I think it's going to be a tough century; I also think people are starting to rise up, and that a growth in human solidarity will help compensate for the loss of margin in the natural world that will make life harder.

All the signs of incipient activism and uprising, from Tahrir square to Zuccotti Park to [the recent] shutdown of the Internet to protest web censorship. People are getting smart and getting connected.

In the United States, cheap fossil fuel has eroded communities. We're the first people with no real practical need for each other. Everything comes from a great distance through anonymous and invisible transactions. We've taken that to be a virtue, but it's as much a curse. Americans are not very satisfied with their lives, and the loss of community is part of that.

Colonialism of one kind or another, imperialism of one kind or another, and slavery, and on and on and on.

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.

Climate change is a huge problem, an almost insoluble problem.

When you go to China and the developing world, people understand more clearly the dangers that are coming at them because they're living closer to the margin. They don't have any of the false sense of invulnerability that Americans have. People from developing countries also feel that it's their right, if you're talking in terms of justice, to use fossil fuels like we did for a hundred years to get rich. It's hard for them to give up that vision.