Climatologists are all agreed that we'd be lucky to see the end of this century without the world being a totally different place, and being 8 or 9 degrees hotter on average.

I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards.

The entire range of living matter on Earth from whales to viruses and from oaks to algae could be regarded as constituting a single living entity capable of maintaining the Earth's atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts.

There is no clear distinction anywhere on the Earth's surface between living and nonliving matter. There is merely a hierarchy of intensity going from the 'material' environment of the rocks and the atmosphere to the living cells.

All the modelling we do shows that the climate is poised on the jump up to a new hot state. It is accelerating so fast that you could say that we are already in it.

You never know with politicians what they are really saying. And I don't say that in a negative way-they have an appalling job.

Evolution is a tightly coupled dance, with life and the material environment as partners. From the dance emerges the entity Gaia.