In the United States, we do a pretty good job of protecting iconic landscapes and postcard views, but the ocean gets no respect.

The idea that human beings have taken a few steps closer toward asserting control over the Earth's climate is likely to strike you as a really bad idea.

Drill everything, mine everything, roll back regulations, tweak the science, expedite permits. Sound familiar? The Republicans offer up more 19th-Century solutions to our 21st-Century energy problems.

The biggest tab the public picks up for fossil fuels has to do with what economists call 'external costs,' like the health effects of air and water pollution.

Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.

In 2013, I dedicated myself full-time to combating the very real impacts of climate change. Working across the country, NextGen Climate Action formed new coalitions and worked hard to make climate change a part of our national conversation - and across the country, we had a big impact.

If we bring together the right people, communities can flourish and wildlife can survive alongside them.

In Missouri, we built the steamships that plied the Mississippi. It was people of Missouri who believed that a human being could fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone. And it was Missourians who built the capsule in which an American first orbited the earth.