I just think that a much more important part of the problem we face, which was evident 10 years ago and is even more evident now, is that the way we share information among ourselves as American citizens has been radically transformed. The line between news and entertainment has almost dissolved, where ratings now have a big impact on what kinds of stories are covered and not stories.

If we walk down the sidewalk of any street in America a significant number of the people we pass by, if we dug into what they're going through in their lives, they're carrying burdens that they don't talk about but they're extremely heavy and painful. And so, one of the secrets of the human condition is that suffering binds people together. And when you go through something agonizing, others who know what you're feeling because they've been through it will so often reach out to you and connect with you, and give you strength and lift you up.

Clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.

[T]he scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.

We're still putting 110 million tons of man-made global pollution into the air every single day as if the sky is an open sewer. More than 90% of the extra heat energy is going into the oceans, and that's why superstorm Sandy was so much more destructive, that's why the ice is melting more rapidly, that's why the water cycle is being disrupted and we get a lot more water vapor coming from the oceans into the sky, and that's why we get these enormous downpours and big floods. They happen all the time. Every night on the TV news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.

We are monumentally distracted by a pervasive technological culture that appears to have a life of its own, one that insists on our full attention, continually seducing us and pulling us away from the opportunity to experience directly the true meaning of our own lives.

I drive a hybrid. Tipper and I got a Lexus hybrid. And we have a couple of Priuses in the family with our children. And I encourage people to make environmentally conscious choices because we all have to solve this climate crisis.