It's very important that there should be cross-fertilisation between government and academia. Both parties can benefit from having a better understanding of how the other works.

I've never really had much of a career plan, and interesting opportunities kept cropping up.

Science and policy-making thrive on challenge and questioning; they are vital to the health of inquiry and democracy.

Enlightened self-interest from those involved in hydrocarbons should lead to the support of technologies enabling the clean use of hydrocarbons, such as carbon capture and storage, and not to the defence of deniers and cranks.

Our politicians debate this, but our scientists don't. A huge majority of climate scientists say climate change is happening. They say we're causing it and we need to do something about it before it has a terrible effect on all of us.

Often times when you face such an overwhelming challenge as global climate change, it can be somewhat daunting - it's kind of like trying to lose weight, which I know something about.

Something happened during the 1980s - perhaps the political climate of that time - that caused me to ask how a people would become part of a system that oppresses their own people.

Wealth and vegetation go together, and that exacerbates environmental injustice. The poor bear the burden of degraded environments.