What makes us different? We're the creature that can decide not to do something that we are capable of doing. Bill McKibben More Quotes by Bill McKibben More Quotes From Bill McKibben Most of the men and women who vote in Congress each year to continue subsidies have taken campaign donations from big energy companies. Bill McKibben taken men years There is an urgent need to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, dramatically reduce wasted energy, and significantly shift our power supplies from oil, coal, and natural gas to wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources. Bill McKibben coal oil wind There's always the danger that people will simply sign online petitions, the way they used to just mail in checks, and there's the greater possibility we'll just spend our whole lives staring at screens and never get anything done. Bill McKibben mail done people If it's wrong to wreck the planet, it's wrong to profit from the wreckage. Bill McKibben wreckage profit wrecks 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 energy europe people I've spent my life living in rural America, some of it in blue state Vermont, some of it in red state upstate New York. They're quite alike in many ways. And quite wonderful. It's important that even in an urbanized and suburbanized country, we continue to take rural America seriously. And the thing that makes Vermont in particular so special, and I hope this book captures some of it, is the basic underlying civility of its political life. That's rooted in the town meeting. Each of the towns in Vermont governs itself. Bill McKibben political country book That's when the vast consensus of the world's climatologists, brought together by the UN and The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, really announced that this was going on, and since then the accumulation of data and wickedly hot years has served to only congeal that consensus much more firmly. Bill McKibben data together years All 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 google community real According 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 McKibben balance growth research 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. Bill McKibben optimistic morning jobs I also think we need unconventional political action, and I increasingly think that there is a need for people of faith to be able to do the kind of things that people of faith did 40 years ago in the heat of the civil rights revolution. This is a moral issue of every bit as much importance requiring every bit as much sacrifice, courage, and energy as that crisis did. Bill McKibben sacrifice rights thinking We, all of us in the First World, have participated in something of a binge, a half century of unbelievable prosperity and ease. We may have had some intuition that it was a binge and the earth couldn't support it, but aside from the easy things (biodegradable detergent, slightly smaller cars) we didn't do much. We didn't turn our lives around to prevent it. Our sadness is almost an aesthetic response - appropriate because we have marred a great, mad, profligate work of art, taken a hammer to the most perfectly proportioned of sculptures. Bill McKibben sadness taken art Irene's got a middle name, and it's Global Warming. Bill McKibben energy names weather We have to figure out ways to scare and entice our leaders more effectively than the fossil fuel industry has managed to scare and entice them. They've got the big checkbooks. We've got to have the big crowd. Bill McKibben scare leader way A voluntary simplification of life-styles is not beyond our abilities, but it is probably outside our desires. Bill McKibben ability style desire If we continue to think of ourselves mostly as consumers, it's going to be very hard to bring our environmental troubles under control. But it's also going to be very hard to live the rounded and joyful lives that could be ours. This is a subversive volume in all the best ways! Bill McKibben environmental growth thinking After 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 McKibben magazines doe animal Without a movement pressing for change, there's little hope. We've got to work the political system to make this happen fast. The physics and chemistry are daunting. The resources on the other side are very large. Bill McKibben movement political littles 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 issues climate real The Arctic and the Antarctic are melting quickly. We may have waited too long to get started. But this is a day for optimism because the battle is fully joined, and the idea that big oil is unbeatable is no longer true. Bill McKibben oil long ideas
