Bill McKibben on carbon
Bill McKibben108 quotes“A price on carbon sufficient to keep 80% of current reserves underground, rebated directly to citizens.”
More from Bill McKibben
There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it’s not really there.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben We spend a lot of time playing defence against bad things. So, in the US, one of the focusses has been this huge Keystone Pipeline project, another has been the coal ports on the Pacific Ocean.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben Look – every time is the wrong time and the perfect time to have a kid, and you just do it when you can.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben I don’t spend a huge amount of time fixated on climate denial because I don’t think that their objections, though sometimes couched in science, are based in science. I think they’re based in ideology. And I don’t think there’s anything you can do.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben We’d like to get the fossil fuel industry on the back foot for a while, having to deal with us.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben The idea that China and India will just abandon climate action is not true, because they’re doing it for more reasons than we are.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben Very few people on earth ever get to say: ‘I am doing, right now, the most important thing I could possibly be doing.’ If you’ll join this fight that’s what you’ll get to say
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben I did very much like [Barack] Obama’s attack on fossil fuel subsidies for fossil fuel companies. We asked for that in demonstrations and petitions, and now we’ll try to push it forward.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben No one is strong enough – given the magnitude of the task, everyone has to step up their game.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben I’m guessing the most efficient way would be to transfer an awful lot of technology, but also direct aid to deal with climate emergencies already underway. Hillary [Clinton] has already said $100 billion a year would be appropriate.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben To me the analogy [to climate change] is… doctors worry a lot about cholesterol. And if you go to the doctor, and the doctor says “oh, your life would be happier if you ate a different diet and exercised” people pay no attention.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben The Arctic and the Antarctic are melting quickly. We may have waited too long to get started. But this is a day for optimism because the battle is fully joined, and the idea that big oil is unbeatable is no longer true.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben I think that it is impossible to think of a threat to social justice greater than what we are doing to the earth’s atmosphere at the moment.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben It now appears that the fracturing of that ice is happening much more quickly than people previously thought, apparently at a slow melt.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben According to new research emerging from many quarters that our continued devotion to growth above all is, on balance, making our lives worse, both collectively and individually
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben
Original quotes
From our community writers
They bleed not in the mouth but through their ink – indelible and dark.
Juana GarciaJuana Garcia I would rather shoot my arrows than keep them in my bow, I would rather risk it all than risk nothing at all.
ShamaShama I wish I knew then all of the things I know now that I am enough.
TMCTMC I feel like I’m on fire, fighting for a moment on respite – I’m not placing bets.
M.K. StandbyM.K. Standby I found him in all the chaos, and that was when my world started making sense again.
MoomerMoomer The judgement that people cast on you for how you do or do not appear is nothing more than just a projection of their own wounds.
Taj AroraTaj Arora Be grateful for what you have now, even if it’s not everything you wanted.
Sonia SabnisSonia Sabnis It seems strange how we look in the same mirror, yet what stares back, is so painfully different.
Chris AllchinChris Allchin
More on carbon
Carbon is probably a bit harder to wrap since it’s procedural.
Bill HaydenBill Hayden Pride is the carbon-monoxide of Sin. It silently and slowly kills you without you even knowing.
Timothy KellerTimothy Keller Ocean acidification – the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is turning the oceans increasingly acid.
Sylvia EarleSylvia Earle Photosynthetic organisms in the sea yield most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, take up and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, shape planetary chemistry, and hold the planet steady.
Sylvia EarleSylvia Earle Every fish fertilizes the water in a way that generates the plankton that ultimately leads back into the food chain, but also yields oxygen, grabs carbon – it’s a part of what makes the ocean function and what makes the planet function.
Sylvia EarleSylvia Earle That, in turn, influences the temperature of the planet. The Arctic is now vulnerable because of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with a rate of melting that is stunning.
Sylvia EarleSylvia Earle I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn’t know that, and I have no carbons.
Adrienne RichAdrienne Rich
