A price on carbon sufficient to keep 80% of current reserves underground, rebated directly to citizens.
BILL MCKIBBENIf it’s wrong to wreck the planet, it’s wrong to profit from the wreckage.
More Bill McKibben Quotes
-
-
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 -
At least I sure hope it will – and I see good signs all the time, especially in things like the rise of local agriculture.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
We couldn’t outspend the fossil fuel industry – they have more money than God.
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 -
The habits of the West in terms of consumption.
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 -
I guess the underlying principle might be, don’t make it too easy for them to stereotype you.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
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.
BILL 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 MCKIBBEN -
What makes us different? We’re the creature that can decide not to do something that we are capable of doing.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
We have to transition to new technologies, making it more expensive to continue with the old and polluting technologies and cheaper to go to the clean ones.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free.
BILL MCKIBBEN -
I think that so far the political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry has trumped all else.
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 -
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