The Old Testament contains in many places, but especially in the book of Job, one of the most far-reaching defenses ever written of wilderness, of nature free from the hand of man. The argument gets at the heart of what the loss of nature will mean to us....God seems to be insisting that we are not the center of the universe, that he is quite happy if it rains where there are no people - that God is quite happy with places where there are no people, a radical departure from our most ingrained notions.

But tolerance by itself can be a cover for moral laziness.

Most of the men and women who vote in Congress each year to continue subsidies have taken campaign donations from big energy companies.

Those of us in the west have figured out a lot of ways to damage the lives of poor people in this country and around the world over the years.

Do I think that people should in the best of all possible worlds have to go to jail for wanting the US government to pay attention to the warnings of scientists about climate change? Not really. I mean, in a rational world, if all the scientists said, "The worst thing that ever happened is about to happen and here's what you should do to stop it," you would expect any rational system to say, "Oh, sure, OK, let's do something about it." But that's not the world we live in. In the world we live in, you do need people willing to stand up, fight, march and sometimes go to jail.

There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there.

The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.