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There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.

Bill McKibben

When you are in a hole, stop digging!
BILL MCKIBBEN

Change Climate Digging Hole
But tolerance by itself can be a cover for moral laziness.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Laziness Moral Tolerance
The world is on fire, and I’m doing my best to help steer the firetruck.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Fire Helping World
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

Attitude Powerful Thinking
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

Climate Essentials Needs
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.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Believe People Risk
In fact, corporations are the infants of our society – they know very little except how to grow (though they’re very good at that), and they howl when you set limits. Socializing them is the work of politics. It’s about time we took it up again.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Corporations Littles Our Society
Because the financial power of the fossil-fuel industry is so great it can, and has, delayed any real action of the climate issues almost everywhere.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Climate Issues Real
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

People Poor World
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 MCKIBBEN

Comforting Thinking World
We don’t know exactly where all the tipping points are in the physical world for inescapable damage, but we’re clearly reaching close to some of them.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Damage Tipping World
In certain ways, I think the work in the Evangelical community has been the most interesting and the most promising. Partly because Evangelical congregations may be harder to convince about issues but, on the other hand, are more likely to do something about it.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Hands Issues Thinking
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.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Fuel Thinking Want
When you have solar panels, your electricity gets there for free, no one’s figured out how to meter the sun yet. And that’s good.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Electricity Meter Sun
I imagine a certain amount of consumer impulse will be replaced by community connection. You can already see it starting with things like the local food movement.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Community Connection Movement
When we think about global warming at all, the arguments tend to be ideological, theological and economic.
BILL MCKIBBEN

Argument Global Thinking Warming

There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.

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There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.

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