"If you like to worry about things— and most people do— you are living at a great time. Climate change is coming, and it is coming right at you. Regardless of where you are on Earth, you will live to see your life and the lives of your kids and their friends change due to the overall warming of the planet. Whether or not those changes are manageable is up to us. It is up to anyone who is able to think about what kind of future we want. It is up to you and me." (1)

"But so long as we focus only on our individual decisions and their short-term consequences, we will act like renters, not owners of this Earth. Dealing with climate change requires a new kind of thinking in all of us." (4)

"The deniers have wrought havoc. They're standing outside standing looking right at the burning house and insisting that the yellow flames and dense smoke are not really coming from a fire. It's just the way the house looks this time of day..." (11)

"It is an irrefutable feature of our world that everything each and everyone of us does affects everyone else, everywhere, because we all share the same air." (13)

"And yet, even now, after nearly fifty years of intensive research and more than thirty years of scientific consensus on the nature of global warming, there is still a sizeable group of people who grasp at any stray fact or, more commonly, any stray intuition, to help them demy what is happening. IN denying the problem, they are also denying the need to step up and do something about it." (19)

"Why aren't all of our political and business leaders joining the cry to rally the Next Greatest Generation to come up with some solutions? A key part of the problem is that many of our richest people made their fortunes in the fossil-fuel industry. To protect their wealth and businesses, they have turned to promoting denial. Conservative politicians get a great deal of their campaign contributions from fossil-fuel wealth, and they have been convinced to interchange the standard statements of scientific uncertainty (e.g. "plus-or-minus 3%") to mean that we know nothing at all (i.e. "maybe the answer is minus 100%"). Conservative media outlets have obediently played along. This is wrong and dangerous." (27)

"Climate change will affect disease as well. As I've often remarked, our biggest enemies from an evolutionary standpoint are not lions, and tigers, and bears. They are germs and parasites. As our world warms a little, the ranges over which certain germs and parasites can live continue to expand. Human populations that  used to be safe from tropical diseases will no longer be. Pine forests protected by freezing winter temperatures are being destroyed by beetles that no longer have to deal with the cold. There will be enormous, heretofore unexpected costs dealing with the disease, death, lost wages, and lost productivity as more of us get sick more and more frequently." (34)

"This is where I come back to the idea of the house on fire. You can run all of the cost-benefit calculations you like, but when you see those flames the decision is made: You have to act. You can't afford not to. When it comes to safeguarding our planetary home, it's the same deal. We have no option but to act. Fortunately, there is still just enough time— and our science will show the way." (35)

"The real key for the Next Great Generation will be to build a society that doesn't need natural gas or fossil fuels of any kind at all." (78)

"The people who once denounced catalytic converters as too expensive to put into our cars sound just like so many of our pro-business commentators today who insist that it will cost way too much to address climate change. For me, there's an important lesson here. We can be a lot smarter and more capable than a lot of the technology doubters and climate deniers assume. The people who dismiss concerns about global warming seem to be the pessimists who would rather give up than own up to the problems we have all created. The people who worry most about what we are doing to the planet are the optimists who believe we also have the intelligence— we, as a species, working together— to come up with powerful solutions to the problems we're working on that will change the world for the better. Which way of looking at the world is going to produce a Next Greatest Generation? Will it be the ones who give up, or the ones who get going?" (172-173)

"If the American economy and American interests were not tied so directly to oil from overseas, U.S. diplomats and politicians could approach the rest of the world in new ways. They could eliminate a lot of military actions that have little benefit other than protecting the oil supply, and they could devote a lot more resources to improving the lives of citizens everywhere affected by climate change— including the citizens right here at home." (175-176)

"As I write, there are a great many conservative lawmakers who feel that any government project, especially one that takes on a big multiyear or even multi-decade task, is inherently bad because it comes from big government. It's a manifestation of The Man suppressing your rights and freedom. As the reader may infer, I just don't see it that way. In the interest of efficiency and quality of life, I feel we will have to better public transportation." (194)

