website designer, who asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block enforcement of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. This Act would have prevented her from refusing to create wedding websites for same-sex couples. Apparently, Ms. Smith’s objection comes from her religious beliefs, and the case is being argued regarding whether her combined First Amendment rights regarding freedom of speech and free exercise of religion are being violated. Rather than jump to a conclusion, I’ve tried to sort out the arguments being made. But the analogies and parallels that I’ve read get increasingly convoluted. Finally, I found a government website called “Constitution Annotated — Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.” Reading through the First Amendment section, it became clear to me that even the most extensive and sophisticated arguments will not resolve such issues. So, I tried to step back from the details and asked myself what the ...

 I’m sure many of you read in the newspapers recently that the Earth’s population of humans has now reached 8 billion. To put this in perspective, human population reached 1 billion in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1960 and 4 billion in 1974. The UN projects there will be 9 billion by 2037, and then (hopefully) stop increasing at around 10 billion in the 2080s (data per Population Connection’s white paper). The planet’s human population has doubled since many of us first became aware of the existential threat of global warming due to excessive emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. In the early 1800s, carbon dioxide emissions were relatively small. But by 1950, the world’s carbon dioxide emissions totaled around 6 billion tons per year. By 1990, this had almost quadrupled, reaching more than 22 billion tons per year. Now, emissions are over 34 billion tons each year, according to Our World In Data. As a result, Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14 degrees F...