In the States, I think, the syllogism goes like this: ‘free markets solve all problems. Free markets aren’t solving global warming, QED global warming is not a problem’. It’s not a very good syllogism but it’s emotionally comforting if you’re in that world.
BILL MCKIBBENMy house is covered in solar panels, I’m a great believer in all this – we all should be doing this.
More Bill McKibben Quotes
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In 50 years, no one will care about the fiscal cliff or the Euro crisis. They’ll just ask, “So the Arctic melted, and then what did you do?”
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Without a movement pressing for change, there’s little hope. We’ve got to work the political system to make this happen fast. The physics and chemistry are daunting. The resources on the other side are very large.
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No one is strong enough – given the magnitude of the task, everyone has to step up their game.
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I try not to be either optimistic or pessimistic. I try not to think about outcomes on that scale. My job, it seems to me, is to wake up every morning and figure out how to cause as much trouble for the fossil fuel industry as I can.
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It now appears that the fracturing of that ice is happening much more quickly than people previously thought, apparently at a slow melt.
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If you were running a solar company you may be okay – you may be able to keep growing. The question for physics is: Can you grow fast enough to begin to catch up with the damage?
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You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet
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Oil companies are radical because they’re willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
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Most of the men and women who vote in Congress each year to continue subsidies have taken campaign donations from big energy companies.
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A price on carbon sufficient to keep 80% of current reserves underground, rebated directly to citizens.
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we use TV as we use tranquilizers- to even things out, to blot out unpleasantness, to dilute confusion, distress, unhappiness, loneliness.
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There’s always the danger that people will simply sign online petitions, the way they used to just mail in checks, and there’s the greater possibility we’ll just spend our whole lives staring at screens and never get anything done.
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All things considered, the internet seems fairly environmentally benign to me. The last stats I saw showed you could do 1,000 Google searches for the gas it took to drive six-tenths of a mile. But the internet can’t substitute for real connection and community.
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Global warming is no longer a philosophical threat, no longer a future threat, no longer a threat at all. It’s our reality.
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The essential thing we need to understand is that the climate crisis is not some future threat, but a very present peril, the biggest one humans have ever encountered. Until we understand that, we’ll dawdle.
BILL MCKIBBEN