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.

The constant drive for campaign dollars has distorted decision-making in Washington, DC, to the point where our systems can no longer effectively address complex, long-term problems like the climate crisis. Which brings me to my other major concern - the short-term focus of capitalism. It distorts the allocation of resources and the decision-making processes of companies.

Third world nations are producing too many children too fast...it is time to ignore the controversy over family planning and cut out-of-control population growth.

It's an important point, and every little bit helps not least because those who make those kinds of changes are more likely to make their voices heard as citizens. But the ultimate solutions are going to come through policies.

From wherever the emissions come, they have the same effect: They trap much more heat from the sun, melt the ice, raise the sea level, cause stronger storms, floods, drought, bigger fires, generate millions of climate refugees, destabilize political systems, threaten the growing of food crops and cause a number of other catastrophic consequences which, taken together, threaten the basis for the future of human civilization on the Earth.

CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.

Someone who expresses a view that is contrary to the view of the overwhelming majority should be allowed to stand undisturbed as a monument to our commitment to free speech.