Climate change is a huge problem, an almost insoluble problem, for two reasons. One is the habits of the West in terms of consumption. The other is the incredible iniquity between poor countries and rich countries on this planet.

It is a complete embarrassment and literally shameful that the country that first of all invented environmentalism and gave it to the world, and second of all did all the science originally around climate and global warming and presented that to the world, has been the country that has refused to participate in a constructive way to the solution.

In fact, corporations are the infants of our society - they know very little except how to grow (though they're very good at that), and they howl when you set limits. Socializing them is the work of politics. It's about time we took it up again.

Speaking for me, I think the odds of bankrupting Exxon are pretty small, but I think the odds of politically bankrupting them are higher. I think if we can use this as a vehicle to get out the analysis that these guys have 3-5 times as much carbon in the ground as the most conservative government thinks would be safe to burn, then that politically stigmatises them, makes them into the rogue industry that they are.

I try not to be either optimistic or pessimistic. I try not to think about outcomes on that scale. My job, it seems to me, is to wake up every morning and figure out how to cause as much trouble for the fossil fuel industry as I can.

There are so many symptoms of this disease it's hard to know where to start to catalogue them, but just look at the effects on hydrology - on the way water moves around the planet.

We're not at the point of trying to stop global warming; it's too late for that. We're trying to keep it from becoming a complete and utter calamity