Our problem is that the climate crisis hatched in our laps at a moment in history when political and social conditions were uniquely hostile to a problem of this nature and magnitude-that moment being the tail end of the go-go '80s, the blastoff point for the crusade to spread deregulated capitalism around the world. Climate change is a collective problem demanding collective action the likes of which humanity has never actually accomplished. Yet it entered mainstream consciousness in the midst of an ideological war being waged on the very idea of the collective sphere.

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.

Real climate solutions are ones that steer these interventions to systematically disperse and devolve power and control to the community level, whether through community-controlled renewable energy, local organic agriculture or transit systems genuinely accountable to their users.

But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us.

If this really is true, then greed really isn't good, after all. It really isn't the way to maximize the best possible outcome. We really do need to come together and act collectively. Government isn't always the problem. It's sometimes the solution. And, so their whole intellectual scaffolding collapses. So, they'd rather deny the science.

In a world where profit is consistently put before both people and the planet, climate economics has everything to do with ethics and morality.

[On climate change:] What if it's all a hoax and we've created a better world for nothing?