The aspects of global warming that matter most to people - how rapidly will the seas rise? Are hurricanes already getting stronger? How strong will they get as a result of warming? Those are still immersed in complexity. So in those realms that catch people's attention most, or that get used as symbols by environmental campaigners, those facets really do come with significant back-and-forthing.

Probably the single-most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius, it's having fewer kids...we'll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation.

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.

The responsibility of the scientist or journalist is to convey the context. If you're talking about the Arctic Sea ice, you have to embrace the reality that there's a huge number of other things that influence that on a year-to-year basis.

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 can tell you many reasons why environmental stories don't get adequate attention in conventional media. Basically, environmental risks don't fit the norms of journalism. They're incremental. We hate incremental.

You never know you're in a bubble until it pops.