"To me, conspiracy theories are lazy. It's a way to blame one's problems and the problems of the world on someone else, some mystery group that's out to get ya'. I am pretty sure that most of the problems of the world just happen from all of us trying to make a living here. I'm all for raising legitimate questions, but these people seemed to be woefully uninformed and obsessed with finding a scapegoat for what they perceive as society's ills." (229)

"Greatness is about more than facing up to a huge challenge— climate change, right now—  and finding ways to overcome it. Greatness has to include exploration and expanding the most noble part of our human spirit, our ability to know the cosmos and our place within it. to experience the beauty and majesty of the universe, our ability to achieve a peaceful future by working together. It's not that we won't compete; it's that we'll compete toward this common goal— to leave the world better than we found it." (295)

"I know, I know, the conservatives and libertarians among us just do not cotton to taxes of any sort. My impression is that conservatives right now equate taxes with evil. They may be right; taxes may be evil. If that is true, I cannot help but notice that every government in the world makes extensive use of taxes, so I guess it's further evidence that Satan is real and he has taken over. Seriously though, without taxes you have no collective order, and without order it's virtually impossible to achieve the time-honored "rule of law". It's hard to believe that anybody thinks a tax-less society would have much of a future. So how about we consider a carbon "fee", instead of a tax? A fee doesn't apply to you unless you choose to partake of a commodity or make use of a service. No taxes; just fees." (306)

"Even as carbon emissions kept increasing nobody owned up to their cost. That's been true for companies as well as individuals. Along with contributing to our economic well-being, industrial activity contributes to our troubles, producing every bit as much greenhouse gas emission as all of our transportation or all our agriculture. Business managers can figure out how to be more efficient. They understand and assess the economics of everything they do. When oil prices shot up in the 1980s, for instance, the entire U.S. economy became radically more efficient (during a period of strong economic growth, no less). Go into any hotel today, and your way is lit with the energy-efficient light bulbs. Hotel managers changed the bulbs because it saves the business money. If we continue the practice of free carbon dumping, we're headed for trouble. If everyone has to collectively (and invisibly) pay for damage to our environment, companies and industries are going to keep on going as they have for the last couple hundred years. It's time to make the big change. Companies are not generally malicious any more then you and I. If I offer you something for free, is it your fault for taking it?" (307)

"People are working hard, trying to get along, but hardly anything has gotten done on a global scale to reduce carbon emissions on a global scale. And here's why: My country, the United States. We use 18 percent of the world's energy, pump out 19 percent of the world's carbon dioxide, and we have only 4 percent of the world's population. That's it. Without the U.S. in the lead, ain't no nothing going to get done on climate change (employing the triple negative for emphasis)." (310)

"So here's a big idea, a huge and potentially world-changing idea, something that could be written into the law of this land that would change the world. The United States could establish a carbon fee and dividend system. (Not to worry; it's not a tax; that would be evil.) Whenever you or the corporation you work for creates carbon dioxide, you have to pay a fee. … That money would be directed into a fund that would become a trust fund akin to the Highway Trust Fund, established under President Eisenhower (a Republican, you might note) in 1956. Once the money is in that fund, it has to be used for its intended purpose— repairing roads, building mass transit, and cleaning up transportation-related storage tanks." (312)

"This is a slightly counterintuitive idea (just slightly). The carbon fee would raise the cost of the things you buy (since right now there is some carbon emitted in the the production and distribution of pretty much anything). That's a little less money in your pocket. But at the end of the year, the government would take all of the money collected by the carbon fee, divide it up, and give it back to you as a dividend check. By you, of course, I mean all of you. The government wouldn't keep any of the money. All the fee would do is put a realistic price on the carbon we dump into the environment. Every factory, every company would have an incentive to reduce emissions, because they could sell things at a lower price. Consumers, given a choice between a low-carbon pair of jeans and a high-carbon pair of jeans, would see a cost advantage in choosing the former, If you live a low-carbon lifestyle all year, when your dividend arrives you will find you came out ahead." (313)

