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.

When we damage the environment, we damage everything we depend on.

It really is a very radical call ... to reject materialism as our central value and to think about the sanctity of life and what that really means if we take it seriously.

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.

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.

There's real economic costs to climate change - So, Superstorm Sandy led to billions of dollars in damages. The fires out in the west, 70 million dollars a day are being spent in fighting fires that have clearly been exacerbated by drought and climate change. So, people have pointed out the true dollars and cents cost of inaction on climate change.

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.