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.

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.

At a recent conference, a colleague told one of us that in IPCC discussions, some scientists have been reluctant to make strong claims about the scientific evidence, lest contrarians "attack us". Another said that she'd rather err on the side of conservatism in her estimates, because then she feels more "secure."

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.

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

Scientific monitoring is going to be terrifically important, because whatever steps we take ... we will have to monitor those steps in order to know if they're actually working.

It's extremely hard to know what the economic consequences of any decision will be. And I'm not a, a, a financial analyst, so I, I generally don't try to make some kind of prediction about that.