Nicholas Stern

We can look back through ice-core data and see over 800,000 years, relationships between carbon dioxide and the temperature of the world. So those people who deny the importance of climate change are just wasting their time. They're also being diversionary because if we don't act the risks are enormous.

If coal is going to be used, the only response - because it is the dirtiest of all fuels - is that we have to learn how to do carbon capture and storage and we have to learn how to do it quickly on a commercial scale.

The basic scientific conclusions on climate change are very robust and for good reason. The greenhouse effect is simple science: greenhouse gases trap heat, and humans are emitting ever more greenhouse gases.

Having a Congress with a more diverse educational and professional background would serve the country well. And given the budget challenges facing America today, we might benefit from a few more cold, calculating problem solvers, and fewer courtroom impresarios.

I went into academia thinking that there'd be constant reciprocity between my scholarship and my creative work but found that doing one always turned my mind into the sort of tool that was badly suited to doing the other.