Noam Chomsky Quotes

Geoengineering means changing the Earth's fundamental large-scale processes.

For relatively modest amounts of sulfur dioxide injected into the atmosphere, you could easily cool Earth by 1% or more, if you want.

Deliberately modifying the earth's atmosphere would be a desperate gamble with significant risks. Yet the more likely climate change is to cause devastation, the more attractive even the most perilous attempts to mitigate those changes will become.

There are many theories about the best way to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere - some are ludicrous, others are at least worth study. The most commonly discussed plan is to lace the sky with reflective chemicals.

To be clear, geoengineering won't solve global warming. It's not a 'techno-fix.' It would be enormously risky and almost certainly lead to troubling unforeseen consequences.

I was born behind the Iron Curtain, and I remember heated discussions about large-scale terra-forming projects, such as reversing the direction of the river Ob or putting up large reflectors into space to heat up Siberia.

We are altering the most basic forces of the planet's surface - the content of the sunlight, the temperature and aridity - and that brings out the most powerful questions about who is in charge. If you wanted to give a name to this theological problem, I think you could say that we are engaged in decreation.

The idea that human beings have taken a few steps closer toward asserting control over the Earth's climate is likely to strike you as a really bad idea.

NASA will send up a big sun shade that will be in orbit between the earth and sun and deflect 2 or 3 percent of the sunshine back into space. It would be cheaper than the international space station.

Geoengineering involves humans making intentional, large-scale modifications to the Earths geophysical systems in order to change the environment.

[Antonio] Gramsci's words and actions explain their assessment, though I think we should refrain from using the term "model intellectual" for him or others.

If people don’t have an understanding of what science is and what scientists do, then they can tend to think that global warming, for example, is just a matter of opinion.

I think we are used to being critical and evaluating ideas.

Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. 5

The cost of scientific advance is the humbling recognition that reality was not constructed to be easily grasped by the human mind. This is the cardinal tenet of scientific understanding. Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution.

I'm usually one of these guys analyzing what does happen and putting it in focus and context.

To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.

I think that if Essien Udom had something he didn't take it back far enough in history to get at the proper understanding of it.

For me going to war offers me the ability to write about apparently very alien, sometimes hated or despised people, who've been objectified in a way that restores their humanity. Hopefully for my readers, that denies them the ability to objectify them. I think that's the point. If you can do that, that's a good thing.

Comedy can be silly and gross and offensive, as long as there's sort of a point. You can make a joke that, on the face of it, is racist. Ostensibly someone can appear to be racist, but if you know you're making a point about race, and not just being pig-headed, then you can do that. I think some people who don't understand comedy will have a knee-jerk reaction to some stuff, and will always be offended by it because they don't understand it. Some people react to it in a vociferous way, which is unsophisticated, but there's always going to be those people out there.

When I'm naked, I really like to do push-ups. No. I think I really tackle it like everything else. If you're going to commit yourself to playing something, you have to be able to understand it. If you can understand it, then you can do it and go balls out with it. But, I've never been in a position where I've been like, "This doesn't feel right." I wouldn't do it, if it was that. I like the shock value of it. I think that, if you use it correctly, it's pretty effective, as long as I'm lit really, really, really well.

People in distress never think that you feel enough.

I don't think about taking a risk. I think about how far can I go. How can I make myself. What are the risks I must create.

What do we mean by "knowledge" or "understanding"? And how do billions of neurons achieve them? These are complete mysteries. Admittedly, cognitive neuroscientists are still very vague about the exact meaning of words like "understand," "think," and indeed the word "meaning" itself.

I have spent over half my life teaching love and brotherhood, and I feel that it is better to continue to try to teach or live equality and love than it would be to have hatred or prejudice. Everyone living together in peace and harmony and love - that’s the goal that we seek, and I think that the more people there are who reach that state of mind, the better we will all be.