Divorce is one of the key predictors of poverty for a child growing up in a home that's broken.

I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn't smoke in your own home. I don't care what people do in their home.

So when we're really addressing issues like poverty, you can't do that without addressing the real driver of some of those, which is stable homes, families. So that's why to me those issues are important. They're not frivolous. They're critical economic issues.

I've had the privilege of working with Bono for the past few years in the One Campaign to fight AIDS and hunger and disease around the world. Bono is an Irishman and a great humanitarian. And I remember him telling me of his admiration for America.

The world that you and I live in is increasingly challenged. Population growth, pollution, over-consumption, unsustainable patterns, social conflict, climate change, loss of nature... these are not good stories.

There is no 'need' for us to eat meat, dairy or eggs. Indeed, these foods are increasingly linked to various human diseases and animal agriculture is an environmental disaster for the planet.

It is a world of extremes, which can be characterised most clearly in terms of exclusion. That means political exclusion, whereby the rights of citizens are marginalised by the interests of big business: George W Bush's environmental policy, for example, is clearly formulated in the interests of U.S. energy companies.

Good environmental policy is good economic policy.