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.

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.

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.

While the American people have the impression that scientists are hard at work figuring out this complex matter of climate change, it's not actually that complicated.

Climate change has been associated so much with a peaceful mentality - obviously peace and love are good, but we need to think about climate as a threat to survival.

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.

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.