Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, "What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?" We have to hear that question from them, now.

The debate's over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona.

I was born a poor black child.

My parents were true believers in the efficacy of American constitutional democracy, and I was thoroughly inculcated with reverence for what we the people are capable of doing. The complication in that simple narrative is that as I got older, the Vietnam War shook my confidence in how our democracy was working. I ended up serving in that war, but it started with a lie, and I was very proud of my father for being one of its earliest opponents.

We sometimes emphasize the danger in a crisis without focusing on the opportunities that are there.

The era of procrastination...is coming to a close...we are entering a period of consequences - Winston Churchill (warning about the danger of appeasement

Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc: it is us.