From year to year environmental changes are incremental and often barely register in our lives but from evolutionary or geological perspectives what is happening is explosive change.

I think if there's something one needs to change with oneself it doesn't have to happen in the New Year. You can do that any time you please - not that it's not a good inspirational tactic for the people that it works for.

There is no question that climate change is happening the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.

When I joined Bill Clinton's start-up presidential campaign in 1991 I was confident that women would play an ever more important role but I never gave a minute's thought to what would happen if we won. When we did - and I became the first woman to serve as White House press secretary - it changed my life. But it didn't change the world.

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.

To some extent Seattle remains a frontier metropolis a place where people can experiment with their lives and change and grow and make things happen.

Anyone who's lost someone to cancer will say this that you have to struggle to try to remember the person before the diagnosis happened because they really do change - as anyone would change.

Sometimes I have these fantasies of just moving to a foreign country and coming back with a full head of hair. Or not even come back! Make a new life there with hair... Change my name just see what happens.

If you don't change then what's the point of anything happening to you?

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.