Have we failed to slow global warming pollution in part because climate and environmental activists have been too polite and well behaved?

Mark Ruffalo aka the Incredible Hulk is the natural gas industry's worst nightmare: a serious committed activist who is determined to use his star power as a superhero in the hottest movie of the moment to draw attention the environmental and public health risks of fracking.

Americans don't pay much attention to environmental issues because they aren't sexy. I mean cleaning up coal plants and reining in outlaw frackers is hugely important work but it doesn't get anybody's pulse racing.

I really believe in the environmental movement right now - it only takes a little effort to make a big difference.

The most meaningful engine of change powerful enough to confront corporate power may be not so much environmental quality as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.

The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry agriculture energy and transportation - essential as they are make people sick and die.

We need to accept the seemingly obvious fact that a toxic environment can make people sick and that no amount of medical intervention can protect us. The health care community must become a powerful political lobby for environmental policy and legislation.

I am going to confront the old-fashioned negative thinking which says that all government needs to do to generate growth is cut worker and environmental protections cut taxes on the rich and stroke 'fat cats' until they purr with pleasure. I'm completely repudiating the idea that government has to get out of the way.

We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice. Now we must add a new fight - the fight for electoral justice.

American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.