Home / Authors / Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben Quotes

Environmentalist

Bill McKibben, born on December 8, 1960, is an American environmentalist renowned for his deep research and advocacy on climate change issues. His work highlights the impact of human activities on the Earth, particularly the destruction caused by industrialization and consumerism.

Filter quotes by topic

All People World Thinking Climate Ifs Years Fuel Climate Change Fossil Fuel Fossils Planets Global Warming Needs Problem Way Carbon Energy Humans Industry Real

Famous Bill McKibben Quotes

“The end of nature sours all my material pleasures. The prospect of living in a genetically engineered world sickens me. And yet it is toward such a world that our belief in endless material advancement hurries us. As long as that desire drives us, here is no way to set limits.”

World Way Long Ends Desire Belief Pleasure Materials Future Limits Endless Advancement

Author:Bill McKibben

“At the moment, the 4 percent of us in this country produce a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide - once you look at maps of rising sea levels and spreading mosquitoes, you realize that we've probably never figured out a way to hate our neighbors around the world much more effectively.”

World Way Looks Country Moments Hate Realizing Levels Sea Produce Percent Neighbor Around The World Rising Global Warming Maps Quarters Carbon Mosquitoes Carbon Dioxide

Author:Bill McKibben

“These things are happening in large measure because of us. We in this country burn 25 percent of the world's fossil fuel, create 25 percent of the world's carbon dioxide. It is us - it is the affluent lifestyles that we lead that overwhelmingly contribute to this problem. And to call it a problem is to understate what it really is. Which is a crime. Crime against the poorest and most marginalized people on this planet. We've never figured out, though God knows we've tried, a more effective way to destroy their lives.”

People Knows World Way Country Problem Crime Planets Happenings Percent Lifestyle Fuel Global Warming Carbon Fossils God Knows Poorest Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide Marginalized Affluent

Author:Bill McKibben

“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!”

Ifs Thinking Way Hard Growth Trouble Environmental Best Way Consumers Joyful Consumption Volume Our Environment Subversive All The Best Joyful Life

Author:Bill McKibben

“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.”

Ifs Way Years Humans Able Natural Years Ago Wave Disaster Horrible Heat Texas Pakistan Human History Natural Disaster Flooding Heat Wave

Author:Bill McKibben

“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.”

People World Way Years Country Poor West Around The World Damage Poor People

Author:Bill McKibben

“It is a complete embarrassment and literally shameful that the country that first of all invented environmentalism and gave it to the world, and second of all did all the science originally around climate and global warming and presented that to the world, has been the country that has refused to participate in a constructive way to the solution.”

World Way Firsts Has Beens Country Solutions Climate Global Warming Constructive Embarrassment Environmentalism Shameful

Author:Bill McKibben

“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.”

Thinking Way May Has Beens Hands Certain Community Interesting Issues Harder Convince Most Interesting Evangelical Congregation

Author:Bill McKibben

“We have to get our states to adopt what are called "renewable portfolio standards" pledging to use a lot of renewable energy by 2015 or 2020. We have to work with businesses and shops to get them engaged in the same way.”

Way States Use Energy Standards Engaged Shops Renewable Energy Portfolios

Author:Bill McKibben

“We also have to engage - and I think this is important - in national politics because there is no way to address questions of this scale in the short time that we have to address them without engaging in real political change.”

Thinking Way Important Real Political Scales Addresses Engaging Short Time Political Change

Author:Bill McKibben

“I'm guessing the most efficient way would be to transfer an awful lot of technology, but also direct aid to deal with climate emergencies already underway. Hillary [Clinton] has already said $100 billion a year would be appropriate.”

Way Years Said Would Be Deals Technology Direct Clinton Climate Aids Billions Awful Appropriate Efficient Emergencies Transfers Guessing

Author:Bill McKibben

“There are so many symptoms of this disease it's hard to know where to start to catalogue them, but just look at the effects on hydrology - on the way water moves around the planet.”

Knows Way Looks Hard Moving Water Effects Planets Disease Symptoms Catalogues

Author:Bill McKibben

“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.”

People Way Done Whole Used Greater Danger Possibility Screens Whole Life Checks Staring Online Mail Petitions

Author:Bill McKibben

“Absent the net, we certainly couldn't have organized in 190 countries around the world. It's no substitution for face to face interaction - that's why we have "days of action" where people are in real contact with each other - but it's the cheap (and low-carbon) way to do an awful lot of the planning and organizing. And we can build, for $20k, a website as good as one Exxon can build for $20 million.”

People World Way Real Country Action Faces Millions Lows Planning Contact Awful Around The World Organized Interaction Carbon Absent Website Face To Face Substitution

Author:Bill McKibben

“Everybody was cratered after Copenhagen. If the movie had worked the way that it should have, if it had been scripted by Holywood, the world would have come together and addressed the biggest problem it ever had faced and delegates would have embraced each other, and it all would have been a good happy scene instead of the complete farce and debacle that it turned into - maybe in certain ways, an absolute low point for human diplomacy.”

Ifs World Way Should Humans Has Beens Problem Together Certain Scene Lows Should Have Absolutes Diplomacy Delegates Farce Copenhagen Low Points Debacles

Author:Bill McKibben

“The flaw is the business plan - digging up and burning way more carbon than physics says we can deal with. So, I suppose it's some kind of mid-point between writing them nice letters asking them to stop and figuring out a way to take down the entire system- which I don't have any idea how to do.”

Way Writing Kind Ideas Deals Nice Plans Letters Asking Physics Burning Flaws Carbon Digging Business Plan

Author:Bill McKibben

“I think we need to think of lots of ways to communicate. And we tried some at 350. We organised what they called the largest art project in the planet's history. We do a lot with art and music and things.”

Thinking Way Needs Art Planets Projects Communicate Organised Art And Music Art Projects

Author:Bill McKibben

“I think the best way is to keep stressing, that, as we build out a new energy system, one of the best things about it, if we do it right, will be that it will be more local, more democratic, more distributed, and, in the long run, much more economically sensible.”

Ifs Thinking Way Long Running Energy Stress Democratic Locals Best Way Best Things Sensible Long Runs New Energy

Author:Bill McKibben

“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.”

Way Bigs Leader Figures Industry Crowds Fuel Scare Fossils Fossil Fuel

Author:Bill McKibben

“We believe that we live in the 'age of information,' that there has been an information 'explosion,' an information 'revolution.' While in a certain narrow sense this is the case, in many important ways just the opposite is true. We also live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach. An Unenlightenment. An age of missing information.”

Way Believe Humans Has Beens Important Moments Seems Age Certain Cases Missing Information Ignorance Revolution Opposites Who We Are Possessed Explosions

Book:The end of nature

Source: The end of nature

“TV is sometimes accused of encouraging fantasies. Its real problem, though, is that it encourages-enforces, almost-a brute realism. It is anti-Utopian in the extreme. We're discouraged from thinking that, except for a few new products, there might be a better way of doing things.”

Thinking Way Real Sometimes Problem Might Fantasy Tvs Products Extremes Realism Accused Discouraged Brutes Better Ways Real Problems Utopian New Products

Book:The end of nature

Source: The end of nature