By Dr. Robert Thorson I have a new argument for federal aid to Eastern cities. It comes not from the human instincts for fairness, charity and power, but from earth science. The eastern United States is water-rich and land-poor, whereas the West is water-poor and land-rich. For years, federal dollars have been flowing west-by-southwest to […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Last weekend was magically beautiful. Mother’s Day, spring flowers, songbirds in chorus, students graduating, baby animals and the solstice still ahead. What a wonderful time to be alive! Given my mood, the opinion columnist in me refused to cooperate. My “seek-and-point-out-someproblem” module was offline. So, I decided to celebrate my springtime […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson I have a new argument for federal aid to Eastern cities. It comes not from the human instincts for fairness, charity and power, but from earth science. The eastern United States is water-rich and land-poor, whereas the West is water-poor and land-rich. For years, federal dollars have been flowing west-by-southwest to […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The Doomsday Clock just moved from 11:53 to 11:55, two minutes closer to midnight. By this measure, the world is now closer to self- annihilation than at any time since 1984, when the Reagan administration rattled nuclear sabers with the dying Soviet Union. At the moment, planet Earth has five minutes […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Super-sized meals can lead to gas and indigestion. The same is true with our super-sized diet of fossil fuels. Waste gas (CO2) and political indigestion are the result. Deep beneath the Canadian prairie, in the little town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, a team of scientists is trying to do something about the […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson This Sunday, I’m presenting a sermon about spring. While preparing, I got stuck on one point. Why would Jesus — or anyone else for that matter — want to ascend into heaven where it is cold and empty? Why wouldn’t he (or we) prefer to descend into heaven where the snuggling […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Pretty soon you will be able to walk beyond the edge of Arizona’s Grand Canyon on a glass skywalk jutting 70 feet into thin air. The view will be spectacular. It will also be surreal, an affront to nature, rather than an enhancement. Even worse, I’m pretty sure it will be […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson There are two kinds of spam. Both are bad for the environment. My children know only the new kind: the junk e-mail soliciting their impressionable minds to buy stuff they don’t really need. My elderly parents, from “the greatest generation,” know only the old kind of Spam: the cold, stiff, pink, […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The world will definitely not come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, regardless of the Mayan Calendar. There’s no planetary Rapture in the near future, despite the wishful thinking of an apocalyptic few. For at least another billion years, Earth will spin, the sun will shine and all God’s creatures […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Global warming ruined my golf game. Golfers are legendary for making excuses, and hence are probably laughing at me now. But I swear it’s true! Global warming is not something that will happen in the future. It’s happening now. Nor is it something that will affect us principally through warmer temperatures. […]