People are very concerned about pathogens and how their life cycle will shift as a function of temperatures. The life cycle of viruses and parasites speed up when it gets warmer. One example is the pine bark beetle that is devastating forests, and that's associated with winters not being cold enough to interrupt their life cycle. So they are breeding twice as fast. Show less «

[on the future of sea coast cities] You are going to have to put up with rising sea levels; they are not going to go down. But there's a huge difference between a foot or two over 100 years and a metre or two metres. There's a lot of waterfront development going on, but is it sea-level-rise smart? Show less «

[on the most important 'smart decision' we should be making] We have to have a price on carbon because right now it's still free to put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So if you put a price on carbon that is commensurate with the damage that carbon-dioxide emissions cause, then people will be smarter. They will say, 'Well, I can spend that money and damage the planet, or I can spend less money and buy an electric car that is fed by hydro.' Show less «

The time scales in the ocean, in the land and in the ice mean that we are not going to see a reversal of global warming for centuries. So our choices are not about stopping global warming or continuing it, it's really about moderating its influence. We could go hell-to-leather toward a business-as-usual scenario which would result in a planet that was unrecognizable. Or we can try really hard to mitigate against that and keep the changes at a rate at which we can adapt to them. The role of scientists is to say we have choices. If we choose not to do anything about carbon-dioxide emissions, this is what will likely happen: a much warmer world with with very large and severe changes in rainfall patterns and continuing and accelerating sea level rise. Or if we do many things we can moderate that so in the end, by making smart decisions, we can adapt to the changes that are already outgoing. Show less «