Of course, the world is full of problems. But on the other hand it's important to get the sense... are we generally moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?

I really try to say things as they basically are and it so happens that it is a good message that things are getting better, but there are still problems.

I'm a vegetarian, but I don't expect other people not to eat meat.

The Kyoto treaty has an estimated cost of between US$150 and $350 billion a year, starting in 2010.

Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.

I tentatively believe in a god. I was brought up in a fairly religious home. I think the world is compatible with reincarnation, karma, all that stuff.

When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.