As promised earlier, I am now posting the remainder of the transcript and audio from my interview yesterday with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 2004. The Senator and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, were in Portland, Oregon to promote the new book that the two co-authored, This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future. I have unfortunately not been able to obtain a copy of the book but will be reviewing it here on MyDD once I've had the chance to read it. For more information on the book, visit JohnKerry.com where there are links to reviews and other interviews, as well as details about the Senator's book tour.

For now, check out the interview in full, the questions for which were culled from among the ones you, the readers of this site, suggested, as well as those I've been chewing on for some time.

If you're having trouble with the Odeo player you can download the .mp3 file here.

John Kerry: What's important is that we confront the real issues and do what we need to do with respect to '08, and that's why we wrote the book. That's what we're focused on. I'm really not spending a lot of energy or time on the histrionics of the past, if you will [in reference to the earlier question, before his phone rang, on John McCain and 2004].

Jonathan Singer: Certainly. With issues like nuclear proliferation, North Korea exploding a nuclear bomb, but also loose nukes within the former Soviet republics, and all the other kind of issues that are facing the country, why the environment and why now is this so important to you?

Kerry: Because this is a life and death issue for all of us. And its urgency is growing by the day, by the hour. When the leading climatologists, scientists of the United States, Jim Hanson, tells us you've got a 10-year window to respond, you better get to work if you're in public life. And every day matters. Building a consensus and then connecting the dots for people. Not just on global climate change, though. Parents can't take their kids fishing and eat the fish in 19 states and 44 percent of all our rivers, lakes and streams are unfishable and unswimmable. If we're going to care about what we pass on to the next generation, this is the time to do it. And I think that these issues need to be front and center on the front burner. They affect people's healthcare and health. They affect people's education ability. If you are a kid and you have lead poisoning or you have mercury intake that affects your motor system, you're going to have a challenge for the rest of your life. These things ultimately come home to roost somehow. And that's the connection we're trying to make for people.