Most of you didn't think that helping people share books would be a subversive act...Yet the fact is that you have chosen a profession that has become radical.

Public infrastructure around the world is facing unprecedented stress, with hurricanes, cyclones, floods and forest fires all increasing in frequency and intensity. It's easy to imagine a future in which growing numbers of cities have their frail and long-neglected infrastructures knocked out by disasters and then are left to rot, their core services never repaired or rehabilitated.

It's certainly something we haven't seen before in terms of a fully commercial global brand - really a family of brands - not just Trump but also Ivanka, who has a sub-brand. We've never seen this before. We've had presidents in financial conflicts of interest before, but this phenomenon where a sitting president image avatar is out there selling golf courses and condominiums, even as he is in office and having the value of his personal brand inflated dramatically by fact of his being president, is new territory.

One of the most disturbing ways that climate change is already playing out is through what ecologists call "mismatch" or "mistiming." This is the process whereby warming causes animals to fall out of step with a critical food source, particularly at breeding times, when a failure to find enough food can lead to rapid population losses.

When Nike says, just do it, that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration?

When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers are empty.

The powerful feed ideology to the masses like fast food while they dine on that most rarefied delicacy: impunity.