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I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent - I remember this number - one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will - some of them will disappear.

When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn't just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms.

No one can prevent hurricanes, but prosperous communities are much better able to withstand them than poor ones.

The poorest residents of the gulf coast were most affected by the devastating hurricanes, and the poorest Americans have shouldered a disproportionate share of the burden in Iraq.

There's definitely healing properties to being in proximity to the ocean and that breeze. There's something about that Caribbean climate and humidity.

Hurricanes are dangerous things, and they're no fun to go through. And if you come out of it in one piece and your house comes out of in one piece, it's no fun living with no electricity for a day or a week, a month, whatever it is. And I speak, unfortunately, from personal experience on that matter.

I've been through quite a few hurricanes. I worked in North Carolina, where there's a housing development whose name was Landfall.

Hurricane Katrina exposed the harsh reality that we have been skating on thin ice when it comes to this country's energy concentrations on the Gulf Coast.

I sometimes detect that a type of regional divide is setting in, and there is a lack of real Caribbean connection among the islands, and I am concerned about this.