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

I don't think the fossil fuel industry will listen, not until we build up a lot of pressure. I do think we can persuade some shareholders that they don't want to be involved in this enterprise.

Until it's understood to involve justice for those in poverty, a future for generations yet unborn, and a commitment to the rest of creation, it's unlikely we'll be able to overcome the status quo.

We're going to need that kind of movement, because the fossil fuel industry is a sprawling adversary - at work everywhere, its tentacles in everybody's politics, invulnerable, I think, to direct frontal assault, but probably more brittle than it guesses if we come at it from all sides.

In the States, I think, the syllogism goes like this: 'free markets solve all problems. Free markets aren't solving global warming, QED global warming is not a problem'. It's not a very good syllogism but it's emotionally comforting if you're in that world.

Where people aren't as deeply reliant on fossil fuel as in the United States, it's far easier for them to imagine change on this scale. When you go to Europe, they're much more ready. They use half the amount of energy per capita that we use. They can imagine using less than that. They see the benefits. They're ready to go.

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