The heart of the security agenda is protecting lives, and we now know that the number of people who will die of AIDS in the first decade of the 21st Century will rival the number that died in all the wars in all the decades of the 20th century.

The golden thread of reason that used to be stretched taut to mark the boundary between the known and the unknown is now routinely disrespected.

Traditionally the United States has been the natural leader of the world. That's not just pride as an American speaking; it's just the reality. Without the U.S. being involved in Paris Climate Agreement, it's hard for the world community to move forward as effectively.

I put all my sighs in a lockbox

Now we have things that are obviously false, leading us to war, leading us to deny people health care, leading us to ignore the climate crisis. We have to restore the integrity of the democratic conversation.

Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

Many of the green places and open spaces that need protecting most today are in our own neighborhoods. In too many places, the beauty of local vistas has been degraded by decades of ill-planned and ill-coordinated development.