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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

Our weird problem is an abundance of resources and a shortage of hard economic reasons not to use them.

Bill McKibben

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More Bill McKibben Quotes

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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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  [Kids] will grow up into a world that’s difficult and wonderful, and they’ll make the best of it they can, and hopefully help turn it in the best possible direction.

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  It’s off the charts – and if you don’t believe the scientists, ask the insurance industry, the people we pay to analyze risk in our society.

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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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  Our weird problem is an abundance of resources and a shortage of hard economic reasons not to use them.

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  A world where one tenth of the population gets to be extremely wealthy, and six tenths very poor, is not, in the long run, a stable place.

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  My house is covered in solar panels, I’m a great believer in all this – we all should be doing this.

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  We can either save the planet from catastrophic warming, or protect fossil fuel CEOs. Not both. Do the math(s)

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  I don’t think the fossil fuel industry will listen, not until we build up a lot of pressure. I do think we can persuade some shareholders that they don’t want to be involved in this enterprise.

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• 

  For those of us who worry more about working people than about windfall profits for oil companies, it may net out. A better question is: what does it do to our economy if we manage to overheat the earth? This summer’s drought provides a small taste.

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  The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.

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  Where people aren’t as deeply reliant on fossil fuel as in the United States, it’s far easier for them to imagine change on this scale. When you go to Europe, they’re much more ready. They use half the amount of energy per capita that we use. They can imagine using less than that. They see the benefits. They’re ready to go.

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  Climate change is a huge problem, an almost insoluble problem, for two reasons. One is the habits of the West in terms of consumption. The other is the incredible iniquity between poor countries and rich countries on this planet.

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  [The Maldives] they’ve become deeply politically engaged – just for instance, the president taught his whole cabinet to scuba dive so they could hold an underwater cabinet meeting along their dying coral reef and pass a 350 resolution to send to the U.N.

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  These new technologies are not yet inevitable. But if they blossom fully into being, freedom may irrevocably perish. This is a fight not only for the meaning of our individual lives, but for the meaning of our life together.

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  We just see a sort of cascading amount of data of the damage that is being done by those increased temperatures.

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