I always saw pollution as theft, and I always thought, 'Why should somebody be able to pollute the air, which belongs to all of us, or destroy a river or a waterway, which is supposed to belong to the whole community?'
I'm very pro vaccine. I get all six of my kids vaccinated. I believe vaccines save millions of lives, and people ought to be getting vaccinated.
When I was 7 years old, I announced that I was going to write a book about pollution. I didn't get around to it until I was 29, but I always recognized that pollution was a theft. That it was a way of stealing something from the public - the common earth.
When my father started talking about strip mining in the Appalachia back in the '60s, I remember a conversation I had with him where he said, you know, this is the richest state in the country if you look at the resources and the land, but the poorest people after the state of Mississippi: the 49th poorest people in the country.
Democracy is about institutions: it's about having things like schools and judiciary and the Ford Foundation, or 'The Nation' magazine - you need progressive institutions, you know what I mean? Those are important institutions to make sure that the government functions.
If you work hard at anything, you're going to experience some success. And the greatest gift is when you have something you really love to do and you can integrate that into your work life. I feel like it's a real privilege that I get to do something that is good for my community and good for the world. But it's also pleasurable for me.
