The approach of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in early December has global leaders from every sector thinking about technology opportunities to help meet greenhouse-gas-emissions reduction goals in an effort to mitigate climate change . Photonics at work: A schematic illustration of electromagnetic characterization and detection of pollutants on a sea surface, in an SPIE Newsroom article by researchers at Lab-STICC, CNRS, ENSTA Bretagne . Photonics technologies play an important part in enabling and driving applications that support sustainable development and the green economy. Researchers, engineers, and developers in the optics and photonic community are continually finding new ways to enhance our lives with these technologies. But there is another sort of opportunity for the photonics community to take up: speaking out about the urgency to take action, particularly in the face of climate-change skepticism or denial. UK Astronomer Royal S...