Most people out there are just trying to keep their job and provide for their family. If climate change is now a once-in-a-mortgage problem, and if food prices start to spike, people will pay attention.

Climate change isn't just an environmental issue; it's a technology, water, food, energy, population issue. None of this happens in a vacuum.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of people in high places who understand the science but don't like where the policy leads them: too much government control.

You get a series of super-typhoons into Shanghai and millions of people die. Does the population there lose faith in Chinese government? Does China start to fissure? I'd prefer to deal with a rising, dominant China any day.

People working on climate change should prepare for catastrophic success.

When we talk about climate, we need to do everything we can to set the stage before the actors come on. And they may only have one chance at success. We should keep thinking: How do we maximize that chance of success?

If you start getting instability in large powers with nuclear weapons, that's not a good day.