I'm naturally an optimist, but my basis for hope is rooted in my understanding of human nature.

There's no such thing as clean coal. It's non-existent. Theoretically, it might be possible, many years from now, to come up with a way to clean it as it's burnt. But there's not a single demonstration project in the United States. [...] Clean coal doesn't exist.

Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

For a long time, the scientists have been telling us global warming increases the temperature of the top layer in the ocean, and that causes the average hurricane to become a lot stronger. So, the fact that the ocean temperatures did go up because of global warming, because of man-made global warming, starting around in the '70s, and then we had a string of unusually strong hurricanes outside the boundaries of this multi-decadal cycle that is a real factor; there are scientists who point that out, and they're right, but we're exceeding those boundaries now.

Some of the most intriguing new research is in the area of extreme weather events and rainfall. A recent study by German scientists published in Climatic Change projects that extreme precipitation will increase significantly in regions that are already experiencing extreme rainfall. Man-made global warming has already increased the moisture content of the air worldwide, causing bigger downpours. Each additional degree of temperature increase causes another seven percent increase in moisture in the air, and even larger downpours when storm conditions trigger heavy rains and snows.

I had a detailed plan for my life, but it turned out life had a completely different plan for me. And I feel joy that I have work that feels like it justifies pouring everything I have into it. I never have fallen prey to the illusion that there's any job with as much ability to influence the future as that of President of the United States, but I do feel grateful that I found other ways to do work that serves the public interest.

The carbon fuels industry-big oil and coal-have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party and they are drilling it for everything it's worth.