"Right now in the United States, along with the climate-change deniers, we have a lot of conservative politicians and commentators who just don't see how something like this carbon fee could possibly work (even though similar systems have been endorsed by conservative politicians in the not-so-distant past; there are Web sites devoted to their quotes). It is my perception that they see climate change as a wholly intractable problem. They seem to perceive addressing climate change as being like a game of Whack-A-Mole. You smack one mole down, and another mole pops up somewhere else on the game board. To me, that's just giving up before you get started. I don't know how much time you may have to put in playing Whack-A-Mole, but I can assure you that if you spend the coins and put in the hours, you can get better at it. To whack those moles, you have to clear your mind, in the same ways a good athlete does (or so I've heard)." (315-316)

"In Alaska, the government shares the wealth from the North Slope oil and gas. Everyone in the state gets a dividend every year from the Alaska Permanent Fund. Right now, it's about two thousand dollars a year. You just have to live there; you can't be a registered voter living somewhere else. In 1976, people agreed that if oil companies stand to benefit in big ways from the fossil fuels beneath their land and their nearby sea, everyone should benefit. Alaska is not exactly a stronghold of the liberal left. Very much the opposite, by any measure. Nevertheless, people there saw the benefit and the inherent fairness of sharing the wealth. It just seems to me that if Alaskans— libertarian as they may be— can see sharing wealth as being for the common good, perhaps we all can." (317-318)

"For those of you who might be skeptical of my optimism, I have to point out that if you don't much care for regulation now, you might be in for a hard time. As climate change causes sea levels to rise, more and more people are going to get displaced. More and more people are going to to want to come to live where you are living— or worse, you will be among those forced to do the moving. Cities are going to need storm walls; farmers will need compensation to relocate their fields. If you think action on behalf of climate change is expensive, just wait until you see the price of inaction. Regulations will be required sooner or later, but if we wait until things reach crisis level they will be a lot more onerous. There may be requirements to restrict your use of gasoline. Requirements that restrict your access to proteins, such as steak and fish. Regulators watching what you put in the trash. There may be limits on shipping and air travel. And by then, your neighbors will probably be voting for these regulations. The environmental and just plain cash-money costs will be staggering the longer we go without getting going." (319)

"We will benefit, invisibly, from bad things that do not happen: extreme weather, sea-level rise, oceans becoming more acidic. To some extent, those things are coming no matter what we do, but we have the chance— right now— to make them much milder than they will be if we do nothing.

To confront climate change, we all have to embrace two ideas. They are simple and familiar ideas, but that does not make them any less true. First: We are all in this together. Everyone you will ever meet is from here— Earth. It is everybody's house, and it is everybody's home. Let's work as a team to make our home as clean as possible. Second: The longest journey begins with a single step. Every little and big thing we do to address the warming of our world and its shifting weather patterns will help everyone on Earth. The sooner we get to work, the better." (321)

"Fairness is a clear and present issue here. Is it fair that large countries with barely a quarter of the world's population consume most of the energy and produce most of the greenhouse gases? Is it fair that some island nations are disappearing under the rising seas, because other continental countries have made it so? If we also consider that the industrialized countries have the ability to develop new technologies, the new large public energy projects, and the new means to distribute wealth, the perhaps there is a way forward that is a fair as is possible for everyone. And let’s be clear: Nobody wants to go backward. Nobody will stand for a declining standard of living. That is part of the call to the Next Great Generation: to make a better world for everyone.

Here in the U.S., the richest nation on Earth, along with our remarkable output of climate-changing greenhouse gases, we have a vocal minority that rejects the concept of fairness I am outlining here. We have an extraordinary well-funded cohort of climate-change deniers who are supported by the fossil-fuel industry and its deceptively named political action committees or PACs. You might hear about the activities of the American Energy Alliance, American Crossroads, Citizens for a Sound Environment, or the Foundation of Research on Economics and the Environment. Please research these groups to understand their true agenda. They generally oppose doing anything about climate change. Their justification for avoiding action on climate change is the belief that any action would reduce freedom, or hurt the economy, or damage our standard of living. They believe that change is a zero-sum game: If you improve the environment, then something else must suffer.

