Video: Larry Brilliant on the volcano and climate change

One of the great things about being in London when the volcano halted our flights home this past weekend was that I was stranded with some of the greatest philanthropists alive today: Larry Brilliant, Paul Farmer, and Peter Gleick, just to name a few. Since we all had nothing else to do but wait until there was some indication that we could get home, the folks at TED (who were also in town) put together an impromptu TEDx Volcano meet-up on Saturday night. Here, Larry Brilliant — the former head of Google.org who famously helped end the smallpox epidemic in 1980 — gives me a post-TEDx recap of what he thinks of the volcano and climate change. "Climate change is the great exacerbator," he says. "What we need to learn from this volcano is that the world gets pretty messy very quickly when our science is uncertain. We need to invest to get the best science in the world, to support the best scientists, to create careers in science in the 21st century."