Our work on light bulbs wasn't an arbitrary mandate. We didn't just pick a standard out of the air or look for a catchy sounding standard like 25 by 2025 not based in science or feasibility. Instead we worked with both industry and environmental groups to come up with a standard that made sense and was doable.

My entry into the environmental arena was through the issue that so dramatically - and destructively - demonstrates the link between science and social action: nuclear weapons.

Nature is not simply a technical or economical resource and human beings are not mere numbers. To suggest that one can somehow align all the squabbling institutions of science environmental management government and diplomacy in an alliance of convenience to regulate the global climate seems to me optimistic.

Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a willful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost.

Much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear rather than science.

At different times I taught humanities social sciences and pre-vocational education.

I think of it as a good opportunity to let in particular school kids know that this job and other interesting jobs in science and engineering are open to anyone who works hard in school and gets a good education and studies math and science. And that it's not just for a select group of people.

I did get a very fine education and not just in science. It took some pressure on the part of my elders to convince me that I really should take an interest in humanities.

And what is liberty whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties - liberty of conscience of education of association of the press of travel or labor or trade?

Mothers unless they were very poor didn't work. Both of my parents had to leave education. My mother had to work in a cotton mill until 18 or 19 when she took some training in domestic science.