I'm trying mostly to ask questions. And not just trying to stake out a position on something, but also trying to define the stuff we agree on. I'm having battles with comment posters trying to insert a little sense of order so it's not just a long pissing match between the edges, which is what I think a lot of the blogosphere is tending to do.

We're an amazingly adaptive and resilient species. Once we put our mind to global warming, I have no doubt we'll figure a way through here that won't lead to utter calamity.

I'm trying mostly to ask questions. And not just trying to stake out a position on something, but also trying to define the stuff we agree on. I'm having battles with comment posters trying to insert a little sense of order so it's not just a long pissing match between the edges, which is what I think a lot of the blogosphere is tending to do.

Every time someone reads a story about the politics poisoning the global warming stuff it makes it feel like a political story, meaning it's Us and Them, instead of what it is: this profound challenge we face given our energy norms right now, the fuels of convenience toward something new. No matter what the politics are, it's still an enormous transformation that has to take place.

The things that happen are an earthquake, another bomb in Iraq, some big jolt on Wall Street in oil prices, and then you have some new study on drought patterns from climate change. Or another little incremental improvement in photovoltaics. Where do those fit in to the daily stream? They don't.

Scientists are also unnerved by the summer's implications for the future...proof that human activities are propelling a slide toward climate calamity...humans may have tipped the balance...a particularly harsh jolt to polar bears.

There are still people who essentially live in intellectual silos and either read Mother Jones or watch Fox News, based on their worldview. And they pick information out that reinforces it rather than keeping an open mind.