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 MCKIBBENThere’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 MCKIBBENAccording to new research emerging from many quarters that our continued devotion to growth above all is, on balance, making our lives worse, both collectively and individually
BILL MCKIBBENBecause 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 MCKIBBENAfter a lifetime of nature shows and magazine photos, we arrive at the woods conditioned to expect splendor – surprised when the parking lot does not contain a snarl of animals attractively mating and killing each other.
BILL MCKIBBENAll 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.
BILL MCKIBBEN“Science,” of course, replaced “God” as a guiding concept for many people after Darwin. Or, really, the two were rolled up into a sticky ball. To some degree this was mindless worship of a miracle future, the pursuit of which has landed us in the fix we now inhabit.
BILL MCKIBBENMy house is covered in solar panels, I’m a great believer in all this – we all should be doing this.
BILL MCKIBBENBut tolerance by itself can be a cover for moral laziness.
BILL MCKIBBENThe laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.
BILL MCKIBBENIt drives me crazy to see so much of this planet’s life so casually endangered. The first steps are so easy (drive smaller cars, for instance) that it’s very hard to understand why we haven’t taken them. But I know that this is the issue our generation will be judged by.
BILL MCKIBBENI think I have felt most profoundly that in our disruption of the most basic physical processes of creation, we are engaged not only in the act of suicidal self-destructiveness, but also in an act of thorough-going blasphemy.
BILL MCKIBBENIt was huge mistake to avoid working with the rest of the world because (a) we’re the largest source of the problem: 4% of us who are in the U.S. produce 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide.
BILL MCKIBBENWarm air holds more water vapor than cold, and so the atmosphere is about 4% wetter than it was 40 years ago. This loads the dice for flood and drought, and we’re seeing both in stunning abundance.
BILL MCKIBBENI think that so far the political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry has trumped all else.
BILL MCKIBBENIf 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?
BILL MCKIBBENOur weird problem is an abundance of resources and a shortage of hard economic reasons not to use them.
BILL MCKIBBEN