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 We have assumed control where once we worked with what we were given. Bill McKibben given "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 McKibben future two people There's no huge mystery. If you dig up huge amounts of carbon, huge amounts of ancient biology, hundreds of millions of year's worth of ancient biology, and flush it into the atmosphere in a matter of decades, then it stands to reason that we're going to have enormous effects, and now we can see those effects all around us. Bill McKibben atmosphere matter years Katrina opened a good door and Al Gore went through it with his movie. Bill McKibben als katrina doors If there's horrible flooding in Pakistan or a horrible heat wave in Texas, we're no longer able to call it an act of God, or a natural disaster, or something like that, the way we could have through all of human history until 35 or 40 years ago. Bill McKibben pakistan texas years Scientists are telling us that 350 parts per million [of carbon] in the atmosphere is the upper limit. We're at 387 parts per million now, and we're up in that zone where the risk of going past irrevocable tipping points is elevated. It's no different than going to a doctor and learning your cholesterol is too high, and you're at risk for a heart attack. You have to work to lower your cholesterol and hope to get there before the heart attack comes. Bill McKibben doctors heart past With each month that passes, a solar panel gets 2 or 3 percent cheaper. So while we're holding the fossil fuel industry in check, the engineers in the renewable energy world are undercutting them from the other side. Bill McKibben each-month fuel energy Often when I'm on TV, they'll ask what are the three most important things for people to do. I know they want me to say that people should change their light bulbs. I say the number one thing is to organize politically; number two, do some political organizing; number three, get together with your neighbors and organize; and then if you have energy left over from all of that, change the light bulb. Bill McKibben light numbers two It's much to the credit of the rest of the world that they have gone ahead and tried to do the Kyoto accords on their own. It makes it unbelievably difficult to do that, for a variety of economic and regulatory reasons, without the participation of the biggest energy user in the world. Bill McKibben kyoto energy gone 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 poor people world Colonialism of one kind or another, imperialism of one kind or another, and slavery, and on and on and on. Bill McKibben slavery colonialism kind Those of us in the west have figured out a lot of ways to damage the lives of poor people in this country and around the world over the years. Bill McKibben country people years There is basically no one not on the payroll of Exxon Mobil or coal companies who any longer contend that this is not something to worry about. Bill McKibben coal company worry One degree turns out to be enough to really unhinge all sorts of earth's ecosystems. Bill McKibben degrees ecosystems earth Certainly, packets of sea ice, in say the Arctic, which have failed to fully reform in the last couple of years. Bill McKibben ice couple years All the science in the last few years, or almost all of it, really serves to show that the [climate] effects are larger and more rapid than we had thought even a decade ago. Bill McKibben climate lasts years There is no real scientific debate over what is happening; of course there is debate over exactly how it is going to play out in the decades ahead, because this is a large experiment that we haven't done before, and no one knows precisely how one can ever precisely predict what effects this heat will have. But all the science in the last few years, or almost all of it, really serves to show that the effects are larger and more rapid than we had thought even a decade ago. Bill McKibben real play years In the scientific community, the debate is over, for all intents and purposes, about whether or not the planet is heating and who is causing it. In fact, it's more or less been over since 1995. Bill McKibben community purpose facts Permafrost in the soil [is melting], in the boreal and arctic areas in the world, and, probably even more alarming in the last six or eight months, the data on what is happening to the ice shelves in Greenland and the west Antarctic has begun to cause people to radically reassess the earlier conviction that those ice shelves were stable on a kind of century-long time scale. Bill McKibben eight data ice We just see a sort of cascading amount of data of the damage that is being done by those increased temperatures. Bill McKibben damage data done
