What to do about climate change is political, it's social, and it's moral, which is one of the reasons the scientific community reached out to the Pope, to ask for his involvement in this issue.

When we damage the environment, we damage everything we depend on.

Scientists should continue doing what they've always done, which is to understand the Earth as well as they can.

Scientists have been saying, for an awfully long time, that we're all interconnected. Scientists would use the word 'ecosystem' to express that idea. Obviously, people can't survive without air and water, and we rely on plants and animals for food, and plants and animals rely on us to preserve their habitats.

There's real economic costs to climate change - So, Superstorm Sandy led to billions of dollars in damages. The fires out in the west, 70 million dollars a day are being spent in fighting fires that have clearly been exacerbated by drought and climate change. So, people have pointed out the true dollars and cents cost of inaction on climate change.

The same mentality that leads to environmental despoliation, environmental destruction, also leads to damage to people.

At a recent conference, a colleague told one of us that in IPCC discussions, some scientists have been reluctant to make strong claims about the scientific evidence, lest contrarians attack us. Another said that she'd rather err on the side of conservatism in her estimates, because then she feels more secure.

Yet again, unscientific claims were being circulated broadly, but the scientists' refutation of them was published where only fellow scientists would see it.

It's extremely hard to know what the economic consequences of any decision will be. And I'm not a, a, a financial analyst, so I, I generally don't try to make some kind of prediction about that.

We don't survive without plants and animals because we rely on them, we rely on plants to put oxygen into the atmosphere, we rely on ... fish and crops and cows to eat.

Scientific monitoring is going to be terrifically important, because whatever steps we take ... we will have to monitor those steps in order to know if they're actually working.

When God made the planet, he made the plants, he made the animals, he made the Sun and the Moon, and he made us, and we're all interconnected, and when we disregard, disrespect, or damage any part of it, we do violence against creation.