That's the big mistake the environmental movement made - 'We'll scare the hell out of you, and you'll become an activist'.
It is not rational, never mind 'appropriate,' to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.
Yet, despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems, including global climate change, energy dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels, and loss of biodiversity.
When you buy a jacket, you pick the size to ensure it fits. Similarly, we live in a universe in which the amount of dark energy fits our biological make-up. If the amount of dark energy were substantially different from what we've measured, the environmental conditions would be inhospitable to our form of life.
For businesses, biomimicry is about bringing a new discipline - biology - to the design table. It's not to write an environmental impact statement, as most biologists in business do right now.
No clean energy development is complete without extensive environmental protections, and I've been proud to work in a bipartisan fashion with my colleagues in Congress to protect our most precious natural resources.
As you heat the planet up, it's just like boiling a pot.
I've had filmmakers, I even had Bono come and talk to me about having a sequel to 'E.T.' help with an environmental message - I listened. I can certainly understand. I mean, the great thing about Bono is that everything he does is in service to a greater cause.
Ever since we achieved a breakthrough in the area of recombinant DNA in 1973, left-wing nuts and environmental kooks have been screaming that we will create some kind of Frankenstein bug or Andromeda Strain that will destroy us all.
Environmental concern is a little like dieting or paying off credit-card debt - an episodically terrific idea that burns brightly and then seems to fade when we realize there's a reason we need to diet or pay down our debt. The reason is that it's really, really hard, and too many of us in too many spheres of life choose the easy over the hard.
Let me start by emphasizing that I am open to efforts to expedite environmental procedures for true emergencies or in other clear cases where current laws are needlessly burdensome.
A majority of American citizens are now becoming skeptical of the claim that our carbon footprints, resulting from our use of fossil fuels, are going to lead to climatic calamities. But governments are not yet listening to the citizens.
We are called to care for those sickened by pollution, house those displaced by environmental calamities, and heal the spirits of those - especially our youth - who are disheartened by a world where human survival is now in question.
Californians want to have clean air, clean water - not like the Trump Administration is trying to do with its rollback of environmental regulations, like the reversal of the Clean Power Plan.
Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.
China will soon emit more greenhouse gases than America, but its regime knows if it caps aspirations there will be a revolution.
There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.
It should be noted that the EPA's banning of methanol is categorically absurd from the point of view of environmental protection.
Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.