Psychologically speaking, the rational, healthy response to climate change is to say to oneself, "What can I do about this?" But that question is often answered through individual action.

By looking the other way on climate change we facilitate a collective denial, and we do it for each other.

It is rarely comfortable to talk about climate change. Bringing something difficult up, it feels like somehow by mentioning this I'm kind of causing it, I'm hurting these people. But you're not hurting these people; climate change is hurting these people. You're telling them they're being hurt.

What we accomplished during World War Two is just amazing. We turned our country upside down. African Americans were demanding to be given combat missions. 10% of Americans moved in order to relocate for a war job. We as a country accomplished this heroic, nearly miraculous thing, and we have this legacy of policies and agency - how did they do it? How did they fund it? How did they organize it? It is actually an example that we can borrow from very productively to guide us.

There are a lot of reasons people don't talk about climate change. One of them has to do with the language of science, and people feeling not competent about this issue.

The problem is so severe that trying to say, "First we'll fix the government and then we'll tackle climate change," or, "First we have to figure out alternative systems to capitalism and then we'll tackle climate change," I don't see how those things are possible in the very short term.

Climate change is the sine qua non of continued civilization. We either solve this, or it's lights out. Turning into a collective like that is so much more aligned with how humans live and think and change.