Fundamentally, the doubters do not believe in progress. They do not believe in the ability of humans to solve problems. They do not believe even in the evidence of history. In the United States, the air and water are drastically cleaner than they were a couple of generations ago. Regulations that many doubters claimed would wreck the economy instead gave us a cleaner and safer world. In many cases the doubters used the exact arguments we hear today. Fortunately, we as a nation pushed forward. But the improvements we’ve made so far are not enough. They are only a start— an important but insufficient first step.

Next, as I can tell, the doubters and deniers do not want to confront the immediate reality of a warming global climate, and all the disruptions that will come with it. They see to believe that personal freedom takes priority over any action an individual might take. That’s not how my parents’ generation went about winning the war. It looks to me that the climate deniers are, as the psychiatrists say, in denial. The problem is too big to deal with… or something. From my point of view, the doubters’ agenda stems not so much from mean-spiritedness as from a lack of critical thinking skills— and a lack of faith in human ingenuity. There is also a natural but troublesome human tendency to close one’s eyes to a situation one does not wish to acknowledge. Clenching fists and stamping feet at the scientific evidence may feel like it is making the problem go away, but the world is still warming all the same.

For humankind to get through the coming decades, we are going to have to show the U.S. voters and taxpayers that the deniers are causing trouble, leaving our world worse than they found it. They are bad homeowners. With a greater awareness of the troubles ahead and the opportunities before us, citizens like you and me can vote the elected deniers out of office. Along with that, we’ll have to work hard to ignore the strident deniers in the media.

I often muse about what a marvelous thing it would be to change a few deniers’ minds. If someone has diligently put in twenty or thirty years of strident denying, changing his or her mind might seem like an impossible objective. But then I consider the example of the smoker who quit. You may have been a smoker yourself at one time. My parents were; everybody was back then. Then they quit. And in your experience, who is the most strident antismoker? Who is the person who can’t stand the smell, and leaves the room? It is often someone who used to smoke. Once they quit, former smokers often become the antismoking movement’s foot soldiers. So I take heart. If we chip away at the Fox News hosts, if we chip away at the large field of 2016 Republican presidential candidates, if we make it clear that climate deniers are not politically credible, maybe one or two of them will turn around, like a former smoker, The scales may drop from their eyes, and they many become part of the many solutions that are required. If one of them does turn around, let’s embrace that person. His or her influence could help conserve the world for humans everywhere.

Because we have put so much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the last two and a half centuries there is a great fraction of climate change that’s coming no matter what we do today. A certain amount of global warming and weather disruption is baked in; in a word, it is unstoppable. But you know what? So are we. Humans, and human progress, are also unstoppable.

We have made it through the millennia of disease, famine, drought, and even an ice age. Until this modern time, we humans had little control over what became of our Earth, our home, We were along for the orbital-oscillating, axis-tilting, snowcap-cycling ride. But today, we have the technical means to watch over our home planet and take responsibility for our own fate. No generation before had the weather records on the scale we have today and the computing power to crunch those numbers. No generation before us could use geospatially tracked buoys and submersibles and know the ocean’s currents and ecosystems as we do now. No generation before us had the assets in space to look down and see the atmosphere as it really is, thin and vulnerable. In short, no generation before the one coming of age today could be so readily unstoppable.

Right now, today, we have among us the Next Great Generation, the one that will carry this process forward to the places that it must go. The young people, the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the engineers, and the just plain hard  workers are among us. Together we will accept the challenge of creating clean energy and providing clean water everyone on Earth. The Next Great Generation can, and will, change the world— for all of us, together." (323-326)

"Over the last year or so, I asked (myself), "Why isn't the U.S. in the lead?" With so many of us talking about climate change, attending conferences about climate change, and working in renewable energy, how can the U.S. be doing so little? I have concluded it's because of the remarkable success of the climate deniers. There are a handful of people, mostly men over fifty years old, who hold on to the notion that scientific uncertainty— plus or minus 2 percent, say— is the equivalent of doubt about climate change altogether— plus or minus 100 percent. That's silly, but the deniers have been organized well enough, and they have been extraordinarily effective. So, with the science settled, I decided to go after the deniers." (328-329)