Adopting a central organizing principle means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, to halt the destruction of the environment.

As I have said for many years throughout this land, we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change.

It's an important point, and every little bit helps not least because those who make those kinds of changes are more likely to make their voices heard as citizens. But the ultimate solutions are going to come through policies.

It is just human nature to take time to connect the dots, I know that. But I also know that there can be a day of reckoning when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly.

There's an old African proverb that says "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." We have to go far - quickly. And that means we have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing, and why we have to work to solve it.

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.

Traditionally the United States has been the natural leader of the world. That's not just pride as an American speaking; it's just the reality. Without the U.S. being involved in Paris Climate Agreement, it's hard for the world community to move forward as effectively.