There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says "don't worry - everything will be just fine" and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.

Just like you could dump oil into the Cuyahoga in the 60s and let someone else foot the bill, today you can pump CO2 into the atmosphere and let the whole world foot the bill.

Agriculture is the #1 source of deforestation. By some estimates it accounts for 80% of the forests chopped down in the tropics.

We don't have good global policies in place for climate.

When it comes to trying to manage how our entire planet-wide market and all the people and businesses in it deal with nature and our natural resources - we first and foremost need to change the incentives.

If your incentives are set up wrong - if for some reason you reward people for behavior that's actually bad for your customers or your organization - then you're going to encourage that behavior.

I was much more of a naïve techno-optimist than I am now. I still believe that technology can help us come out of this situation with a richer humanity with less impact on the planet, but now I think it has to be paired with effective policy in order to achieve that.