I am from Oak Park IL originally but have mainly lived on the East Coast USA. I  earned my PhD in 1995 from the School of Environmental Sciences at the Univ. of East Anglia in the UK. My initial work was in greenhouse gas emissions inventories and life cycle analysis, and later carbon sequestration (soils and trees).  At UEA I collaborated with the Climatic Research on projects to study societal impacts of changing weather/climate and developed the first weather model of Lyme disease incidence variability in the USA. I have worked as a contract researcher with the US EPA, European Commission and national environmental agencies in the UK, Switzerland, Sweden, and the Netherlands.  I have come to see cultural trends in America as a crucial but neglected part of the climate problem and have devoted all of my time in recent years to this topic.  Links to my journal articles (H index = 20) can be found at google scholar and other sites.  Wikipedia entry here