Anyone who deals with the climate crisis has an internal dialogue between hope and despair, because the challenge is so huge and the danger is so great and the stakes are so high. But I have always resolved that in favour of hope, and actually I'm more hopeful now than I was a decade ago when the solutions were visible on the horizon, but you had to seek reassurance that the technology experts that they're coming, they'll be here.

Consider a clock thermostat, and set it so that you're not using energy when you don't need it, when you're out of your house.

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.

That we can be e pluribus Unum - out of one, many

The 'well-informed citizenry is in danger of becoming the 'well-amused audience'.

Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

To use a Southern euphemism, our space program has been snake-bit.