My reward in life for growing up a little bit was that Mary Steenburgen came into my life, and we have been together for 19 years.

You have to be an optimist, right? You have to be critical, then you have to be an optimist. Or else you're really stupid.

I don't think it's a matter of, do you win the game or not, it's how gracefully do you play it.

Years ago, we all talked about recycling and not dumping things down your drain and all of that, but talking doesn't help much. Basically, it's going to have to be legislation because the impact is so huge and diversified.

Toxins love to get you while you're young. Lead, mercury, secondhand smoke and sundry other environmental nasties do a lot more damage when tissue is immature, vulnerable and growing than when it's mature and comparatively fixed.

I see a future where states compete with one another to see which can be the most efficient, and where businesses seek out efficient states in which to locate so they can reap the economic and environmental benefits for their businesses and employees.

Climate change is not a discrete issue; it's a symptom of larger problems. Fundamentally, our society as currently designed has no future. We're chewing up the planet so fast, in so many different ways, that we could solve the climate problem tomorrow and still find that environmental collapse is imminent.

Our lifestyle, our wildlife, our land and our water remain critical to our definition of Wyoming and to our economic future.