The model of the consumer society is something that will one day end. My personal view is that too much consumption is wrong.

The time has come to choose a new direction of global development, to opt for a new civilization.

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

Our rockets can find Halley's comet, and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technical triumphs is an obvious lack of efficiency in using scientific achievements for economic needs. Many Soviet household appliances are of poor quality.

Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people. Since the very birth of human civilization, people have moved to settle close to it. People move when there is too little of it. People move when there is too much of it. People journey down it. People write, sing and dance about it. People fight over it. And all people, everywhere and every day, need it.

We are all passengers aboard one ship, the Earth, and we must not allow it to be wrecked. There will be no second Noah's Ark.

Putin wants to stay in power, but not so that he can finally solve our most pressing problems: education, health care, poverty.