It is unbelievably sad and ironic that the first victims of global warming are almost all going to come from places that are producing virtually none of the problem.
BILL MCKIBBENWe can either save the planet from catastrophic warming, or protect fossil fuel CEOs. Not both. Do the math(s)
More Bill McKibben Quotes
-
-
Especially in recent years, the more and more we understand what we are doing, the more we have the science to tell us what we’re doing, the fact that we continue to do it without taking steps to address it strikes me as, among many other things, irreverent in an extreme.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
There’s no happy ending where we prevent climate change any more. Now the question is, is it going to be a miserable century or an impossible one, and what comes after that.
BILL 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 MCKIBBEN -
The thing about global warming is that you can address it on a great number of levels – in fact you have to.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
In the last two years 24 countries have set new all-time temperature records. We’ve seen flooding on an epic scale in every continent .
BILL 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 MCKIBBEN -
Between [Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan, [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump’s team, I don’t see a lot of openings for making real progress.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
We couldn’t outspend the fossil fuel industry – they have more money than God.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
I’m probably the wrong person to ask. My partner in much of this work [climate movement], who really came up with the divestment campaign with me, Naomi Klein, I think has written powerfully about this.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
We’ll look for almost any reason not to change our attitudes; the inertia of the established order is powerful. If we can think of a plausible, or even implausible, reason to discount environmental warnings, we will.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
When we work all over the planet, it’s mostly poor and black and brown and young people, because that’s mostly what the world [environmentalism] is.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
If one wanted to stigmaitise, that’s how one would do it – lots and lots of people saying “we’re severing our ties”.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
The most blatant examples are increased power and frequency in hurricanes and the increased depth and frequency of heat waves.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
My guess is that liberating the fossil fuel industry to frack anywhere they want will drive down the rate at which we’re converting to sun and wind. And it’s entirely a rate problem at this point.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
We’re not at the point of trying to stop global warming; it’s too late for that. We’re trying to keep it from becoming a complete and utter calamity
BILL MCKIBBEN -
If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, it’s wrong to profit from the wreckage.
BILL 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 MCKIBBEN -
The fact that Washington has been a complete logjam for anything for the last six years has got to change because we need to have federal policy that really allows us to move quickly and nimbly.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
The world is on fire, and I’m doing my best to help steer the firetruck.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
A spiritual voice is urgently needed to underline the fact that global warming is already causing human anguish and mortality in our nation and abroad, and much more will occur in the future without rapid action.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
I think the world on the other side of fossil fuel is more local – the logic of sun and wind is diffuse and spread out, not concentrated like the logic of coal and oil.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
I’ve always been opposed to population control. In climate terms, population is not the biggest problem going forward.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
Probably nothing that we have ever managed to do quite equals the basic undermining of the physical stability of the planet on which most of the world’s poor people depend.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
We use the web to help people organize in the flesh, and then we take the images of those events and put them back on the web to make them add up to more than the sum of their parts.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
I’m not sure I’m a very good source of advice since we’re kind of making this up as we go along.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
The habits of the West in terms of consumption.
BILL MCKIBBEN