We're operating this planet like a business in liquidation.

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.

There's lots about politics I don't feel comfortable with. To talk about the politics of future ideas is impossible in soundbite form.

How could this Y2K be a problem in a country where we have Intel and Microsoft?

Every day we put another 110 million tons of global warming pollution into the sky as if it's an open sewer, and it's still building up. And the scientists tell us it's a race against time. We've stabilized emissions globally now for the last three years, but they need to start coming down quickly. We've got the momentum, we've got the wind in our sails, we're gonna win this.

Most people talk as if Miami and Bangladesh still have a chance of surviving: most of the scientists I spoke with assume we'll lose them within the century, even if we stop burning fossil fuel in the next decade.

...the emergent capabilities bursting forth from the revolutionary advances in the life sciences are about to make us the principal agent of evolution.