I took a trip in 2004, a year after the war started in Iraq. I played music on the streets of Baghdad for Iraqi civilians. I'd also play for U.S. soldiers at night when they were off duty in the bars. Then I would talk to people, and I would film them and ask them about their life and the conflict.

I don't know if it's so grand that I can change the entire world, but I know that I can help one person. So that's the goal.

I went to Iraq because I wanted to see what one year of occupation had done to Iraqi society, and I went to the West Bank and Gaza Strip because I wanted to see what three generations of occupation had done to Palestinian society. I found a lot more hopelessness and despair in Palestine.

My greatest sense of accomplishment has come from having two amazing sons, but it's also a paradox in that the times when I felt like the biggest failure have been times when I felt like, as a parent, I wasn't making the right decisions or succeeding in the way that I should.

Americans are already paying the price for record heat waves, dirty air, and an unstable climate. We need to fight these threats with every weapon we have, and the electricity industry has to do its fair share.

Well, I think I was always sort of reflecting where I was and my sense of surroundings and ecology, urban or country, or foreign, living in Europe, very affected by all of that.

Comprehensive climate legislation must be passed so that we can ensure a world where this and future generations can experience the bliss of breathing clean crisp air, while fishing in the Adirondacks... and being able to eat the fish afterwards.

My view is that climate changes have happened in the last 80 years, that is, the world has got a little bit warmer, although not as warm as it has been in Medieval times, or the Bronze Age.