But this is an occupational hazard of being a scientist. You say this is the best information I have and then you realize that not everyone is going to read the footnotes or the whole book, so people are going to get the wrong impression.
We have to be aware that the scientific community throws up tons of different hypotheses and at a certain point we'll find out who was right and who was wrong. But we have to go with the best information right now, which I would claim to be the IPCC ...
There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn't mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions.
When a business group tells us there is nothing wrong with the environment, naturally they may have good arguments, but we are also sceptical, because we know that they have an interest in these things.
I think Al Gore has done a great service in making global warming cool. He's basically taken it from a nerdy, almost ignored issue to making it what it is - namely, a problem.
The only thing that will really change global warming in the long run is if we radically increase the speed with which we get alternative technologies to deal with climate change.
If we invest in researching and developing energy technology, we'll do some real good in the long run, rather than just making ourselves feel good today. But climate change is not the only challenge of the 21st century, and for many other global prob...
The saddest fact of climate change - and the chief reason we should be concerned about finding a proper response - is that the countries it will hit hardest are already among the poorest and most long-suffering.
Even if every major government were to slap huge taxes on carbon fuels - which is not going to happen - it wouldn't do much to halt climate change any time soon. What it would do is cost us hundreds of billions - if not trillions - of dollars, becaus...
We worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN - we see many more, but the number is roughly constant, and we manage to deal much better with them over time. Globally, the death ra...
Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can't use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/AIDS prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation.
In the rich world, the environmental situation has improved dramatically. In the United States, the most important environmental indicator, particulate air pollution, has been cut by more than half since 1955, rivers and coastal waters have dramatica...
The main environmental challenge of the 21st century is poverty. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from, it's hard to consider the environment 100 years down the line.
I think it's great that we have organisations like Greenpeace. In a pluralistic society, we want to have people who point out all the problems that the Earth could encounter. But we need to understand that they are not presenting a full and rounded v...
I found university a little dispiriting. I thought I would enter the great halls of Plato, but instead I entered the halls of an intellectual sausage factory. I wanted to do something not on the main course, and chose the environment.
I really try to say things as they basically are and it so happens that it is a good message that things are getting better, but there are still problems.
To prepare adequately for the challenge of global warming, we must acknowledge both the good and the bad that it will bring. If our starting point is to prove that Armageddon is on its way, we will not consider all of the evidence, and will not ident...
When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but als...
I tentatively believe in a god. I was brought up in a fairly religious home. I think the world is compatible with reincarnation, karma, all that stuff.
Think on a 50-year scale, which is a much more natural time-scale for global warming. The US is right now spending about 200 million dollars annually on research into renewable energy.
