There is an air of unreality in debating these arcane points when the world is changing in such dramatic ways right in front of our eyes because of global warming.

I remain optimistic that ultimately free speech and a free press where individuals have access to the dialogue will have a self-correcting quality.

Throughout history, religious wars have always been the most brutal and cruel and merciless.

One tragic example of the loss of forests and then water is found in Ethiopia. The amount of its forested land has decreased from 40 to 1 percent in the last four decades. Concurrently, the amount of rainfall has declined to the point where the country is rapidly becoming a wasteland.

We now face the prospect of a kind of global civil war between those who refuse to consider the consequences of civilization's relentless advance and those who refuse to be silent partners in the destruction. More and more people of conscience are joining the effort to resist, but the time has come to make this struggle the central organizing principle of world civilizations.

The science linking the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather to the climate crisis has matured tremendously in the last couple of years.

We are seeing every night on the television news now a nature hike through the Book of Revelation. These climate-related extreme weather events have convinced the vast majority of people that the scientists have been right for a long time. We have to address this.