Although I have a variety of obligations, the climate crisis is my central concern.

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

Even though it's important for all of us to change our light bulbs and the vehicles we drive, it's much more important to change our laws and policies. I drive a hybrid and we've changed our light bulbs and windows and installed solar panels and geothermal ground source heat pumps and most everything else. But putting the burden on individuals to solve this global crisis is ultimately not going to be the most effective way to solve it.

Because these consequences are distributed globally, the problem masquerades as a distraction. Because the length of time between causes and consequences stretches out longer than we're used to dealing with, it gives us the illusion that we have the luxury of time. Neither of those things is true.

Having worked on climate crisis for almost 40 years now, I've seen good days and bad days. And through all of that time, the general trajectory has been it's getting worse, it's getting worse. But in the last ten to 20 years, there's a second development; the solutions are more and more, and more available. So having this broad overview that I've developed over a long period of time, I now see the evidence that the solutions are available. We're gonna do this.

There is the natural tendency that all of us are vulnerable to, to deny unpleasant realities and to look for any excuse to push them away and resolve to think about them another day long in the future.

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.