Scientists have been saying, for an awfully long time, that we're all interconnected. Scientists would use the word 'ecosystem' to express that idea. Obviously, people can't survive without air and water, and we rely on plants and animals for food, and plants and animals rely on us to preserve their habitats.

We don't survive without plants and animals because we rely on them, we rely on plants to put oxygen into the atmosphere, we rely on ... fish and crops and cows to eat.

Scientists are scientists. They're not really in a position to speak clearly on the moral dimensions, and they're not really comfortable doing that.

Yet again, unscientific claims were being circulated broadly, but the scientists' refutation of them was published where only fellow scientists would see it.

I think it is important for people to understand that there are real serious economic costs and real serious economic damages associated with inaction on climate change.

Scientists should continue doing what they've always done, which is to understand the Earth as well as they can.

What to do about climate change is political, it's social, and it's moral, which is one of the reasons the scientific community reached out to the Pope, to ask for his involvement in this issue.