The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails.

The usual pattern of demagogues is to promise the moon, fail to deliver, and then blame vulnerable others for those failures.

We should stop calling ourselves environmentalists - and just call ourselves patriots.

Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability - terrorism, failing states, nuclear weapons - or should we focus on global climate instability - droughts, floods, extreme weather? Here's the correct answer: yes, both, because climate disruption will make every other national security problem worse.

I'm willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.

Now, we can live in this little, liberal bubble bath where everybody's supposed to like everybody and do all this stuff and understand our pain and know our history. But that, maybe, works in your dorm, that doesn't work in the real world, and people need to get out of all that.

We need a much deeper understanding of exactly what it is our industrial society, in its present creation, is jeopardizing. We need a more profound perception of what is at stake.