Big Think

Question: When you read the newspaper or watch the news, what issues stand out for you?

Ross: Well I do think the larger questions are questions of climate change, which will affect many other things. I mean climate change will affect poverty because unfortunately, the places that are already the hardest hit are gonna suffer more drought. The places least capable of coping with dramatic climatic change are the places that are gonna be the hardest hit. It’ll create refugee flows, which has consequences for security. It’ll create more failed states, which has consequences also for security. So I start with climate change as being something that affects the globe. And you would think . . . You know what is the old imagery that if the world was ever attacked, you know, by invaders from out of space, we’d all draw together. And plenty of movies have tried to be built around that kind of theme. But climate change is not an external threat; it’s an internal one. And it requires a . . . It’s going to affect everything. So number one I would say climate change, which also . . . As I said, it affects poverty. It affects health. And when I look at the big issues, I think they start with that.