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Scientists are being portrayed by much of the power structure in politics and business as having a vested interest - that they're just out to get more grant money by exaggerating the threats.

Individual scientists cannot do much on their own. Heads of nations, corporates, and economic giants should recognise the criticality of it.

I think it's important for scientists to be a bit less arrogant, a bit more humble, recognising we are capable of making mistakes and being fallacious - which is increasingly serious in a society where our work may have unpredictable consequences.

If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed.

Scientists generally are really chicken about getting involved in some kind of dispute. As a broadcaster, I find it very difficult to urge them, if it is a controversial subject. They don't want to have science being portrayed badly.

We have little choice but to place a certain level of trust in scientists - even when it comes to the model-driven speculative discipline of climate change. And, need it be said, most scientists take great care in being honest, principled and precise.

Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do.

I think top scientists need to be compensated at a different scale in society. Somebody with experience will tell you that true scientists are not motivated by money - they are motivated by the quest itself. That is true. But I think an additional recognition will not hurt.

There cannot be any impediment to science that will ultimately be good to the general public.

I don't know how you overcome the dearth of scientists in the government positions.